© Justin JinKristin Neff with her son Rowan.
A charming animated baby, Kristin Neff's son Rowan retreated into himself as a toddler, losing his few words and becoming prone to inexplicable screaming fits.
There are numerous ways Neff could have reacted to Rowan's 2004 diagnosis of autism. She could have buried her emotions, become despondent or immediately found something to blame.
But Neff, an associate professor at the University of Texas at Austin, was in the midst of pioneering psychological research on self-compassion. And her findings suddenly proved invaluable to her personal life. Being sympathetic and kind to herself let her cope constructively and offered insight into how to parent her struggling son.
Neff wrote about it all in "Self-Compassion" (William Morrow, 2011), released this April. And a budding field of research has psychologists are finding that self-compassion may be the most important life skill, imparting resilience, courage, energy and creativity.
It's also a skill many people lack.
Self-compassion is often misunderstood as being soft and indulgent; and the phrase alone would probably turn the stomach of Amy Chua, whose book
Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother (Penguin, 2011) re-stoked the debate about how strict or lenient we should be with our kids and with ourselves.
But psychological research says neither side of this debate wins.
Comment: Parents would be wise to consider the risks of vaccines and to do their own research. There is an ongoing controversy about the dangers and efficacy of vaccines. The following quote is from from Roger R. Gervais, D.C., N.D., a naturopathic physician. The full article may be found here.