This was a heavy but helpful read. My parents have no legacy to speak of, but for those of us who have cut contact with a parent learning how to grieve and get over them is such an important step in the healing process. This book offers some great insight into how we can begin to overcome the damage done by parents.

This book brought back some trauma triggers but it was uplifting to realize that I am not the only one and there are ways to heal.

What an interesting read! Filled with lots of information and exercises to really make you think. I loved the bite sized chapters and felt the book easy to read and understand.

We cannot choose our family, what kind of situation our home, what are the personalities of our parents, and what are their history.
However, if we want to understand ourselves, we need to understand about our childhood. This book feels like guidance to unravel the past to understand more about our trauma, and anxiety to shape us into better people.
Understanding our past might be a rough and rocky path. We do not know where and how to start. Using this book day by day and writing our reflections in our diary might be useful. We do not know what kind of insight that awaiting for us. Hopefully, this book can help us to be more confident and strong to embrace ourselves. Until we reach the point to accept and be kinder inward.

Thank you The School of Life and Net Galley for providing digital ARC in exchange for honest review.

Readers will know pretty quickly whether or not this book is for them. If a reader feels that there is in fact nothing to get over, they may want to pass. For many others though, exploring the complex relationship between parent and child may be compelling. For that matter, maybe those who are thinking about having children will want to read this to think about how they hope/want to be as they take on the role.

Not all therapists focus on a person’s childhood these days. However, many do and this title is well within the camp that believes in the deep and profound influence that a parent has on a child’s life. The authors go for a deep dive examining parenthood and coping strategies for their offspring in these pages.

The authors suggest that there are different types of parents. For example, a parent could be preoccupied, overprotective, controlling or defensive. Each of these (perhaps unconscious) ways of being has a cause and also an effect upon that parent’s child. Interested readers may well see their childhood as influenced by one or more of these ways of being.

Luckily this book also offers a number of exercises that are meant to help. However, I do urge proceeding thoughtfully. This book may uncover a lot. If that is the case, it would be important to be anchored in some way while working things through. This could mean therapy or perhaps another way of reaching out.

Many thanks to NetGalley and The School of Life for this title. All opinions are my own.

Reading this book causes me heartbreak by opening my eyes on certain aspects of my life. Painful, but necessary, I would say.

The emphasis on understanding rather than placing blame was particularly resonant. The book encourages a compassionate examination of our past, focusing on how to understand and process the legacies left by our parents rather than fostering resentment. This approach allowed me to reflect on my own upbringing with a sense of clarity and acceptance, helping me to see my parents' actions within the broader context of their own experiences and limitations.

Getting Over Your Parents is more than just a self-help book; it’s a thoughtful exploration of personal growth and healing. For anyone grappling with the influence of their past on their present, it offers both understanding and practical tools for creating a more fulfilled and balanced life.

Grateful for The School of Life for this free ARC copy.

This book is a great introduction to this subject, it features empathetic talks, without putting blame on the parents but taking you from a place where you need a better understanding and direction in your ways of thinking and positioning. It, also, has many exercises and questions that make great journal prompts.

I think this book is important and very helpful. I especially appreciated the realism it offers, there's no sugar coating and it features so many situations and ideas that it's impossible to find something similar to yours and some guidance.

I got this in order to share my view on it.

As with all School of Life books, this is a helpful, insightful and engaging guide, with lots of philosophical and practical advice.

I've read several books from The School of Life as I find them an accessible way to learn about philosophy and psychology - Getting Over Your Parents is another great addition to their catalogue.

Split into four sections, we learn about the importance of the first years of your life and how these can dramatically impact your adult life, how to recognise your own behaviours and, most interestingly for me, exercises for the reader to undertake either themselves or with a therapist.

I have an interest in family dynamics because of my own upbringing but also as a fiction writer. I'm always trying to understand the relationships between my characters and found Getting Over Your Parents helpful personally and professionally. You don't need to have been in therapy to get something from the book but I think readers will be keen to learn more about themselves through this insightful, interesting and helpful book.

Getting Over Your Parents: Untangling Your Childhood, by The School of Life, gives us a warm & understanding look at how our upbringing can influence who we end up, as adults. This book is an easy way to understand and deal with the psychological issues of our parents, helping us achieve personal freedom and emotional growth.

This book delves into the complex dynamics of parent and child relationships, finding the positive and negative effects parents can have on us. It’s important to understand these impacts to achieve maturity and become self-aware. Within this book, it provides tools on how to achieve this.

This book explores Parental Influence - explaining how our parents thoughts and behaviour shape us, helping us identify these patterns in our own lives.

It also offers advice and tools on Breaking Negative Patterns and emotional baggage. Providing information on how to be self reflect and heal.

Suggesting ways we can Rebuilding Relationships with our parents via better communication and setting better & stronger boundaries.

I found the best things about this book to be Clear and Accessible Language, its written in a way that is easy to understand. Making complicated psychological concepts easier to comprehend.

It offers Practical Exercises, which are easy to complete and reflective questions, and ways to implement things that were learned within the pages to their own lives.

This book is a thoughtful and insightful, which helps us to reflect on upbringing and its effects. It offers practical tools to help us understand and improve our emotional well-being, making it a great starting point for anyone wanting to make sense of their childhood and build a healthier relationship with their parents or their past.

I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a more authentic and fulfilling adult life.

Thank you to Netgalley and The School of Life

I really miss my parents now because I cannot meet them again for a long long time. Now, I already become parents for my child but I still want to be a child indeed in my heart. Even sometimes I quarrell with my controlling parents, I still feeling blessed to have them in my life. This book from School of Life bringing me again that memories in hope to become a better parent.

School of Life always publishes such great books, and this one is no different. An enlightening read to help you on a journey to stop the cycle that comes from parents, and their parents etc etc.

I find reading "Getting Over Your Parents" a truly enlightening experience. The authors tackle a sensitive subject with a blend of empathy and practical advice, using innovative approaches to help readers navigate the complexities of parental relationships. The warm and engaging language used throughout the book makes it feel like a conversation with a trusted friend.
What I appreciated most about the book was its ability to break down complex emotional issues into manageable, easy-to-understand concepts. It also encouraged self-reflection and offered actionable steps to heal and improve our connections with our parents. As a fan of The School of Life's YouTube channel, I could hear their distinct, compassionate voice resonating throughout the pages, which added an extra layer of connection to the text.
In conclusion, "Getting Over Your Parents" is a valuable resource for anyone looking to better understand and improve their relationship with their parents. Its combination of psychological insights and practical guidance makes it a powerful tool for personal growth and healing.

Getting Over Your Parents couldn't have arrived on NetGalley at a better time for me. At 31, I'm only just realising the impact of my narcissistic parents, and this book has affirmed my need for counselling. The probing questions within its pages opened my eyes, confirming my suspicions and helping me confront some difficult truths. This book really hit hard, but it was precisely the push I needed to break down a significant emotional barrier. "Getting Over Your Parents" has been instrumental in my journey towards healing, I highly recommend it to anyone dealing with similar struggles. It's a powerful, eye-opening read that offers the guidance and validation many of us need.

An excellent overview of the parent child relationship and how it effects our lives our reality.Another excellent addition to the School of Life Series.#netgalley #schooloflife

On Youtube I regularly get drawn into watching the excellent School of LIfe short videos. So much wisdom to consider, challenge and unpick. It's great that this book on the subject that impacts everyone of us, our parents, is being published as it is really helpful to have all the School of Life opinions collated in one place, to be thought about, revisited and considered over and over again. I loved this book, there were no rambling " case studies" or imagined ideal conversations or endless commentary by the author on their own life that clog up and obscure most self help type books. This book has no filler. It contains many hard to hear truths. It is definitely in the mode of "They f**k you up your mum and dad..." An early paragraph states "Every character defect in a parent inevitably imposes a toll on a child." Wow, that hit me hard, how could I have the hubris to have ever become a parent? Like Pandora's box being opened there is hope and advice given in the closing chapters. Although" there is no such thing as an unneurotic parent" we can hold our hands up, apologize and help our child figure things out by revisiting our own "original trauma" perhaps with the help of a therapist. This was really good. I highly rate it and wish I'd read clear, succinct stuff like this when I was younger.

This was very different from my usual genre of books; however, when I saw it on NetGalley, it stood out to me. I’m glad I requested it.
There are lots of important points in this book that I believe can help people and teach them how to do better and not just be stuck in a never ending cycle.

Thanks to NetGalley & School of Life for this ARC.

A provocative, direct, and helpful overview of the work critical to processing childhood challenges related to less-than-good enough parenting.

This wasn’t the book for me. It was too psychoanalytic in nature and i felt it didn’t hit the right tone with me. There were some useful reflection points though that I did note down.