Attachment Play

How to solve children's behavior problems with play, laughter, and connection

by Aletha Solter, Ph.D.

Publication date March 1, 2013

Are you looking for a new approach to discipline?
Does your child's behavior make you feel helpless, impatient, or angry?
Are you tired of power struggles?

Attachment Play will help you solve discipline problems with children from birth to age twelve without using punishments or rewards. It delves beneath the surface of typical conflicts by addressing the underlying emotions that can lead to challenging behavior. This playful and revolutionary approach to parenting will show you how to:

Developmental psychologist and parent educator Aletha Solter is the founder of the Aware Parenting Institute. She is recognized internationally as an expert on attachment, trauma, and non-punitive discipline. Her five parenting books have been translated into many languages.

Attachment Play by Aletha Solter, Ph.D.

 

Please click on the following links for more information:

Full news release and author bio
Full cover image (front and back cover)
Look inside the book (table of contents, introduction, first chapter)
Aware Parenting Institute home page

Reviews and endorsements:

"There's a better way to reach out to your children than punishment. Attachment Play is a parenting guide that encourages parents to work with their kids by downplaying overuse of authority and forming friendships with your kids, and encouraging them to forge friendships with those around them, including siblings. With a powerful message and much to consider, Attachment Play is a must for those who want to try parenting methods that don't rely entirely on positive or negative reinforcement."
—Midwest Book Review

"I love the book! Learn how to play your way to your child’s heart. It works better than punishment and harsh words."
—Peter R. Breggin, MD, psychiatrist and author of numerous books, including Medication Madness and Psychiatric Drug Withdrawal

"This book is a must for parents as well as all therapists who work with children."
—Violet Oaklander, Ph.D., Gestalt therapist and author of Windows to Our Children

"I love Aletha Solter's work because she has such a profound understanding of three things: the parent-child connection, children's emotional lives, and the power of play. Attachment Play brings this understanding to a new level."
—Lawrence J. Cohen, Ph.D., author of Playful Parenting

"Aletha Solter has done it again with Attachment Play, adding to her wonderful series of books on parenting and children. She lays out the theory, but more importantly, this book is chock full of stories about parents using play to deepen connection with their children and to help them through tough spots. Playing with children is a great gift, for both the young and old. Solter’s book shows why and how to play, and also gives important advice to help us older folks when we are having a hard time with play. I like it!"
—John Breeding, Ph.D., author of The Wildest Colts Make the Best Horses

"In Attachment Play Aletha Solter delivers the reader directly into the heart of the child’s emotional experience. She shows with clarity how to bring joy, healing, and deep connection to some of the toughest challenges of parenting. Playing these therapeutic games will not only help parents resolve children’s behavioral issues and heal hurts, but empower them to become emotionally resilient, deeply connected, and capable of laughter when it is most needed."
—Naomi Aldort, author of Raising Our Children, Raising Ourselves

"The strategies Dr. Solter presents will help many, many parents use playtime to address concerns and form warm, productive, and lasting bonds with their children."
—Maria Chesley Fisk, Ph.D., author of Teach Your Kids to Think: Simple Tools You Can Use Every Day

"With Attachment Play Aletha Solter has provided parents with another invaluable book. What I love about Solter is her creativity as well as her gentleness. For example, she deals with children’s actual powerlessness, seldom addressed, and offers truly original ideas for solving everyday problems using laughter and play. This is definitely a fresh approach to parenting that is bound to raise humane adults."
—Elaine Aron, Ph.D., author of The Highly Sensitive Child

" Attachment Play provides solidly researched and yet common sense advice that parents can use to engage their children in truly playful experiences, which will help with all sorts of discipline problems and difficult situations like parental divorce. I couldn't recommend this book more highly! It will be terrifically useful to parents, but also to therapists, educators, health professionals, and others who are concerned with the care of children in these complex and challenging times. Dr. Solter's work is a true oasis in a desert of parenting books!"
—Thomas Armstrong, Ph.D., author of In Their Own Way: Discovering and Encouraging Your Child's Multiple Intelligences

"“Laughter and play rapidly enhance connection and are often the fastest, most direct (and fun) way to help heal childhood wounds. Dr. Solter's book is well organized, easy to read, and will inspire you to use play to form closer attachment to your kids. She gives interesting scientific bases for these concepts and methods but puts them in an appendix so as to keep the main body of the book easy to read.”"
—Edwin Hoffmann-Smith, Naturopathic Physician with a pediatric practice

 

This web page was last updated on October 29, 2020. Copyright © 2013 to 2020 by the Aware Parenting Institute. All rights reserved. No part of this web site may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical (including copying to other web sites, and including translations and photos), without written permission from Aletha Solter.