I love parenting books and regularly read new ones that have come out, so I was a bit surprised that I didn't love this one.

To be fair, there were some things that I did enjoy about the book, and I loved some of the ideas that she utilized in her home to provide a positive environment for her children. The book felt really autobiographic though. I'm not familiar with her son, who was apparently in the Olympics, but it seems to be her claim to fame and reason for writing this book. I, unwittingly, thought parenting was the main focus. It felt like she used the phrase "After my divorce" at least one hundred and fifty times throughout the book and I just had a hard time relating to a lot of her situations and feelings. This is much more typical of autobiographies, versus parenting books, which gives more general advice instead of relaying how she was driving her child like 4 hours back and forth to skate practice daily.

I think single moms who also happen to be super into pushing extra curriculars would relate and enjoy hearing from someone on the empty nester side, but, I did not feel like the read was really worth it for me. There was a smattering of advice throughout, and it was generally good advice, but again, it was mainly stories about her and her family. Autobiographies are fine, but this book felt like it was more marketed as a parenting book, so that certainly wasn't what I expected.

I would probably rate it a 2.5, but rounding up since I feel like some people may be able to relate to her stories a little better than I did and I found a few gems of advice that I found especially helpful.

Parent Up by Kelly Rippon is a parenting book that is one part self-help book and one part practical parenting guide. It took a bit to get into it but there are some solid points that resonated.

The author talks about her divorce and how she had to parent differently after that. I wonder if some of her enthusiasm for making sure her kids were okay (she’s got six and they’re all two years apart) was also to avoid thinking about her personal life. Because those early sections read like corporate consultant buzzword soup (she was a motivational speaker before). It’s not until she gets into actual anecdotes of things she did for her kids to make them more accountable as well as make them more emotionally intelligent that bring the book together.

I’m not sure this is better than Bringing up Bebe but it was a fast read.

I really liked the way this book is written. We get such a great understanding of how Kelly raised and supported her family, and also chapters highlighting influved we have on children in our lives. I like that this book could absolutely be for parents, however, I think it could also be great for people that have children around them - teachers, caregivers, etc. It was a heartfelt book with some great advice, and I enjoyed it!