Dona Matthews

Developmental Psychologist

&

Author

Dona's Books

Imperfect Parenting Cover

Imperfect Parenting

How to Build a Relationship with Your Child to Weather Any Storm

Written for parents of children from birth through to adulthood (ages 0-25), this book helps you examine your role as teacher to your child, as guide, advocate, and perhaps most importantly, as a human being who doesn’t always have the right answers. While your child’s brain, body, emotions, and social abilities develop over time, I write in Imperfect Parenting about how your skills as a parent can develop too, provided you put your energy into practicing relationship fundamentals such as acceptance, positivity, social support, boundaries, respect, self-care, and gratitude.

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Being Smart About Gifted Learning

Empowering Parents and Kids Through Challenge and Change

Published in September, 2021, this is the third book in the Being Smart series by Dona Matthews and Joanne Foster. Being Smart About Gifted Children was published in 2004. It won several awards and sold over 10,000 copies, and was followed by Being Smart About Gifted Education in 2009, which also received rave reviews from parents, educators, critics, and others interested in supporting kids’ gifted learning needs.

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being smart cover
beyond intelligence cover

Beyond Intelligence

Secrets for Raising Happily Productive Kids

In a stress-filled and fast-paced world, it is more important than ever that parents know something about the coping skills their children will need for resiliency and success across the lifespan. Beyond Intelligence provides that knowledge. It’s a book that I wrote with Joanne Foster for parents and teachers interested in helping children and teens become the strongest, most confident, most fulfilled, and most successful people they can be.

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Book Reviews

"This is far and away the best parenting book I have ever read, and I have read hundreds of them. Imperfect Parenting has a solid science base, but it’s not for eggheads; it’s for real parents who have real kids. Dona Matthews’s message reassures anyone who is a parent or hopes to become one: Building a relationship with your child will bring you the confidence to face any parenting challenge, and your love for each other will just keep on growing. Your child will thank you."
Terrie Moffitt, PhD, Nannerl O. Keohane University Professor, Duke University, Durham, NC, United States; coauthor of The Origins of You: How Childhood Shapes Later Life
Imperfect Parenting
"Imperfect Parenting is brimming with life-changing insights. Dona Matthews, with compassionate and incisive expertise, distills the latest research into understandable tips and tools that can help any parent. But perhaps more important, she outlines a new approach to parenting that will make us more effective as parents and strengthen our relationships with our children. Dr. Matthews does this by combating the punishingly perfectionistic culture around parenting today, that tells us that unless we’ve checked every box on the “good parenting checklist,” we have failed. Imperfect Parenting instead empowers parents to embrace imperfection constructively, and approach every challenge with renewed confidence and hope."
Tracy Dennis-Tiwary, PhD, Professor of Psychology, The City University of New York, New York, NY, United States; author of the forthcoming Future Tense: Why Anxiety Is Good for You (Even Though It Feels Bad)
Imperfect Parenting
“The writing is absolutely masterful – vibrant, rich, warm, smart, accessible. The “Our Secrets” section is brilliant. Beyond Intelligence is, well, beyond excellent!”Felice Kaufmann, PhD, Creativity expert”
- Felice Kaufmann, PhD, Creativity expert
Beyond Intelligence
"Parents everywhere will be edified and empowered by this inspiring book.”
- Publishers Weekly, starred review
Beyond Intelligence
“By presenting exciting new work on mindsets, as well as recent research findings on expertise and cognitive neuroscience, these authors show the importance of habits of mind in cognitive development. This book will prompt re-examination of many long-held beliefs!”
- Carol Dweck, PhD, Stanford University; author, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success
Being Smart
“Being Smart about Gifted Learning is a brilliant book that empowers and enlightens parents with essential information about optimizing their child’s educational, social, and emotional experiences. Drs. Matthews and Foster have a winning formula: helping children and teens discover the right combination of safety and challenge to support life-long resilience and creativity.”
- Mona Delahooke, PhD, child psychologist, author, Beyond Behaviors: Using Brain Science and Compassion to Understand and Solve Children’s Behavioral Challenges
Being Smart

Latest Articles

All Kids Need Time in Nature and the Planet Needs That Too

Nature education is a good way to address growing concerns about young people's mental health and about environmental sustainability. Spending time outdoors can increase kids' health, happiness, curiosity, creativity, resilience, and engagement in environmental protection. Less privileged kids in dense urban environments are most in need of easy access to the natural world.

Teens, Screens, and Mental Health

Toxic social media is being blamed for increasing mental health problems in children and teenagers. For even the most mature and kind young person, social media can entice them into comparing themselves negatively with others, and into inadvertent bullying behavior. When used wisely, however, social media and other technology can have many benefits for kids.

When Your Child or Teen Says “I’m Bored!”

Pay attention to a child or teenager's boredom, because it can mask deeper problems. Parents should make sure their children have what they need to find and create their own happiness, remembering that boredom can be one of the best possible catalysts for self-discovery, imagination, and creativity. When a child solves their own boredom problem, they're developing coping skills and resilience.

What to Do When Your Child or Teen Says “I’m Bored!”

When your child or teenager is bored, start by assessing whether or not they need some quality time with you. If your child's generally OK, put together an activity toolbox to help them manage the times they feel bored. Some ideas: make a list of boredom chores, send them outside, create a music center, assemble a drama box. The goal is helping them move toward independence, including assuming responsibility for managing their own moods and activities.

8 Simple Rules to Help Kids Be Their Most Positive Selves

It's not always easy for children to live harmoniously with others. Here are 8 simple guidelines to help you teach your child how to interact happily with those they share a home with, whether it's at home with family, or elsewhere with others.

10 Surprising Recommendations for ADHD Parents

What the research says and what that means for you.
For all of Dona’s articles on how to raise happily productive kids, visit Psychology Today.

About the Author

I love working with parents and kids as they think about how to live the lives they want to lead. I also love the mental challenge of putting their experiences—and mine—into words that others can use as they work out how they want to live their lives, in ways that align with current research findings on the brain and human development. I’ve published widely on child and adolescent development, with a focus on encouraging exceptional children’s strengths and interests, and I write a blog for Psychology Today where I explore parents’ questions about divorce, sleep problems, behavior issues, giftedness, stress management, mindfulness, and lots more.

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