Latest From The Blog
Children Hunger for Play and Laughter with You
Stresses of all kinds, loneliness, isolation, and criticism erase a child’s sense of connection, and make it harder for a child to love and learn. But I'm always amazed at how a little play full of laughter can quickly restore a connection between a parent and a...
Want to Get a Handle On Your Child’s Difficult Behaviors? Try this first.
Is hitting, spitting, whining, slamming doors, or nasty back talk driving you to the end of your rope? One of the first things you can do to resolve a child’s difficult behavior is to observe. Put on your detective hat and simply notice. Notice when that pesky...
Scared Out of His Mind: What To Say When a Child is Afraid
There are many things that can scare a child: a loud noise, an angry parent, a barking dog, a hospitalization, witnessing violence. Sometimes we know children are afraid because they tell us so, but at other times, it comes out in their behavior. They act out, they...
Parenting When Your Heart is Breaking
When someone close to you dies, a relationship ends, illness strikes—parenting can feel like you’ve just been hit by a boulder. We don’t have much attention, if any at all, for a little one who wets the bed, won’t eat his dinner, or won’t share with her little sister....
Love for Breakfast: Four Proven Strategies to Reduce Conflict and Increase Cooperation with Your Kids in the Morning–that Work in the Afternoon too!
Getting out of the house in the morning can be tough, and sometimes picking kids up after school is no tea party either! Here are a few strategies to try if you find yourself yelling, bribing, punishing, or frequently frustrated with your child before the day has even...
Why I lost It and A Few Tips For Handling Summer Stress
Summer vacation should be a time when the family feels more connected. So why is it often so stressful? In June, my stepdaughter and I flew to New York City, just the two of us, to chase the impossible dream of seeing the Broadway musical, Hamilton.I treated those...
How I Learned to Shut My Mouth and Why You Should Too
One simple, yet surprisingly hard thing to do as a parent is to simply be quiet and let our children talk…or cry, laugh, giggle, sing, and scream. Working with parents of little ones and bigger kids, I hear it all the time. It’s hard to be quiet and not interrupt,...
Two Secrets to Getting Your Kids to Cooperate—And One They’ll Love!
You try to negotiate, you talk sweet, you bribe them, you give them consequences, and then…you lose it. Getting kids to cooperate can be tough! If they would just get dressed in the morning like you asked, ate everything that you put on their plate, stopped...
14 Strategies For Parents To Find Calm When They’ve Come Undone
Parenting is triggering. There’s no way around that. We get tense when our toddlers won’t put their shoes on, or when our six year old screams at us and kicks the door, or pushes her glass of milk off the table instead of eating her greens.And then we come...
How to Help Your Children Conquer their Fears
When our children become paralyzed with fear, it’s hard to know how to help them! A father I know remembers seeing his son in this state during a family vacation at Lake George at the base of the Adirondack Mountains. His son, eight years old at the time, wanted to...
How to Help Your Child Survive the Wilderness and Why It Matters.
Children today are spending very little time outdoors. According to the National Wildlife Federation, “The average American boy or girl spends just four to seven minutes in unstructured outdoor play each day, and more than seven hours each day in front of an...
Sneers and Snarls: Why the Preteen and Adolescent Years Are So Hard for Girls
A mother recently told me that her eleven-year-old daughter is starting middle school in the fall. There was an open house for the school in the spring, and they decided to make it a family affair and take a warm evening walk there together.As they walked onto the...
Five Tips for Parenting your Preteens and Adolescents
Parenting a preteen sometimes feels like you've gotten lost in a foreign neighborhood without your trusted GPS. What used to make your five-year-old laugh doesn’t work anymore with your thirteen-year-old. An adolescent's maturity can seem inconsistent and...
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Appreciating the Past, Planning for the New Year
Happy 2015! I love this time of year—something about being able to start anew and the excitement of what lies ahead. It’s also a good time to reflect on the year that passed, appreciate ourselves as parents, and put our attention towards the things we want to change...