Behavior

As very young children get older, they start to become more independent.  But there are two things working against that independence. 1) They don’t fully understand all the implications of independence, (i.e. responsibility, safety and sometimes independence is scary) 2) We aren’t always ready to give them independence because they are still our babies. Because […]

My favorite word is “overwhelmed” and I use it all the time. I think it does two things: It really sums up parenthood It teaches kids about emotions and empathy I see parents trying to hide their emotions all the time.  I see mom’s apologizing for crying when there is nothing wrong for using tears […]

Oh my goodness. If you haven’t seen this book yet, go check it out. The Little Tree by Loren Long is about a tree that wants to hold on to its leaves. There are a lot of things that we want to hold on to and it shows up in our bodies in a not […]

It happens, our children are driving us up the wall and to be totally honest, we don’t want to be around them.  We don’t want to hear their voices.  (We don’t really like them) and it feels horrible. We react differently when we feel this way and we want to get out of this cycle […]

Does it seem like all your toddler does is fly off the handle? Do you feel overwhelmed by your toddler’s behavior?  Or is your child pretty awesome, but still has these moments where you just don’t know what to do? Here’s my top 5 tips to help calm your toddler. Control Toddlers are learning about […]

In all this talk about consent with teenagers and young adults, it is important to look at how we teach our young boys.  We should also be teaching our girls about consent, but the two lessons are different.  Here’s what you can do with your little boys: Boys like to play physically and that is […]

Have you ever yelled at your children?  Have your children gotten angry and screamed at you or threw things?  You may feel like your family is the only family that ever gets angry, but the truth is that everyone feels anger and that feeling angry is perfectly OK.  But what do we do when we […]

I’ve been reading a lot lately about teaching consent and how to get the point across to students in college and high school and as young as middle school.  But you can very easily start with toddlers and preschoolers about consent.  You have to be the model. It is super duper important that dads and […]

love

Is your child fussing up a storm right now because you told her that she can’t have the one thing that she wants?  That sounds about right. And as parents, we need to set limits so we keep telling her no. And that just makes her fuss more so we want to give in so […]