Parenting Tips Archives | Page 4 of 4

Parenting Toolkit or Parenting Worries?

How do you stop helicopter parenting? How do you turn the parenting shoulds into tools that you can use? You create your toolkit. If the advice promotes our kids genuine growth as independent individuals, then it goes in the toolkit. But if the advice involves overparenting and overprotecting, it goes in the trash.

Turning The Shoulds That Burden You Into Tools You Can Use.

The ShouldStorm in parenting is the swirling mass of advice and criticism we experience as parents, that drives us to feel anxious and overparent. Sometimes it is the advice itself that’s the problem, because it reinforces the basic ideas that create perfectionism and anxiety. But sometimes it’s not the advice at all. It’s how we hear it, or how we use it. We get to choose: parenting worries or parenting toolkit?

At the Crack of Dawn: What does it mean to have an early riser?

It’s the crack of dawn, and your kids are up. AGAIN. Some kids get up as early as 430am every day, frustrating their tired parents. How do you deal with early risers?

It’s the crack of dawn, and your kids are up. AGAIN. What does it mean to have an early riser? Some kids get up as early as 430am every day, frustrating their tired parents. How do you deal with early risers?

The Dread of Waiting in Lines at Disney

Waiting in Lines on Family Vacation

Despite hours of waiting at lines at Disney World, there is no way around it: Disney is one of my favorite family trips. That’s because Disney is just different. The grounds are clean, and so is the language people use. There are very few people pushing, you are surrounded by people who are generally reasonably happy and enjoying time with family.

Never Fear, the Switch Witch is Here

Trick-or-treat! It’s a few days after Halloween and your adorable fairy-princess-witch-super-Star Wars-ninja just collected a pillow case full of Halloween candy. You know how bad all that sugar is. What is a responsible parent to do?

The Summer of No TV

Creativity and Boredom

Where we grew up, there were still lots of older homes with no central air conditioning. The summers were hot and humid. There were a few activities you could sign up for at the middle school, but they weren’t all day camps. There were morning swimming lessons in the freezing cold community pool, but after that there was not much to do. The kids that were around did tend to spend a lot of time inside using their Nintendo’s. We already knew our mom was a little different from the other moms. She made us eat whole-grain bread and natural peanut butter, and our snacks were pieces of cheese and fruit. We didn’t get free access to hostess cakes like our friends did. Our TV time was limited, and we had never owned a Nintendo.

Swooping Seagulls

Nature Teaches Kids with Natural Consequences

“The seagulls sure are beautiful, Mom,” said one of my kids on our first evening at the beach in Florida. “Yeah, they are pretty cool,” said the other. “It’s like Finding Nemo!” The two of them started chirping: “Mine Mine Mine Mine.”

4 Lessons from a Truly Terrible Cross Country Runner

I always loved my father’s stories about his glory days as a runner. He was tall and lanky, an ideal build for a distance runner. He ran in high school, and he was later recruited as a runner in college. That scholarship was his path to an engineering degree at a good school. He used to love to tell stories about his races. His favorite races were the ones he nearly lost, when he came from behind and sprinted past the leader for the win. For my Dad it was always the joy of the contest.I was just the worst runner. Just terrible.

The TEDx You Can’t Miss: ShouldStorm

We live in a culture of constant criticism, haunted by the idea that one mistake can alter our childs destiny forever. This “Shouldstorm” makes us anxious parents who raise anxious kids.

The Opposite of Criticism: The VLOG

What is the opposite of criticism? Is it praise? I doubt this. Praise is about building someone up and can be superficial. Criticism is about identifying problems that need fixing, at least in the eye of the beholder.

The Opposite of Criticism

Doing the Wrong Thing… to Get Our Parenting Right.

What defines a good parent? How do I know if I’m doing a good job as a parent? Here’s a little secret: a lot of the time you don’t. But over the years in pediatric practice I have become convinced that a good parent is a parent who is engaged with their child as a loving leader. And sometimes leaders decide which rules to follow, and which rules to break.

What defines a good parent? How do I know if I’m doing a good job as a parent? Here’s a little secret: a lot of the time you don’t. But over the years in pediatric practice I have become convinced that a good parent is a parent who is engaged with their child as a loving leader. Sometimes leaders decide which rules to follow, and which rules to break.

Doing the Wrong Thing to Get Our Parenting Right