My three-year old daughter had been seeking quite a bit of connection from me for the last day or two. She had been employing all of the tactics we’ve developed over time to get me to snuggle her. Also, she had been whining and exaggerating each time she got a little bump or ran into
It’s the beginning of the school year, and as surely as leaves will drop, so will the homework. Pages and pages of it. Sometimes whole binders worth. Homework can be the source of many arguments, and I wanted to take a look at why and what we can do about it. In order to really
Setting Limits and Staylistening Those of you with picky eaters are familiar with requests—or demands—for “something else” to eat. Rigidity around food is like rigidity around anything else: it signals a need for help. We often need to set a limit for a child who ventures off to replace our food selections with his own.
We’ve all had those mornings. The one that begins like nothing will ever be right again: “I do not want to get dressed. I want breakfast.” “I don’t want cereal. I want oatmeal.” “I wanted toast cut in triangles, not squares.” “No. I am not brushing my teeth.” Behavior like this can be the
Recently, I took my younger daughter to her preschool after a vacation break of 10 days. This transition back to our usual rhythm, and her emotional response to it, reminded me of the many times over the years that both my daughters (ages 3 and 9) have clearly shown me that going to school is
My 6 year old leg was injured while he was practicing sports. Unfortunately, the injury happened just before a school sport’s event and he was not able to fully take part in it, although it was clear that he certainly tried his best. However, after this, he became increasingly preoccupied with not having won a
We know that play is a child’s work.The best play provides opportunities for fun, and also chances to build intelligence. Because good play has the power to help children laugh through fears and address their issues, and get connected to the people around them, g rough-housing games and physical play, imaginary play and roleplaying are
We’ve all read the stats. Eating dinner together with our children helps with everything from language skills and emotional resilience, to avoiding drink, drugs and obesity, and scoring better grades in school later on. So we juggle our schedules, shop with care, turn off the TV and take a break from chores. We try really
Your child will have big feelings when a special holiday or birthday comes up. It’s one of the phenomena you can set your clock by. We parents wish the universe were governed by forces a little easier on us than this one. But it may help to know that every other family deals with
Parenting can be all encompassing. It can seem to take us an age to figure out what we can accept and what our boundaries are at home, and then bam! We have to leave the house. What happens when your strategy for sharing between your siblings is working beautifully, but then you go to
Trauma can really undermine a children’s ability to thrive at school, affecting relationships and making it hard for them to follow school structure and directives. Dealing with these behaviours can be taxing on teaching staff, but young children often turn to caregivers to help them manage their responses to the stress trauma causes, putting teachers in
What happens to you when your child announces “I’m bored?” Despite research telling us that boredom is actually good for children – it can help foster creativity and independence – most of us try to rush into a solution when we hear those words. Boredom can happen when children become disengaged. Perhaps they are used to
With Laura Minnigerode You thought you’d covered everything. It’s late in the day, your baby is fed, healthy, and their diaper is changed, you’ve jiggled and jostled them until you are exhausted, and they are still crying. Or… You managed to get them to settle only to be woken at 2 am by their
A guest post by Laura Minnigerode Children’s brains are wired to connect with caregivers. And if they cry it means they feel especially safe and secure. Since a child’s limbic system works brilliantly to protect them, they will often find a pretext to offload stress, whether that’s a small bump which causes a big
By Laura Minnigerode Carmela is 21 months old, and a student in my classroom in a community college lab school. Because she loves to play and is not as sleepy as many of the other children she usually struggles at nap-time. Often, the teachers in the classroom will tell substitutes and student teachers, “Carmela doesn’t sleep
My daughter has just turned 8, and as she’s grown I’ve become increasingly frustrated when she doesn’t help around the house. When she doesn’t help tidy up, I start to feel like a ‘slave.’ It’s not a great feeling. I know that play and playlistening works well for these types of issues, but recently I’ve
A guest post from Sabina Veronelli Do you sometimes feel like your child has suddenly become grumpy or distant, and you have no idea why? When pre-schooler Charlie starts ignoring his friends one day at preschool and seems distracted at home, his mama wants to get to the heart of the matter. Here, Hand
One thing Shelley Macy likes to avoid is being called as an expert, despite the fact she has worked for decades training teachers. Shelley is an early childhood educator working with tribal early learning programs in Washington State and Idaho. She has native heritage but was raised in the white community. “That brings a white perspective,