Help for Picky Eaters
When you have a picky eater, the problem isn’t so much with food, it’s with your child’s feelings about food. This is news to many parents. It is not commonly mentioned in mainstream parenting advice.
A Step-by-Step Guide: Parenting Through Repeat Annoying Behavior
It’s trying when your child has upsets again and again over the same darned issue. Perhaps it’s being afraid to go into an upstairs room alone, perhaps it’s refusing to share during play dates. It could
NAEYC Presentation “Helping Families with Stress”
I recently gave a presentation at the Annual Conference of the National Association for the Education of Young Children with Shelley Macy, Hand in Hand Certified Instructor and Coordinator for Early Childhood Education at Northwest
Can Play Help With Bedwetting?
Q. “My five-year-old can’t seem to stay dry at night. We’ve tried and tried, and nothing I do seems to work. They feel bad when they wet the bed, I try not to bother them
Let Summer Be Time For Children To Play, Laugh, Learn, Heal
Ahhh, Summer! What do you remember of the lazy days of summer when you were a child? What were the best times? What did you look forward to all year long? What new experiences did
Potty Training Experience – Staylistening
In Potty Training Experience: Playlistening, we explored the healing role that laughter can play when a child has unworkable fears. The mother who wrote in had a three-and-a-half year old daughter who was absolutely terrified
Separation Anxiety Recovery
Children thrive on connection with their parents. Their need for a sense of connection is strong and constant through childhood. It is this sense of safety and connection that allows children to learn at a
The Time Crunch: Mending Our Lives
It’s probably safe to say that nearly every parent is time-poor. We need time to connect well with each child, time to tend relationships with our partners and our wider families, time to tend our
The Day I First Partnered with My Child
The day that changed my life didn’t start out promisingly at all. My almost three-year-old son had pinkeye in both eyes. His eyes were really gunky, and he didn’t feel well. I managed to gather
Do Children Manipulate Their Parents?
“Silly question!” you might exclaim. “Of course children manipulate their parents! My children do it all the time, and it drives me crazy!” We tend to call it manipulation when a child looks at us,
How to Help Your Child Deal with Shyness
Each child comes into the world with a different set of potential characteristics. As parents, our challenge is to find ways to work with, and celebrate, the people our children are. Some children are slow
Baby Crying: Why Listening to Nursing Children Builds Connection
en français When a baby is first born, we have the delightful, delicate task of getting to know her. We learn how she sleeps, how she eats, and see how she gazes into our eyes
We’re Doing Our Best
I’m struck again and again by how hard each parent I know tries to do well by his child. We make great efforts, moment by moment and day by day. Once the efforts begin, we
Ending Power Struggles with Children
Sooner or later in our lives as parents, we find ourselves locked in a power struggle with our child. It can happen over being fed with a spoon when a baby is just a year old.
Tickling Kids Can Do More Harm Than Good
Tickling children is one of those customary kinds of play that is handed down from generation to generation through our families. It is rarely questioned, but deserves to be thought about more carefully, as it’s
Getting Through School Struggles
Children love to learn. Learning is as natural as breathing to them—they absorb every single thing that happens. They learn through play, they learn from the behavior of the children and adults around them, they learn
Backbone and Bounce: Building Resilience
What can we parents do to help our children build resilience, so they can bounce back after adversity? This may be one of the key questions in parenting. We can’t entirely protect our children from
Parent Education: Dealing with Emotions
“Don’t be so emotional!” “Don’t let your feelings run away with you!” “Big boys don’t cry.” “Calm down and let’s be rational about this.” Life is full of warnings to keep our emotional lives in check. Yet