When you want to complain to your child about their behavior or nag them about something they’re not doing, think twice. It’s often not that useful to them.
After the incident, my daughter refused to go out of the house for the next couple of days. She would start screaming as soon as I would open the door. I took her gently in my arms and showed her out the window that the dog was in the kennel now and then we went outside. She wouldn’t let go, she stayed in my arms. The next day again we went back outside, and I called the dog to let her see that the dog couldn’t get out of the run.
Contrary to popular belief we should actually wind our children up before sleep! Roughhousing, and lots of giggles, can help children release any stress or remaining tension from the day. It also helps to build the connection that children need to feel safe to separate from us and fall asleep.
Setting a limit at bedtime can bring up big feelings for children. Holding the limit, while making room to also hear the feelings is a challenge, but it builds a child’s confidence and connection with you.
It was nearly bedtime and we were playing a family card game. My 3 year old was tired and his behavior was flaring. Everything was wrong for him. “I don’t want that card…I don’t want to sit next to Mama…I want it to be my turn”, he whined. He was finding it hard to sit
Q: My son is a very dynamic four-year-old. He is attached to me and has a younger two year-old brother. What I’ve noticed is that when we are doing Staylistening, he will sometimes rapidly control his emotions and improve his overall emotional state in such a way that he’s able to go back to normal
Staylistening With Madeleine Winter Recently, one of the parents in a Parenting by Connection class I was teaching sent me this story about a success with Staylistening to her boy. Staylistening is where we stay close with a child who is upset, listening without comment, judgement, criticism or harshness. We make sure that everyone is
I had just spent the prior week talking (i.e. stressing) about how much I should hold a limit around my daughter’s following through with activities. Should I just let her quit when she’s afraid or nervous? When is it time to push and when do I step back?
Connection and play saves the evening again!
My husband was making a pot of oatmeal for breakfast last weekend, and it was time for the family to come to the table. But our 8-year-old son saw that the oatmeal wasn’t the kind he usually has, and he started saying, “I hate that oatmeal!” My husband responded, “Well, that’s what there is for
One morning while clipping my daughter’s nails I made the comment, “Oh, I think I clipped that one too short.” It wasn’t a big deal at first since it didn’t hurt. (If I hadn’t of said anything my daughter wouldn’t have noticed.) But after a minute or two it became the perfect pretext for her
I was so sad when they were not getting along and my oldest was hitting and biting, particularly because I had read so many books and was from the beginning practicing attachment parenting and positive discipline.
Although we are friends, we have had to limit the time our son spends with their child, because the kind of language he often uses isn’t appropriate for our son to hear. They were making preparations for a birthday party for their son and our son saw this.
I had cared for one toddler at my day care center throughout his infancy and we had shared many good and close times together. He began biting other toddlers a few months after he had moved into the toddler room. It took our staff a week, and a couple of conversations with his Mom, before
I have a short anecdote that really showed me how important Special Time is, no matter how humdrum it may seem from the outside from time to time. This summer we had planned a visit to the equivalent of Disney Land in Sweden. The boys, 5 and 7, had never been there and had been
Eventually I said, “OK, you go to sleep now. Do you remember that I love you?” He said, “OK! Yes. Do you remember I love you?” I said yes, and he yawned. I sat for a few more minutes and asked him a couple of more times if he remembered that I love him. He said yes and was quiet. Less than 10 minutes later I went in to check on him as promised, and he was asleep. I kissed his cheek. He opened his eyes a bit and nodded when I asked if he remembered I loved him. And then he went back to sleep.
I was teaching a Playful Parenting class one night and the topic was how we notice when our children are disconnected. One mom volunteered to come up and demonstrate what her son acts like when he is disconnected. She got to move her body a lot and ‘feel’ what it might feel like for him. We
As I was making the food, she came and sat on the counter right next to me and said, “I’m such a bad girl. There you are doing all those nice things for me, and I always act terribly, not even thanking you, and lying to you all the time…”