Tag: listening tools

Reach Out To Your Family Over the Holidays and Feel Better

Laura Minnigerode on Listening Partnerships During the winter holiday season, I often feel overpowered with emotions about the past. While I cherish memories of being with my family, I feel out of touch and alone.

16 Questions You Can Use To Help Heal Family Tensions

  Listening Time  There’s nothing like raising kids to bring tension into a family. Right from pregnancy it can seem like every decision you make comes under scrutiny, and then feeding, sleeping, schooling, behavior and

My Child Says She Hates Me. What Should I do?

Handling “I hate you!” Almost every parent was once a child who was shouted at by grownups under stress. Almost all of us were called names and told we were bad at one time or another.

When a Listening Partnership Feels Like a First Date

A good friend of mine is following my work with Hand in Hand with great admiration, so one day I asked her if she’d be interested in doing a Listening Partnership. She said yes, but reluctantly,

How Can I Help My Child Offload Feelings of Hurt?

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

How I Helped My Son Stop Biting

Resolving the biting issue was a priority over other jobs I had, and I rationed my energy and attention to deal with his new aggression. I reduced the time I spent on my household work (I did very minimum vacuum cleaning, dish washing and cooking!) to stay close by when my sons were together so I could reach in before things escalated.

Special Time Gets our Son to School

My husband and I took our sons to Tokyo. We stayed with my mother and had the boys go to a Japanese preschool for three-and-a-half weeks.  It was a great language and cultural immersion and

Lego Land Hokey Pokey

We picked the kids up from kindergarten and preschool one afternoon and drove straight to the airport.  Our four-year-old daughter noticed that we were not driving home, so we made the happy announcement, “Surprise!  We’re

The Broken Vase

One evening when my son was about three, we had a big dinner party.  In all of the commotion a large vase broke.  My son was very close to the vase when it broke and

Special Time and Face Time

I had been having a harder and harder time carving out regular Special Time for my two sons.  During the day, when I am the only adult present, neither of them can stand to be

Giddy’up to Connection

One day I gave my 3 year old daughter a “horsey-ride” on my back. I’d done it many times before and she always enjoyed the closeness and bouncy thrill of the ride. However this day

From Crabby To Cooperative

A few weeks ago I noticed that every time I asked my almost six year old son, Gabriel, to do anything he said, “No.” Well, in actuality he said, “No way, José!” very loudly. Like

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