This wasn’t how I planned my morning. I had imagined more sleep and a peaceful waking. Instead, my five year old crawled in bed with me very early and wide awake. He snuggled warmly with me for about two minutes before pestering me with rambunctiousness. I could feel my grumps coming on. “It’s not fair!
“Help! My son has big issues getting dressed. I’ve tried making it funny, using imitation. He laughs, but there is still so much resistance. What can I do?” she asked.
A Guest Post by Yasmeen Almahdy If you want to set limits that your children actually listen to, doing what your parents did will not help. That is, if they yelled, nagged, bribed or sent you to your room for not complying. And if you remember how it felt when your parents issued those orders,
A Guest Post with Marion Rose A child’s challenging behaviours can be one of the most challenging aspects of parenting. We often fall back on the bribes, punishment and coercion that may have been used by the caregivers that raised us as even if we second guess them and even if we have vowed to move
Dear Hand in Hand, I recently found out about your approach, and I really want to try some of these ideas. I have started Special Time, and it seems to be going well, but I’m confused about Setting Limits. You suggest a warm approach, with no need to yell. I’d love to work out a
There are days when it is very hard for my daughter to say goodbye when I leave home. Since I have realized this, I will often spend the morning spending lots of time with her to build a connection. Even so, she still has big feelings sometimes when it is time for me to leave.
A Guest Post by Stephanie Parker My daughter is about to turn nine and I’ve been thinking recently that I’d like her to do more around the house. I haven’t spent enough time making this happen in the past, I’ve taken shortcuts by just doing things myself because it’s ‘quicker’. So this morning I’d washed
A guest post from Marilupe de la Calle My daughter, age two, was showing signs of tension and off-track behavior. She was easily dissatisfied and cranky. As soon as we arrived back home after an outing, she demanded that we open a tin box filled with cookies that my friend had baked. Sensing that her behaviors
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.
No doesn’t have to be yelled or sound mean to be effective. Try these 17 kind ways to say no that kids do actually listen to.
Sarah Charlton on Setting Loving Limits I recently began working as a learning support assistant in a UK secondary school. The job’s going well but there is one girl that I support who has been highly resistant to any help, from me or any of the other learning support assistants. She covers up her work
Dear Hand in Hand, My daughter’s school is really pushing reading. They constantly say how reading opens the world and makes for a more ready and open learner. I’ve always thought I was quite lucky because my 7-year-old girl just loves to read. She’ll read upside down on the couch, in the car on the
By Andrea McCracken As the school year has got started my daughter has gotten more and more social, and wants to play with her friends often after school. One day at a friend’s house they had played, had ice cream and done more activities than would typically happen at our house. She was enjoying her
My four-year-old son LOVES garbage trucks. He is obsessed with them, and not just the trucks. He loves everything to do with garbage disposal: garbage cans, recycling, compost, trips to the landfill, and the garbage itself. He sorts all of our trash and puts our cans on the curb. He wakes up an hour early
Your son has been acting out all day. First he grabbed his friend’s toy truck at a playdate and refused to play nicely. He threw it across the room when you asked him to return it. Then when you got home he ate just two bites of a sandwich, turned his plate upside down
“This afternoon I could tell that my four-year-old was going off track. His behavior was erratic, and he couldn’t seem to settle. I didn’t exactly see what happened, but I heard my seventeen-month-old daughter crying. I walked over and my son said, “She just fell,” which he has been saying sometimes when he hurts her.
Discover Hand in Hand’s approach and an introduction to the Five Tools for calmer, connected parenting in Days 1-6 and then see how the tools work for real-life families on Days 7 and 8. Day 1: Five Tools To Transform Your ParentingDay 2: Special Time: Building Connection in MinutesDay 3: Three Steps to Setting LimitsDay 4: Staylistening: How Does Crying
Most approaches to discipline assume that the adult has the intelligence and judgment, and the child must be trained. They are seen as essentially uncivilized. It’s the child’s job to obey quickly; it’s the parent’s job to meet uncivil acts with negative responses. That means Setting Limits. Many modern parents have a somewhat more generous