Kids in the Car: Talking to Teens
As parents(particularly) communicating with a teenager can be a challenge. Parents compete with friends, technology and screens, and just about ANYTHING else that an adolescent would like to do besides chat with mom or dad. It can be difficult to have...
Kids in the Car: Talking to Teens
As parents(particularly) communicating with a teenager can be a challenge. Parents compete with friends, technology and screens, and just about ANYTHING else that an adolescent would like to do besides chat with mom or dad. It can be difficult to have...
Children Will Listen
It's difficult to know we've covered all the bases as parents. After all, we don't really know which of our basic needs our parents might have skimped on or entirely missed bringing us to adulthood. Unless we academically study parenting before we tak...
Tips for Working Parents
As a working parent, knowing how to manage your time and being an expert juggler of multiple tasks is not only helpful for your professional success, but also critical to your survival at home. The general rule of thumb I would suggest for parents is:...
Building a Relationship with Your Stepchildren
Getting into a relationship or marriage with someone who has children is a delicate processes. It can be difficult, stressful and it has the ability to stir up a wide range of emotions for everyone involved.
When first interacting with the kids of you...
Hiding True Feelings from Kids Comes with Emotional Costs
New research finds that when parents hide their true feelings from their children, the parent pays an emotional toll. Specifically, emerging studies suggest that parents’ attempts to suppress negative and amplify positive emotions during child care can detract from their well-being and high-quality parent-child bonds.
8 Ways to Make “Special Time” With Kids Even More Meaningful
In the hustle bustle of stressful family life, it can be great to spend special one-on-one time with each child. Kids adore the attention, the fun, and the indulgence of having one parent all to themselves. It can also be incredibly meaningful for par...
The High Price of Pushing Kids Too Hard
Millions of kitchen tables and cell phones witness conversations between parents and friends about when to push foot-dragging children along the road to school readiness, summer camp, or whatever imagined goal line the parent frets some other child mi...
Should Parents Just Say No When It Comes to Drugs & College?
When I sit in my office at a college counseling center, I sometimes think, if these walls could talk, if parents could see what I see, they might take a harder line when it comes to their children, drug use, and binge drinking. At least one time per s...
Autism and Parenting: Preparing Yourself for Your Child’s Transition to Adult Life
The last few years have been full of important life transitions in our family. One of them has been the transition of our son, Jeremy, out of mandated school services into adult life. Jeremy's transition to adult services was not at all smooth despite our planning. The research we did to write our most recent book indicates that our experience with transition was not unusual. A proactive optimist at heart, I was not prepared for how laborious, discouraging and depressing the process would be. After much soul-searching I decided that if we were going to not only survive, but to ...
When Your Child’s Anxiety is Making You Anxious: Repeat These 22 Phrases
As parents, we have a natural tendency to reach out to our children when they are anxious, scared, or stressed. What none of us can anticipate is how our children's anxiety will cause us to feel anxious, helpless, hopeless, angry, or desperate. The ne...
Performance Accountability: A New Parenting Model for 2016
The term "face" used here means recognizing and preserving a child's dignity and integrity as a person of value with feelings who is sensitive and remembers experiences. Just and compassionate accountability in child rearing avoids using humiliation a...
The Surprising First Step in Effective Child Discipline
One very hot summer day I was outside with my then two-year-old son. To me, it seemed like a perfect day to fill up the kiddie pool and let him splash around, so that is exactly what I did. My son, however, was much more interested in sitting on the f...
5 Guidelines for Giving Kids Choices
Kids want and expect their parents to provide structure and make key family decisions. It helps them feel safe. While it's great to give kids a say in things, too many or too big of choices can overwhelm them or put too much pressure on them.
Give you...
The “Relational Work” of Children’s Bedtime Routines
Most parents acknowledge that the quiet consistency of a bedtime routine is comforting and calming for their children, but parents rarely reflect on the effect the bedtime routine has on themselves. At least one research study (link is external) suggests that regular routines buffer/decrease parenting stress, which in turn has a positive effect on children’s emotions, behavioral regulation, and readiness to learn.
Why It’s So Important to Banter With Young Children
Banter, or informal and spontaneous chatting, gossiping, joking, and storytelling, can be incredibly beneficial for young children. Researchers Betty Hart and Todd Risley found that daily exchanges between a parent and a child shape language and vocab...
What “My Child Won’t Cooperate!” Really Means
How often have you heard parents say, “My kid won’t do what I ask him to do! He just won’t cooperate!” People often use the term “cooperate” when they really mean “comply”. Co-operation means to co-operate: “co” means “together”; “operate” means “act”. “Co-operate” means to “act together toward a common goal”. For example, if you and your partner cooperate when setting the table, you work toward the same goal: your partner places the dishes while you lay out the silverware.
The Three Different Types of ADHD | Loving a Child with ADHD
It’s true. ADHD is now the only term used, but it’s broken up into three different classifications. A person can have “Inattentive ADHD,” “Hyperactive ADHD,” or “Combined ADHD.” I want to explain the differences of these to you because it’s important for people to be properly informed. The general public is still using the term “ADD,” which is no longer accurate and can cause miscommunication errors when used inappropriately.
Parenting for Intelligence and Success
The American Psychological Association recently published a review of the top 20 principles from the psychological research, concepts with proven effectiveness in the teaching/learning process. Eighteen of these principles apply to parenting for acade...
Depression in Children
How common is depression in children? Depression occurs in 1-2% of children before puberty.You can even see depression in preschoolers, although it’s much less common. That usually occurs when there’s a strong family history of depression. After puberty the rate of depression increases significantly to about 3-8%, with a higher rate in girls than boys. One in five teens will have experienced a depressive disorder by the time they reach adulthood. What does depression look like in children?
How To Tell Your Child He/She Has ADHD
Talking to our kids about complicated and sensitives subject matters is no easy task. Whether we’re talking about forgiveness, puberty, religion, sex, drugs, alcohol, mental illness, or how to wipe after pooping, it’s all difficult. Regardless of what age our kids are when we discuss it, we’re still telling them as much as they can possibly comprehend at that particular age. It’s overwhelming because it’s always going to be just a bit above what they’re comfortable with.
Stress Management Tips for Students
Students are one of the most common victims of stress. Factors such as financial expenses, over commitment, family expectations, deadlines and workload all induce stress in students. While a mild amount of stress is very useful and acts as a motivatio...
Self-Esteem in Children Part 2: Parental Involvement
In our last blog on self-esteem in children, we learned that parental involvement is key to development of healthy self-esteem. Now that you recognize signs of healthy and unhealthy self-esteem in children, here are some things you can do to ensure your child develops a healthy self-esteem. Despite their best efforts, many times parents can make mistakes in communication that increase problems with self-esteem. Here are some traps parents fall into which contribute to low self-esteem:
Strong Social Networks Help Teens Care for Others | Psych Central News
A new study finds that as formal means of social support wane during adolescence, a teen’s respect for the social welfare of others also declines. However, when young people feel supported from their social circles, their concern for others rebound. University of Rochester researchers discovered that as life becomes more complicated during adolescence, relationships change.
Technology and Children’s Health: Tips to Increase Exercise
In the age of technology and social media, children and adolescents are now less likely to be physically active. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), children are spending about seven hours per day either watching television, on the ...