Helping Kids Find Alternatives to “the Tantrum”
Instead of ignoring your child or giving into a tantrum, what can you do? These are some steps to help you teach your child to solve their problems without hitting emotional overload.
Tantrums: Moving Beyond the Black and White of Ignoring or Giving In
Tantrums happen. Even to the best of us. The problem is when we feel our only options as parents are to ignore or give in. That isn't true. We need parents to know how to effectively handle tantrums for long-term emotional growth.
“My Toddler Won’t Listen to Me!”
How many times do you hear parents frustrated that their young child or toddler doesn't listen? What can you do and what can you expect from toddlers when it comes to "listening"?
Setting Boundaries
Setting boundaries is one of the more difficult things we do as parents. Not only because it's hard to say no to those we love, but also because it's complicated to know what constitutes a healthy boundary and what is unhealthy for our kids.
Gentle Parenting in the Face of Flour
Your children find the flour and decorate your living room with it. What do you do?
Distraction, Redirection, and Responsiveness
Here I want to lay out some critical distinctions between what it means to distract, redirect, or respond to a child, what it looks like, and whether or not each method works, according to research.
Guest Post: What Is Discipline?
When people talk about ‘disciplining a child’, they usually mean ‘punishing’ a child. The punishment is supposed to help children learn, but research tells us punishment is an ineffective teacher... So what does it really mean to 'discipline'?
Guest Post: Taking Back Their Right to Talk Back
Do you allow your children to talk back to you? How do you react when they do?
Was It Always So Easy?
For those who struggle to be gentle and help their young children through emotionally trying times, but don't seem to be seeing the results, I just have this to say: It's not easy, but it is completely worth it.
Logical Consequences: A Quick Guide
When I wrote about the benefits of adding logical consequences to our toolkit with our daughter, I was met with some resistance from people. Most of the resistance centered on the fact that people view logical consequences as punishment and children don’t learn from punishment. I disagree and I thought I’d share a bit more on how to implement a logical consequence, along with what it does and does not include.