The Blog
Our best advice when it’s tough with kids:breathe, laugh, dance, sing, hug, call a friend. Be gentle with yourself, you’re not done growing up yet. This won’t last and you are not alone.
What Elite Athletes And Parents Have In Common
Jason’s been reading The New Toughness Training for Sports by James Loehr. You might think a book about “toughness” is about how athletes tolerate more pain and discomfort during training or competing. But it’s not, toughness is about athletes performing their best...
What’s Making You Angry?
I stopped dead in my tracks when I read the following sentence about anger: When we are angry, three things are happening: We are upset because we are not getting our needs met; We are blaming someone or something else for not getting what we want; We are about to...
Keep your hands to yourself
From one of our readers: I like the concept of making agreements with our children, but I need help to make an agreement with my kids for: Keeping their hands to themselves (not poking, tickling etc.) when the other says "no." Listening when a person asks them to...
“Don’t do anything that isn’t play.”
“Don’t do anything that isn’t play.” - Marshall Rosenberg When I first read this years ago I thought, “What do you mean, Marshall? I’ve got a ton to do. I’ve got a job to go to, dishes to wash, laundry to fold, meals to cook, a house needs cleaning, and a sick kid to...
5 Mistakes parents make when creating “Agreements” with their kids
In our family (and in our preschool classroom) instead of rules we have agreements. An agreement is something that everyone in the family agrees to do, created collaboratively, written down and signed. At home, we keep our agreements in a 3 ring binder in the living...
How “Giving up” gets your kids to do what you want
So many times I enter into a conversation with my kids and I have an unspoken, secret agenda. But I do my best parenting when I’m not attached to getting my way, when I’m curious and ask lots of open ended questions. It’s not a coincidence that when I give up how I...