In 2011, I started shifting away from negative language in my high school classroom to a more positive beat. It’s part of what I studied and researched throughout college. Even so, to my astonishment, I started seeing results almost immediately. As if I was holding some sort of magical potion, these teenagers started behaving differently…
Emma, my 2nd child likes to stomp, scream, and hit when she is mad. Back when she was a so-called threenager, she could be vicious. Now entering more of the pre-teen stages, she and some of my other children have learned to deal with emotions better, but they’re still learning that using force is not…
The moment I decided to be a positive parent was years before I ever had kids. It was that theoretical notion of what perfect parenting was and I was too strong willed to let anyone tell me that I would raise my kids differently. For years I had gone to school to be a teacher,…
As parents, it can be easy to go about our days and not stop and listen to our kids as we should. Life is busy and stopping to listen can sometimes be an afterthought during those chaotic moments in life. I’ve often thought about times where I’ve seen children in the store, acting out in a negative…
I was barely ten feet into the store and I heard a woman earnestly whisper over my shoulder “They’re so beautiful.” “Thank you,” I said as she stopped walking to look over Emma and Rhett sitting in the shopping cart. She started telling me all about how she had 4 kids back to back and that she lived…
“OUCH! That really hurt.” I heard my husband cry out. “Say sorry. We tell each other sorry when we hurt others.” It’s something that we said over and over as our oldest has gotten older. There was nothing inherently wrong with teaching our kids to apologize when they hurt someone or when they were wrong……
After cutting her own hair and snipping the curly locks off her sister, I picked Emma up by her forearm to remove her from the situation. She sat on top of the loft bed crying as I dealt with the aftermath. She usually bounces back pretty quickly, especially for a stubborn two and a half…
Long days in the sun, enjoying the swimming pool, and participating in car wash fundraisers are all memories ingrained in my mind from my own childhood. But what followed all of them? Sunburns so bad my skin was bubbled. Weeks of squirming in my own clothes because it would touch a sensitive spot. Layers of…
Think back to your childhood. Slowly sift through your memories and think of the times your own parents felt like they were at the end of their rope with you from being uncooperative, disobedient, and ultimately a defiant child. Does anything stand out? Can you relate to your child better or understand your parent a…
As a child development psychologist, I had some ideas about how I wanted to parent long before I became one myself. But, the knowledge I relied on the most as a new parent surprised me — it wasn’t all of the charts of expected developmental milestones or the research on successful development instead, it was some…
When my oldest was 6 months old, we did 10 hours of tornado disaster relief with her on my back. When my middle daughter was one, our family served other children in the community teaching them how to play soccer and fulfilling their every need. And now with my youngest, we regularly go grocery shopping…
By 10 AM today my toddler was eating a vanilla ice cream shake. Why? Because I negotiated with my child. We’re in the middle of a move across country and my heart knows I need to loosen my grip on our day in order to get things done. So today? I will compromise on food because…