Parenting ideas that fly.

Did My High-Need Child Need To Cry? (Guest Post by Jane Roets)

When my babies were small, I absolutely hated to hear them cry. I thought my job was to meet all their needs until they were big enough, or old enough to meet them themselves.  I was an Attachment Parent all the way! Especially with my second child. She was my “high-need” baby.  For the first 6 months of her life she was either in the sling or sleeping next to me. She nursed all night long sometimes...

Need Your Child’s Cooperation? Try This…

My first sing-a-long (to the tune of “My Favorite Things”): Wiping wet noses and nails that need clipping Changing soiled diapers and medicine sipping Sitting in car seats, injections that sting These are a few of my favorite things… …Said no child, ever. And since children are inclined to resist these activities, parents tend to dread them. So, in our haste to get the job done, we rush our babies...

Don’t Fight the Feelings

One of the most ironically counterintuitive twists of parenting is this: the more we welcome our children’s displeasure, the happier everyone in our household will be. There is no greater gift to our children and ourselves than complete acceptance of their negative feelings. (Notice I did not say “behaviors”.)  By deleting from our parenting job description the responsibilities to ‘soothe’, ‘correct’...

Toddler Discipline That Works (It’s About Our Attitude)

The secret to raising children who generally cooperate with our rules and direction has very little to do with specific strategies or wordplay like “I won’t let you” versus “Don’t hit.”  What matters most — and essentially makes or breaks successful guidance — is the way we perceive our children and our overall attitude toward boundaries and discipline. The good news is that once these...

5 Benefits of Sportscasting Your Child’s Struggles

‘Sportscasting’ (or ‘broadcasting’) is the term infant specialist Magda Gerber coined to describe the nonjudgmental, “just the facts” verbalization of events she advised parents to use to support infants and toddlers as they struggle to develop new skills. Sportscasters don’t judge, fix, shame, blame or get emotionally involved. They just keep children safe, observe and state what they see, affording...

A Question of Self-Worth

This isn’t what I’d planned to write today, but I’m learning that blogging isn’t always about what we want to write. Sometimes it’s about processing what’s making it impossible to concentrate on anything else. My focus as a parenting teacher and coach, and the underlying theme of every post I’ve written, is respect for babies and toddlers. Everything I share on my blog is intended to evangelize one...

Helping Kids Adjust to Life With the New Baby

I’d just landed at LAX and was waiting at the baggage claim carousel when I heard an angry exchange. I turned toward the adjacent carousel and saw a three or four-year-old girl decked out in a colorful traveling ensemble – brightly patterned leggings, a trendy t-shirt and pink plastic movie star sunglasses. She seemed to be fumbling for something in her polka dot backpack while her father glared at her and...

The #1 Reason We Misunderstand Our Kids (And Secrets To Better Clarity)

Since one of our primary goals as responsive parents is being attuned to our children and their needs, it’s helpful to be aware of a natural impulse that obstructs this clarity: projection. Projections aren’t all bad. These “educated guesses” stem from our healthy, socially adaptive instinct to imagine each other’s thoughts, feelings and intentions in order to relate and connect.  Projections are...