Inspirations

Date With My Boy

My 9-year old son recently led me on a spontaneous early morning adventure. I wish I could say I was gung ho, but the truth is he had to cajole me. It was almost time for me to take him to the school bus and his sister to her carpool, but she wasn’t feeling well and decided to stay home. My boy seized the opportunity to break our routine… “Can we go to Starbucks and then meet the bus at the second stop?”...

Respect, Trust, Acceptance – Magda Gerber’s Therapeutic Approach To Child Care

I was a newbie mom just beginning my studies with infant expert Magda Gerber when I first read Gloria Ohland’s story about Magda in her “Local Heroes” column at LA Weekly, and it resonated deeply. It still does. “Our Babies, Ourselves” (June, 1991) captures the spirit of Magda’s work with parents and infants as few articles have since… OUR BABIES, OURSELVES by Gloria Ohland Magda Gerber’s...

RIE Parenting Bliss (A Brief Glimpse)

This two-minute video gem (uncovered by my clever husband Mike) illustrates the immediate benefits of independent play (a cornerstone of RIE parenting) far better than any of the thirty or so articles I’ve posted on the subject.  I’m humbled and thrilled to share this slice of parenting heaven. It’s reminiscent of scenes I often witnessed with my own children when they were small. Michael Caulder, the dad...

Idea Babies – 4 Ways To Kindle Genius

Genius, commonly defined as “extraordinary intellectual and creative power”, is a term we probably wouldn’t use to describe ourselves or our children. We may believe we’re smart or talented, but most of us don’t think we’re all that extraordinary. Even if we are “a person who has an exceptionally high intelligence quotient, typically above 140”, we don’t typically imagine ourselves geniuses. Far...

Breaking An Abusive Cycle Through AP And RIE (Guest Post by Suchada from Mama Eve)

Please, don’t let them grow up like me…  I have three vivid memories of growing up: The first is of my mother when I was five or six years old. I was getting ready for school and had difficulty putting my shoes on the correct feet (being slightly dyslexic), and my mother went ballistic. She hit me, over and over, all while yelling at me how stupid I was for not having it figured out by now. The second...

Lessons From The Women In My Life (Guest Post by Michael Lansbury)

My eldest daughter turned eighteen two months ago, a milestone loaded with implication and emotion. As her father, I felt an intense (self-imposed) pressure to mark the occasion appropriately, to acknowledge my genuine love and pride as openly and honestly as this East Coast WASP could manage. Certainly, this was the moment to pull out all the stops and come up with something more meaningful than a handshake and a...

Toddler Readiness – The Beauty Of Waiting

When my daughter was 2 ¾ she told me she wanted to ride a merry-go-round. I never figured out where she got the idea, but she loved books and must have seen a merry-go-round somewhere in one of them. We picked a day to visit the classic carousel on the Santa Monica Pier and talked about it for days ahead of time. We imagined the experience – choosing a horse, the music, fastening seatbelts, riding up and down,...

A Jolly Toddler Holiday – 3 Ways To Enrich The Experience

Hi Janet, My son is 28 months, and this is the first year I think he’ll have a lot of questions about Christmas.  My parents are already asking what Santa should bring him, and it’s prompted me to think about how I might position this mythical character in a developmentally appropriate way that embraces the spirit of Santa, doesn’t feel like I’m lying to him or that I will have to burst his...