Social / Emotional Development

Parent Do-Overs – 7 Confidence Building Responses

If parenting were film acting, we’d always be brilliant because we’d have plenty of “takes” to perfect our responses (not to mention make-up, hair styling and ridiculously high salaries).  But we are playing a part — the role of a lifetime for a lifetime.  Luckily, we perform for an adoring, forgiving audience, and our children will usually accept our less thoughtful, less than stellar performances....

Your Toddler Doesn’t Need Taming

The words we use matter. Infants are not “its”. Toddlers don’t need “taming”. Wild animals might need taming (in the rare instance that’s necessary), but toddlers need acceptance, guidance, and understanding. Each time we speak or write we are not only reflecting our perceptions, but also reinforcing them and affecting others. If you catch yourself using objectifying or dehumanizing words when referring...

How To Handle Your Toddler’s Intensity

Hi Janet, My son is 3 years old and is a very happy child! He is at a RIE accredited Montessori school since he was little. I’m a working mom. I will never forget that after his first days at the infant room, his teacher told me that it was amazing how much he observed. His eyes did not stop moving one side to the other. She used the term busy but at that point and being a first time mom, it did not mean a lot...

Car Seat Tantrums – Handled With Respect

True story: Holly was a tentative mom, someone who avoided setting limits. She told me she was having an impossible time getting three-year-old Eliza to sit in her car seat. She screamed, threw a fit and flat out refused to cooperate. I recommended to Holly that she say, “I know you don’t want to, but you must sit in your car seat” and then physically place Eliza into the seat. Holly reported back to me that...

4 Ways To Raise Children With Social Intelligence

“What parents teach is themselves, as models of what is human – by their moods, their reactions, their facial expressions and actions. These are the real things parents need to be aware of, and of how they affect their children. Allow them to know you, and it might become easier for them to learn about themselves.” – Magda Gerber Of all the skills we encourage our children to develop, social intelligence may...

100% Fool-Proof Parenting (7 Key Ingredients)

“You know what I have found- NOTHING works all the time.  I hear people saying that peaceful parenting doesn’t work and I hear people saying that spanking doesn’t work.  Frankly, I can’t think of anything that is 100% fool proof and works for every child all the time.” – Mama Birth I hear (or read) statements like Mama Birth’s all the time.  It doesn’t matter what school of child care...

Loving Babies Without Wearing Them

If bloggers got year-end bonuses, this would be mine. In this note, a new mother shares her discovery of infant expert Magda Gerber’s child care approach and the profound effects it has had on her family… Dear Janet, I stumbled on your blog through the guest post on “tummy time” when my daughter, now six months, was about two months old.  I was totally captivated by the video of Baby Liv and then spent...

Don’t Fix These Toddler Struggles (I Love This Video)

Time and time again I see toddlers benefitting from impulse control – ours, not theirs. Our natural tendencies to project and protect when our children seem challenged invariably lead us to intervene too much or too soon.  These good intentions can then spoil rich opportunities for physical, cognitive, creative, social and emotional development.  Rule #1: More often than not, struggles and conflicts we might...