Teaching Our Children About Love And Loss

Hi Janet, Our first “baby”, our beloved dog Maxine, is going to have to be euthanized.  She’s about 15 and in failing health. We are obviously heartbroken. As devoted followers of RIE, my partner and I wanted to know if you had any advice on how to explain to our 3 year old daughter what is about to happen.  We have no problem using the word “dead” or “dying”, and we...

Baby Discipline, Person To Person

Hi Janet, My question is about my almost 13 month old son. He is extremely curious and engaged in the world around him. We have always tried to empower him and make him feel safe and supported to try anything and everything (within safety, of course). Drawing from my experiences working as an educator in a school that was very much inspired by Reggio Emilia and Montessori, I try to speak to him in terms of what he...

Changing Toddler Sleep Habits (Guest Post by Eileen Henry)

Parents of infants and toddlers have a collective wish – a peaceful ending to the day. We deserve it. Our days are long, often taxing, and we hope our babies will fall asleep easily and stay asleep through the night. We don’t have the patience or the energy to deal with a fussy baby. Even though we sense that our child’s cries are a healthy release of tension, we’re too tired, too vulnerable to hear them....

Babies Learn Through Frustration

Janet, thank you again so much for answering my questions and for your wonderful articles. We have made huge progress and are so much calmer and happier in just a few days of changes. Here is my next question: I’m trying to get this right, and observing my baby carefully really does help to figure out what he’s crying about. But I’m unsure how to handle his cries after he trips or loses...

Baby Sleep Struggles (Guest Post By Eileen Henry)

A bonus of getting older (there aren’t many) is a more acute awareness of where our talents lie, and also our limitations. For instance, there are many parenting issues about which I feel confident  and capable of offering advice – however, sleep isn’t one of them. Although I can certainly help with the basics, I find sleep problems a bit too thorny and complicated.  (Granted, I knew far more before my third...

You Can’t Do It! – 3 Powerful Messages Parents Don’t Intend To Send

“When you grow up you can be anything you want to be,” my mom often told me. She believed in me and wanted me to know it. Oddly, I translated this encouraging message into an overwhelming expectation that I could never live up to: “You have to be big, important and really famous. No mediocrity for you!” We all parent with best intentions, and we are bound to be misinterpreted by our children sometimes. But...

Toddler Testing – 3 Steps To End The Nightmare

Hi Janet, Could I ask your advice again? So Audrey is great (GREAT!) at independent play. She can spend quite a long time happily playing with her basic simple toys and babbling to herself. Except, in the mornings, when I am trying to get breakfast ready, lunches ready, dishes done, and stuff ready to get out the door, she is REALLY clingy. I don’t understand. If I am sitting still in the afternoon hanging out...

The Secret Language Of Babies

Romance was in the air at a recent parent/infant class, and it was definitely one for the cameras, but interrupting those astonishing minutes to document the action could not have been further from my mind.   Mila and Julian, 3 and 4 months old respectively, were on their backs on the rug by their moms. The infants soon took notice of each other, began engaging, and spent several minutes captivated. Mila twisted...