These are tough times. In some ways, there is no greater truth than this right now: we are a year into a pandemic, we are overwhelmed, overstretched, overtired. We want nothing more than a “return to normal”. It is incredibly hard to be an adult right now. It is incredibly hard to be a child right now. We are asking ourselves every day to show up, more depleted than ever, to take care of children who are understandably more frustrated, sad, angry, and anxious than ever. Teachers have always had an incredibly important role in our kids’ lives – this has been further highlighted this year. Te ..read more

The more you approach your kids from a place of control, the less trustworthy they become. Our kids respond to the versions of themselves we reflect back. We all act based on our self-beliefs. When we lead with tight control, with constant oversight, with negative predictions about our kids, we are essentially molding our child’s self-concept around being untrustworthy. A child takes in that he needs to be controlled to make good decisions, that he has no moral compass, not capacity to be thoughtful or respectful or forward-planning. Of course we cannot give children complete control in ..read more

To me, parenting is all about building our kids’ capacity to regulate difficult emotions. In their early years, kids’ experience emotions that are too big to manage alone in their bodies, which is why the feelings come catapulting out of their bodies as difficult behaviors – hitting, throwing, flailing, etc. How to we build change behavior? Through building emotion regulation. How do we build regulation? Safety + Goodness. We must establish safety first. We remove a child throwing blocks from a block area is not to punish or give a “natural consequence” – we remove this child for his and ever ..read more

Silliness. Playfulness. Laughter. These are important ingredients in family connectedness… and yet they are very hard to find when parents are burnt out and depleted (which we are!). And yet, here’s something I’ve learned this year: every time I push myself to lead with lightness, something good happens. The other night, we were clearing plates after having family dinner together. There was a big bowl of cooked, un-sauced pasta sitting out. My oldest son, 9, took a handful and whispered to me, “I’m going to throw this at Daddy, shhh…..” This is what I wanted to say: “What? NO! We are cleaning ..read more

Do you know what’s better than reacting well to a meltdown? Preventing one in the first place! The holidays are full of changes, transitions, logistics, and big feelings. The more we connect with our children in advance – to provide “emotional vaccination” – the more prepared our children will be when tough moments arise. In this 90-second video, I model how to talk to your child today to prevent meltdowns and rudeness days from now.             View this post on Instagram                       ..read more

No one is crushing parenting right now. These are hard times, and what’s most critical to our mental health is how we talk to ourselves. Join me in making self-compassion a goal for this weekend or in the futre. Things to bump down on your “goals” list: cooking that family dinner, decorating your home for the holidays, saying the right thing you want to say to your child when he is upset. Are these things important? I suppose. But let me remind you: WE ARE IN A PANDEMIC. It’s easy to forget this important truth. We are in a time of chronic anxiety, chronic depletion, chronic “I really need a ..read more

To cultivate gratitude in our kids, we must ask kids the right questions, not have kids perform the right behaviors. The most meaningful moments in my house with my kids are marked by more questions than answers. More wondering than deciding. More *not knowing* than knowing. When we are willing to explore tricky topics with our kids, we stimulate a thought process inside our children, and there’s nothing that teaches children how to reflect and be thoughtful as, well, the experience of reflecting and being thoughtful. Gratitude relies on reflection. To have space for feelings of gratitude, we ..read more

What does your body need right now? Maybe it’s a hand on your heart. A cathartic scream. A deep breath. A good cry. Feel free to experiment with each. It might surprise you what ends up feeling good. I had an interesting experience this morning. I met a friend in the park to exercise and move our bodies and as I started working out, I realized something important: I needed to scream. The past two days, I had been telling myself that I needed to slow down and take some deep breaths. I had been doing some yoga, which I hadn’t done in years, trying to get out of my head and into my body. This ha ..read more

Halloween – a holiday traditionally filled with large gatherings, unsanitary fingers unwrapping, and candy. Halloween 2020 is approaching and families are trying to figure out how to honor the kid-focused, fun-filled traditions at a time when the world feels so different than it did in October 2019. Here’s the key: Set expectations. Prepare for what’s ahead, including the feelings your kid might have. Allow your child to protest and feel however he feels about the holiday or any COVID-related changes in plans. And… embrace the fun. Allow yourself to do something sillier for Halloween than you ..read more

More than any other complaint, I hear this from parents: “MY KID DOESN’T LISTEN TO ME!” Here’s the thing. What we are really talking about when we refer to “listening” is this: cooperation from my child when I want my child to do something she doesn’t want to do. And here’s a truth about cooperation and listening: the more you feel connected to someone, the more you want to comply with requests. In our adult lives, listening works the same way. If someone is asking us to do something we don’t want to do, we listen because either 1) we are scared of that person or 2) we feel close to that pers ..read more