Nothing triggers parents quite like back talk  – that seemingly defiant, sassy, or disrespectful tone that children sometimes take when expressing their opinions. And at some point, almost all of the parents I see in my clinic ask me how to respond to back talk from their child. They want to know how to they can stop it from happening. Parents will often say to me, “They need to know they can’t speak to people that way!”. And I agree, children do need to learn how to effectively and respectfully communicate with others. But parents are often surprised by my next suggestion. Because r ..read more

Boredom is a universal human experience. It’s also one that is often viewed in a negative light and quite frequently misunderstood. Parents tend to find boredom in children frustrating to deal with (especially when there is a bedroom or playroom full of activities to entertain them) and as a society, we’re generally dismissive of the experience of boredom.  We view it almost as a personal or moral failing. As something that only happens to people with too much time on their hands, who are overindulged or spoilt, or who are boring themselves (anyone else heard the expression, ‘Only boring ..read more

Many of the parents I work with received harmful or unhelpful messages about emotions when they were growing up. Maybe you did too? Messages like, ‘Expressing emotions is a sign of weakness’, ‘Big boys and girls don’t cry’, or ‘Anger or frustration are ‘bad’ emotions and should be hidden away.’ These messages continue to impact many parents as adults. Causing them to push emotions down and ignore them, to feel guilt and shame about experiencing emotions and needing support, to lash out at others or have trouble expressing emotions in healthy ways, and to rely on unhealthy coping mechanisms to ..read more

Growing up, many of us received the message that showing emotions makes us look weak. We were encouraged, either explicitly or implicitly, to shut down emotions and not express them in public. And crying in particular, tends to be viewed by many people as a sign of weakness or vulnerability. In fact, a lot of the parents I speak to worry that crying in front of their children is not appropriate. And many of them worry that crying in front of their children will negatively impact them in some way. And I can understand the concern! However, research suggests that it is not only okay to cry in fr ..read more

As a psychologist, I have seen firsthand the challenges that families face when it comes to finding ways (and time!) to connect with one another. With the many demands of daily life, it can be challenging to carve out quality time to spend together. Between work, school, extracurricular activities, and various other commitments, it can feel like every moment of the day is accounted for. And eventually, you find yourself running from obligation to obligation, turning down requests from your kids to play, saying no on repeat, and generally being a bit of a fun killer. It’s exhausting. And it can ..read more

Behaviour management strategies like stickers, tokens, prizes and reward charts are widely used by parents around the world. And at first glance, these strategies make sense. After all, children love stickers, and they enjoy collecting tiny treasures and trinkets. And if you’re attempting to parent without punishments or harsh consequences like time outs, spanking, yelling or threats, then rewards seem like an effective and harmless way to motivate children. After all, most of us agree that traditional, punitive strategies damage our relationship with our children. We agree that punishments ar ..read more

Sharon Salzberg once said, “Mindfulness isn’t difficult. We just need to remember to do it.” And nothing could be more true when it comes to getting started with or sticking to a regular mindfulness practice. Lots of parents I speak to love the idea of mindfulness. But they struggle to prioritise it and practice consistently. They simply don’t know how to make mindfulness a habit. Why should mindfulness become a daily habit? Because mindfulness is a highly effective emotion regulation strategy that can help us be calmer, less reactive parents. Regular practice of mindfulness helps us lower str ..read more

It can be difficult to practice self care as a busy mother. In fact, for many mothers, the mere mention of self care can send their eyes rolling back in their head as they mutter, “Here we go again!” Because most of us believe that we’re simply too busy for self care. But for many mothers, making self care happen is really as simple as adjusting our expectations. Because for many mothers, the real difficulty is that we think self care needs to be elaborate, costly, or time intensive. We also don’t really believe that it’s going to change things. After all, we know that when our lovely bubble b ..read more

One of the biggest challenges we face as mindful parents is remaining calm when our children are anything but. As mindful parents we understand that parenting begins with us. We know that we have to model self regulation for our children. We know that our children need repeated instances of co-regulation with us before they will be able to develop their own self regulation. We are working on building a strong, connected relationship with our kids as a matter of priority. And we know that responding calmly during times of distress is important when it comes to building that relationship. But it ..read more

Parenting triggers are not really something we think too much about before we have children, right? f you’re anything like me, when you imagined becoming a parent, you saw trips to the park, arts and crafts projects, lots of snuggles, holding cute dimpled hands in yours, playing in the backyard, bedtime stories – things like that. Sure, you knew there would be difficult parts too, but you always pictured yourself as a calm, loving, patient mama who took it all in her stride and responded with compassion and empathy to her kids. What you probably didn’t imagine was losing it over wet towels lef ..read more