Raising emotionally healthy children that will change the world.
Just by the dejected look on my three-year-olds face, I can tell what’s to come before the sounds start to come out of his tiny mouth.
We’re at a playdate with friends, and I’m happily nested on the couch chatting with another mom about who’s gotten the least sleep in the past week when I hear the faint sounds of whimpering emerge.
Many girls coming into my office are high achievers, spreading their time between athletics, community and a bustling social life. For all practical purposes, it would seem their future college résumé will write itself. However, these qualities don’t impress me much.
“With butter! cut off the crust please!”
My 8-year-old daughter sits at the kitchen counter slowly relishing the last bits of her third piece of toast.
As I momentarily ponder how someone so small can consume so much toast, I glance up at the clock to see that once again the morning minutes have escaped us. I alert my daughters that it’s time to go to school, prompting them to please pack-up their backpacks and get their jackets on.
Stuck.
It was a feeling I had grown all too familiar with in my early years of parenting.
It wasn’t on account of motivation, as I was always determined to be the very best mom I could.
It wasn’t on account of not trying, as I certainly used every trick in the conventional parenting playbook- timeouts- check, threats-check, punishments-check.
I’m excited to share an excerpt from Rebecca Eanes’s new book, The Positive Parenting Workbook. This inspiring and inviting guide walks readers through the process of charting a new path toward greater emotional awareness, clear communication, and joyful parenting! Filled with encouraging prompts and plenty of room to record your progress, this interactive workbook/journal is for anyone who wants to deepen their relationships with their loved ones and learn how to be a positive parent.
I will never forget the bumpy wagon ride through that strawberry field three years ago. It was a bright summer day. and my two girls and I had finished filling our baskets with fresh strawberries, but the wagon that would take us back to the country store was nowhere to be seen.
Oh crap, we have to wait.
Waiting can be a terrifying thing for some parents you know.
Raising a child in our modern world seems really scary some days doesn’t it?
Screens everywhere we look- blasting the latest and greatest threats to our child’s safety. While the reality is that our children are technically ‘safer’ now than in previous generations, the fact remains there are still many new and challenging variables to contend with in today’s world.
The messages are utterly confusing and start from a surprisingly young age.
“Don’t cry!”
“You’ll be fine”
“Don’t be such a drama queen”
Our culture is not known for its tolerance of emotion. After all, emotions can be loud. Emotions can be messy, and emotions can be challenging.
Cozy pj’s with adorable little toes popping out, reading books about fun and adventure…cuddling under warm blankets. Sounds like a pretty good scenario, right?
Why it is then, that many nights bedtime feels more like a horror story than a fairy tale?
“Mama, can we get some fwuut snacks? Pweeeeeeese?”
Last week, while at the grocery store, my 3-year-old and I ran into a close family friend we hadn’t seen in a long time. It was a dear friend so I ran over to greet her enthusiastically with a hug.
As soon as we finished exchanging hello’s, I knew exactly what would happen next as I’d been living in the land of toddler discipline all morning.
