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Here in San Francisco, this coming weekend is Pride weekend. I love this month and the ways I get to see queerness on full display throughout my city.
As a hetero-passing queer person (yes, JIC you didn’t know, I’m partnered with a man but I’ve known I was queer since I was 11), celebrating queerness is important to me.
Read moreOne day, toward the end of my mom's recent trip, she came into the kitchen chuckling after a typical display of feeling from our son.
“I can’t get over it. You were just like him,” she said.
Before last summer, I would have scoffed at the comparison. I remember myself as a kid who knew from an early age that there was a right way to be and a wrong way to be. And I was going to be right. Which made me good.
Read moreTo be listened to makes us feel seen, understood, and valued.
To be ignored or have our listening go unanswered makes us feel hurt, afraid, and sometimes enraged.
And, when our kids don’t listen to us, it can trigger a cascade of feelings and worries that reach both backward into the past and forward toward the future.
Let’s take a closer look at listening, and at what happens to us and to our kids when listening falls apart.
Read moreThere’s nothing like a pandemic and a complete shutdown of life as we know it to test our mettle as people and as parents. This may be the truest, most direct experience of “parenting as path” that we will ever encounter.
Is it possible to continue to be the parents we want to be right now? Ask me again in a few months, but right now, I feel that it is.
Here’s what I’m practicing and finding useful right now when it comes to my parenting.
Read moreHow would it feel to do a little less in your parenting today?
I’m asking myself this question a lot lately, because I find I’ve gotten wrapped up in old patterns of doing MORE these last few weeks, and it doesn’t feel great.
I mean a specific kind of “doing more” here, one that looks like:
Picking out my son’s clothes and putting them on him, piece by piece
Reminding him to take his plate over to the sink when he’s done eating
Talking over him in the middle of a big feeling.
I know why I’m doing all of this, despite my belief (and tangible evidence) that most of it isn’t helpful.
Read moreThere are so many opinions out there about what you need to do to get ready for your new baby. As useful as these tips can be, they overshadow some of the most important kinds of preparation. We need to be prepared for how to be with our babies, not just for what we’ll swaddle or stroll them in.
Luckily, the Educaring Approach® (commonly known as RIE® parenting or respectful parenting) is the perfect support system for the intense early days of parenting. Here’s how you can practice some of the Approach’s most effective—yet quite simple—tools before your baby even arrives.
Read moreMy son recently got it into his head that he HAD to try ice-skating. So, over the holidays we took him to one of the seasonal rinks set up around the city at this time of year for San Francisco kids who otherwise might never see a real ice-covered anything.
The rink was, as my Irish friends say, chock-a-block with kids and adults of all ages. I’d say the average skill level was Dangerously Unsteady, with a couple of Just-Starting-To-Get-It folks thrown in the mix. One very thrilled, Approaching-Intermediate-Level Dad was zooming around the rink, narrowly missing taking out an unsuspecting skater with each lap.
I took one look at this scene and immediately went into Professor Mom mode. We got my son’s skates on, and I started coaching him on how to walk over to the rink without breaking his ankle. We secured one of those skater-assistance devices that’s a bit like a walker on blades, and bravely hobbled onto the ice.
Read more“What do I. . . DO with her all day?”
A slightly baffled mom asked this question about her newborn baby in a RIE® parent-infant class. We all laughed—including her—but I also knew part of her was very serious.
No parenting class had prepared her for this part of being a mom. After the diapers, feeding, bathing, dressing… what was she supposed to do with the kid?
If you’ve ever wondered this about your baby, you’re not alone.
Read moreFertile Ground Parenting
Caroline Griswold
415.484.8889
caroline@fertilegroundparenting.com
