I offered a free workshop recently on setting limits without using shame or punishment, and as usual, the questions were my favorite part.
We have so many experiences as parents that challenge whatever textbook parenting advice we’ve received along the way.
Examples include:
“OK, I get that it’s a good idea to set a warm limit! But what do I do when I don't FEEL warm?”
“What do I do if agree with this approach in theory, but then when the sh*t hits the fan, I default back to threats and bribes?
“You’ve suggested that I bring connection when my kids are off track, but doesn’t that just send the message that my kid can act like a jerk and I’ll be nice to them?”
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 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 moreEvery family has its own heartbreaks, sooner or later.
But how to meet and manage the pain and sadness of these times without shutting down is a whole other story. And having kids complicates how (or if) we are able to work with it. It also raises questions about how much (or whether) to share it with our children.
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 moreAhhhhh, sleep.
It’s one of the first things people ask new parents about, and the focus and source of a lot of our time, energy, and stress during the first years of our kids’ lives.
I recently visited with close friends and their week-old baby. One of the first things Dad said to me was, “wow, the sleep deprivation finally caught up with us. We were fine for a few days and then…” he trailed off. Then: “This is hard.”
Read moreMy son starts at a brand-new school tomorrow. At 4.5, he’s starting preschool later than a bunch of his peers, but it was the right decision for our family to keep him in his sweet, small daycare for an extra year.
These kinds of transitions are part of parenting for all of us, whether it’s a move to a new school, a new home, or to becoming a sibling instead of an only child. Here are a few tips for weathering these kinds transitions with respect for your child’s process and your own.
Read moreI happen to know that my child is not the only one who resists the normal, everyday aspects of his existence with a kind of endurance that would be admirable were it not so darn aggravating.
Here are a few tips for managing your child’s resistance respectfully, and with an eye toward deepening her sense of connection (which—you guessed it—also can help lessen the resistance). All of these tools work well with babies, toddlers, and older children as well.
Read moreIn a recent post about limit setting, I argued that, for our passionate little movers, limits are like the railings on a beautiful yet precarious dance floor. We need them to provide safety and security as our kids explore the world and their place in it.
In this post I want to explore in greater detail how limit setting can look, through the lens of a beautiful path for living and relating to others called The Four-Fold Way®.
Read moreYou may have heard about the Educaring® Approach, or RIE®—sometimes called “respectful parenting”—on the playground or from a friend who is a parent. But what is RIE® really all about? Is it right for your family?
Magda Gerber, who founded RIE®—which stands for Resources for Infant Educarers—believed that babies are whole, capable people deserving of our respect from the moment they are born.
Read moreThe Educaring® Approach offers many wonderful practices for communicating with infants and toddlers, but we sometimes forget to talk about what we're saying when we're not using words. Learning to respond to our children respectfully starts with attunement.
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