One night, when I was about 14, I was babysitting a boy who lived near my house. We were tossing a bag of marshmallows back and forth between the two of us, just for fun, and he started to throw them harder each time. I kept warning him, telling him to take it easy, before we […]
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What is a Mother? *In remembrance of MaryAnn Mather, 1929-2015*
I’ve been blessed to have a number of incredible role models in my life, one being my Grandmother, MaryAnn. We called her Grandma Mares, since Mares was my Grandfather’s nickname for her. Grandma Mares recently passed away on July 20th, 2015, after a long and incredibly challenging battle with Alzheimer’s. She was the paragon of […]
Finding the ‘Why’
We often hear experts telling us to find, and focus, on the why…or the reason for a behavior. But what exactly does that mean? It seems like there’s COUNTLESS reasons for why our child is behaving in certain ways… how on earth are we to know what they are? And how do we figure it […]
When your partner doesn’t agree with a Gentle Parenting approach
When we say we follow ‘gentle’ or ‘positive’ parenting practices, that can be very subjective. We all are different people, and as such we handle situations in our own unique ways regardless of what style we’re using. And while we may know what gentle parenting means to us, and how to respond to situations based […]
When Your Child Comforts You
Rebekah is a truly talented writer, and this one always makes me cry. Reposted from www.barrentobeautiful.com. When Your Child Comforts You.
It’s time to rethink how we impact our children’s lives.
We had our book club the other night, and amidst the discussion, one member stated this: “It’s been time to rethink how we impact our children’s lives. Changing our priorities to be child-centered and more nurturing and supportive of families is the best way to make positive, necessary changes in our society.” (Alisa Makson Wing, […]
“What’s the magic word?”
I try very hard not to force manners on my daughter… I like to model them instead, by simply saying “thank you” or “sorry” or “please” to her and in front of her, at the appropriate times. She’s doing an awesome job at picking them up and has been saying them for some time now! […]
Are those cute Time-Out chairs worth it?
I recently saw a post on one of the local buying/selling pages where a bunch of parents were ordering cute time-out chairs, with their children’s names on them. They’re adorable, yes, and the poems are sweet, but…. Do you really know what time-out is? Generally, time out is a discipline technique that is widely misused and misunderstood. “Time-out” is a […]