Are You an Over-involved Parent?

You’re mystified as you watch her in action and want to scream, “Stop behaving like that.” Sounds, like I’m talking about a child, right? I’m not; I’m talking about an over-involved parent.

Over-involved parents tend to micromanage everything in their child’s world. They’re the parents who think it’s better to fix, rather than teach their child about the injustices of life. Read More →

A Cure for the Common Bad Attitude

Nothing in parenting remains the same from day to day—nothing except the presence of feelings! Feelings are part of life, part of being a child, and definitely part of parenting. 


Because your child is growing quickly, her feelings change from one moment to the next. That means your parenting solutions have to change too. Read More →

Giving Kids Choices that Lead to Cooperation

It's common for parent educators, including myself, to tell parents, “Just offer them a choice and they’ll cooperate!”



Well, if offering a child a choice is so easy, then why does this parenting technique backfire more times than not? Why does a child scream “NO!” when given a choice instead of smiling and saying, “I’ll take that option, please.” 

Read More →

How to Calm Down After a Tough Day


Thanks to Oprah we’ve all shifted the way we see and deal with stress.  We know it’s dangerous to our bodies, but knowing doesn’t magically change things. We have to make some changes to help ourselves. Here are seven ways to calm down before, during or after “one of those days”! Read More →

H
ow to Make 1-2-3 Warnings Work

You're probably used to giving your kids warnings ("That needs to stop right now!"), but do they work? You may find that your warnings are more effective when you tailor your approach to your child’s temperament. Read More →

How to Handle Relatives Who Are Hurtful

Last week I read a few posts about dealing with family members who were rude, hurtful, and gossipy. It’s all too common, and makes me think of a letter I recently wrote to myself: Read More →

4 Ways to Get Your Child to Listen to You

Recently I asaked a group of moms, “How do you get your child to listen to you?” 


Some replied, “Give consequences till he listens" and others, “Be willing to leave if she doesn’t listen.” Those things do work, but most of the time a parent has to add a reaction to the request in order for it to work. 
Read More →

What Not to Say When You're Disappointed With Your Child

“Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.” When I was little that rhyme was the big, bad, powerful statement we used to ward off the vicious attacks of other kids. 


That rhyme gave us power, but didn’t protect us from the sting of the words. It didn’t stop the ugly words from sinking in and taking root. Read More →

5 Tips for Fighting Productively with Your Spouse

It’s Valentines Day this week and love is in the air! Many couples think that love means never disagreeing. They actually think that if they fight, their love is coming to an end. Oh, how untrue! Read More →

6 Ways to Prevent Sibling Rivalry

When siblings fight, everyone in the family is affected. When a parent hears, “Give it to me!” “Get away from me!” or “No, m-i-n-e!” their first reaction is to yell, “Stop it!” or “How many times have I told you!” 


Many parents with more than one child have told me: “They fight terribly. . .They will play happily for ten minutes and then the fighting begins again.” Sound familiar?
Read More →

How to End Power Struggles Over Food and Sleep

How many times have you been in a power struggle with your child over food or sleep? 



One big reason parents get trapped into these types of power struggles is because we think we “should” have the power to decide what, when and how much our child eats, and how, when and where our child should sleep. Read More →

How to Deal with Back Talk from Your Kids

Don’t you dare talk to me that way!

When a child is being verbally disrespectful, or as we called it in our home, emotional biting someone, a parent’s defensive wall goes up and she screams right back! Most parents who are having loud, ugly words screamed at them would react. The question is “is there another option?” Yes, there is. Read More →

Limit Setting: Creating a Play Outside Childhood—in an Electronic World

Every kid begs for video games. Parents hear the plea over and over again until they’re so worn down they knuckle under and buy one. Now Mom and Dad face their worst fear, junior sits down and won’t get up. And when he does, he’s aggressive and screams, “But the game isn’t finished!” At that point all parents wonder, “What have I done?!” Read More →

What to Tell Your Kids When They Ask if Santa's Real

Santa is everywhere you look during the holiday season, and that can be confusing for children. Seeing so many Santas inevitably brings up the question, “Is Santa real? And if Santa is real, which Santa is real?” No parent wants to lie to his or her child. And no parent wants to burst the magical bubble that makes the holiday season so precious.

Where do you stand? How do you explain Santa to your children?

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How to Get Through Holiday Prep Without Yelling at Your Kids

When you’re preparing for a major holiday it’s easy to become overwhelmed with all there is to do, and when that happens you can easily lose patience with your little ones. Then the guilt sets in and you think, “How could I yell like that, this holiday is about bring joy and love to all, especially to my kids!” Read More →

It’s all about you: Checklist to Stay Sane During the Holidays

Can you believe it’s the end of the year? Most moms are exhausted at this point in the year and still and have to find the energy for the big holiday push.
So how does a mom stay energized and get it all done? One way would be to hire an elf to help out, but I think Santa has that market locked up by now!! Or you could hold a family meeting and make some requests. Week 2 of How to Survive the Holidays shares 12 things that can energize you when you need it the most, so you can create the holiday you’ve always dreamed of. Read More →

5 Way to Stay Sane While You Prepare for the Holidays

After Thanksgiving it seems like the web goes into hyper-drive sending everyone the same message, make it the best holiday season you can!
As women we hear that and think exactly what Circle of Moms reader Krista E expresses, “My son is old enough to start to "get" Christmas, so it should be a lot of fun to see him opening his gifts.” Parents love that image and want to create a memory filled holiday, even if they’re on a budget. Read More →

The Key to Building Your Child's Self Esteem

Have you ever experienced a child who’s afraid to try, or gives up mid-way through an activity, or a child who must always win? How about a child who lowers their head when corrected? Each one of those children has the same issue: low self-esteem. 

Read More →

What to Do When Your Child Resists Discipline

Last week I wrote about the difference between reacting and responding, and reading about a parenting technique versus applying one.
Children can ignore, laugh, scream, or argue in the middle of being corrected. No matter what they do, there is a thread that connects it all, and that’s what this article is about. But first, a W-A-R-N-I-N-G: Read More →

4 Parenting Mistakes That Zap Your Energy

We all have huge daily to-do-lists. Is it pos­si­ble to get it all done?
I hear dif­fer­ent ver­sions of that ques­tion all the time, “How am I sup­posed to get done what I need to get done, when my tod­dler demands so much of my time?
It’s too much to keep up with! There’s no time for me! Read More →

A Gift of Sorrow

Have you read Notes From a Dragon Mom in the NY Times yet?
It’s a truly inspiring story about a mom who is losing her child to Tay-Sachs disease. This heartbreaking story shares a tremendous, and truthful gift about life with all who read it. Read More →

Potty Training and Parent Pie

A lot of par­ents express that they’re at their wits’ end with potty train­ing. They say they have tried every­thing from rewards and charts, to stick­ers, bribes and pos­i­tive rein­force­ment, and NOTHING has worked!
This is a dif­fi­cult sit­u­a­tion, and not unusual, espe­cially for boys. Read More →

How to Make Your Child's Doctor and Hospital Visits Easier

Going to the hospital for any reason or even just going to the doctor for routine vaccinations — isn’t fun for a child. The experience is filled with many things — lack of power, a shortage of choices, pain, fear, strange people and strange experiences. Your child will be looking at how you react in order to gain the answers to the unasked questions she has. Read More →

Why So Many Parents Have Short Fuses

For me, this summer was all about traveling and moving. Everywhere I went I saw children playing, misbehaving and being corrected by their parents. It didn’t matter if I was in an airport or a rest stop, by the ocean or a river; parents were correcting their children. Normal, right? Read More →

Rude Kids: Getting Better Behavior through Silence

Today is Tall, my eldest’s birthday. Every year I reflect on who he was as a little boy, and who he’s become since going through those early, intense years.

I was being wistful about being the parent of an adult, sniff, sniff, until I remembered the later years. Read More →

Stop, Look, Ask: 3 Tools for Raising Confident Kids

This week as I was searching for a topic to write about, I was reminded of a painful childhood experience. Keep reading; this story will help your parenting, I promise.

There are times when an adult experiences a situation that triggers a feeling buried so deep, it actually feels like a ghost from their past. Read More →

The 3 Secret Benefits of Family Mealtimes

How important is it really for a family to eat dinner together?
And what do other families do at dinnertime?
Recently I was asked to participate in The Blog for Family Dinner Project. I wondered what I, a parent educator who focuses on discipline, could contribute that would honor their tagline “…people who care about food, family, health and the environment and believe that family dinner is a powerful force for good.” Read More →

Instincts We All Have Them

Let me ask you a question, why is okay for women to participate in male bashing, but it’s totally offensive for men to participate in female bashing? Yes, I’m fully aware that women have been oppressed for centuries. Does that fact mean it’s our turn to trash men? Read More →

Moms Are You Getting What You Need?

Recently 200 moms told me that they felt like they weren’t get­ting what they needed. They said, “I love my child, but I have no patience, I feel iso­lated and I’m afraid it will be like this for­ever. Oh and I think the women’s move­ment has failed!
Read More →

Control: Yours, Mine and Ours

When a child has an outburst, tantrum, or feels misunderstood, big feelings appear. When that happens a parent can feel like all eyes are on her and her child. Feelings are messy, loud, and take time to flesh out and resolve. Most parents go right into “control” mode when their child is having an outburst or big feelings. Read More →

The Wild Child

Last night as I was watch­ing one of my favorite shows, it shall remain name­less to pro­tect the inno­cent, one of the char­ac­ters was intro­duc­ing his 6 year-old son to his date and her fam­ily. Let me set the scene. Read More →

Yelling: A Tank full of Attention

Every par­ent wants to head to the hills after a full day of yelling. Par­ents doubt them­selves, their skills, and begin to won­der if their child can coop­er­ate? Before you pack your bags, let me share one pos­si­ble rea­son why you’re being forced to yell, and sug­gest a way to change things. Read More →

How to Turn a Mistake into a Lesson

When a child makes a “big” mis­take most par­ents really want to make sure their child under­stands the grav­ity of the sit­u­a­tion, and right­fully so. Read More →

Forgiveness: Touches 3 Generation

When I write, I keep a small paint­ing of a mother hold­ing a baby on my desk so I’m reminded to remain focused on love. Stay­ing focused on love can be tough, kids do things and par­ents get mad. When anger and reac­tions hap­pen, love can feel very far away. Read More →

4 Minute Way to De-Stress

I think par­ents are stressed and just plain worn out! Many, espe­cially in this econ­omy, are work­ing hard, feel­ing stressed, and can’t make adjust­ments to how many hours a week they work. They arrive home frus­trated, angry, sad and tired. They won­der, “What 
happened to the life… Read More →

Timeout: A Few Changes Makes it Work

Every day, no mat­ter where I am I hear par­ents say, “Stop it now or get a timeout!”

After 18 years of teach­ing par­ent­ing and rais­ing two kids, in my opin­ion, time­out as it’s being used now, doesn’t work well for young chil­dren ages 1–5. (This arti­cle doesn’t apply to safety issues-that’s a whole other topic.) Read More →

I Taught the Kids Not to Listen???

Some­times I when I’m out and about I will see the same sce­nario unfold­ing again and again. I take it as a clue that it might be a good article.

This week I saw par­ents warn­ing until they were blue in the face and the chil­dren still didn’t lis­ten. Read More →

Make the Endless Arguing Stop

Argu­ing can hap­pen any­where, any­time, and at any age. Chil­dren want what they want. They start by demand­ing what they want and when mom says NO, they argue. Mom gets more intense hop­ing it will stop the argu­ing. The child, on the other hand, speaks faster and gets louder to try and get their request in under the wire. Mom reaches the end of her rope and yells, “Stop it right now!” but the argu­ing and nego­ti­at­ing con­tin­ues. A power strug­gle is in full swing. Read More →

Yelling Eliminates Listening

I hear par­ents yelling at their kids every­where I go. I’ll bet you do too. I also hear chil­dren yelling back at their par­ents. It’s a pretty com­mon prob­lem. I know that par­ents are embar­rassed when they real­ize that some­one has heard their child yelling at them. I also know that the par­ents feel help­less to do any­thing about it. It’s such a com­mon prob­lem that I wasn’t shocked when I heard NPR do an inter­view today titled, “Yelling, is it the new spanking?” Read More →

What to Do When Discipline Methods Stop Working

Recently I’ve shifted the way I look at things. As a result, I’m see­ing the world through what feels like fresh eyes. My under­stand­ing of many things and how peo­ple relate to each other has changed. Has that ever hap­pened to you? Read More →

Where Did My Patience Go?

Because your child is growing quickly, nothing remains the same from day to day—nothing except the presence of feelings! Feelings and change are the only constant in parenting.

Feelings are part of life, part of being a child, and definitely part of parenting. Constant changes and feelings tend to emotionally deplete a parent causing them to lose their patience. Read More →