What Does Your Child Want to Be?
We all remember that boring, uncomfortable question from our childhood: “What do you want to be when you grow up?” At first it was easy. You said “Fireman” or “Mommy” or “Astronaut” and your parents and/or their friends and...
No, There Isn’t a Trophy Just For Showing Up
We live in an “entitled” society. Gone are the days of working for what you have. Earning a reward seems to be a foreign concept in a world where people don’t seem to understand the word “no.”
Perhaps as a...
How to Get Your Kids Hooked on Fishing
When you’re passionate about fishing, there’s only one thing that can make a lazy afternoon out on the water better – spending that afternoon with your kids.
You might remember the first time your dad or grandpa took you out...
Help Your Child Build Healthy Reward Pathways
When you reward bad behavior, you literally wire your child’s brain to repeat the bad behavior. No parent intends to do that, but it happens so easily. When you know how, you will reward only good behavior, and give...
Parenting By Yourself? Still No Excuse for Messing Up Your Kids
Given that eleven million American families are headed by a single parent, it’s hard to stand behind the idea that, somehow, these kids are destined for trouble.
What matters is not how many parents you have, but what kind of...
Raising Resilience – Parenting Tips that Go the Distance
Every loving parent wants childhood to be a positive experience for their kids. When it comes to parenting however, only focusing on the positive is problematic because it derails children’s ability to develop resilience. Resilience, the ability to bounce...
Is My Teen ‘Normal’ Crazy or Seriously Troubled?
Many teenagers go through a rebellious or irrational phase that is normal for their age. The difference between normal teen craziness and abnormal behavior is when the teenager falls behind his or her peers in multiple settings.
At a bare minimum, a normal teen should...
Want Your Kids to Listen?
3 Ninja Mom Tricks for Reducing Yelling and Getting Your Kids to Listen the First Time!
Most parents I know feel like their kids don’t listen to them, at least not the first, second, or third time they ask them...
Should You Let Your Daughters Color Their Hair
There may come a day when your daughter asks to change the color of her hair. Be forewarned that this might inspire feelings of shock and sadness in the very core of your being. After all, you created this...
7 Calming Techniques for Children
When most people think of anxiety, they picture how it effects adults and possibly themselves. For a long time, anxiety was thought to only be an issue adults faced. Did you know children experience anxiety too?
Even if your child...
Little Children, Headache; Big Children, Heartache
This old proverb exists for a reason, because it’s absolutely true! Of course not every little child is a headache, nor is every big child a heartache. By this I mean, not all babies, toddlers, and grade school children whine, cry, complain, never sleep, and destroy your house on...
Swearing and Teens – What Can you Do About It?
If you have a teenager, then chances are you have probably noticed that the routine day-to-day jargon of teens has changed over the years to include quite a bit of foul language. Facebook posts, tweets, and text messages among the teen population tend to also include quite a bit...
Kicking Your Teenager Out – Dealing with Unacceptable Behaviour
I am not a strong advocate of booting kids from the home. While there is some behaviors that may warrant kicking your teenager out, this is not something that should ever be entered into lightly, or without great consideration for the consequences. When we have children we bring them...
