The cycle of difficult and challenging things happens in our communities and in our country on a regular basis. Be that natural disasters, political upheaval or personal tragedies. Many of these events may bring up big feelings for your children and emotional responses for the adults in your family.
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Welcoming a new child is an exciting time for parents and it can be stressful for older siblings. I have a few suggestions for families to help ease the transition and to help set up a loving dynamic between older sibling and the new baby.
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We want to give our children everything. But is that a good thing?
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We all want our children to be happy. But, how do you teach or encourage our children to be happy?
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The sudden seeming changes that come with puberty may trigger worries for kids and teens about their looks and how their bodies have changed and continue to change as they grow.
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The New York Times wrote about a small study that found giving kids a two-minute warning before turning off screen time created more turmoil and power struggles between parent and child.
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Many times throughout the year, our sleep routines change like during holiday times and summer vacation. While it’s wonderful to sleep in on the weekends and during breaks from school, it is better sleep hygiene to keep a constant sleep schedule.
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The death of a loved one can be very difficult for a child or a teenager to fully understand. Parents and other important adults often struggle to find the right language and tone in discussing death, since the adult is also deep in his or her own grieving process.
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What do you tell your child when a close family member is seriously ill? What do you say to your daughter when she has just received a cancer diagnosis? Navigating the emotional minefield of the medical system is hard enough as an adult — how can we best explain it all to kids?
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We use praise to help bolster our child’s self esteem. But what we often do is end up rescuing them from the uncomfortable and necessary failures and disappointments in life. Kids need to know that failure is not something to be feared. They need to learn to struggle and work through challenging situations in order to build a healthy frustration tolerance.
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In this post-Covid time, iIt seems as though our lives are now lived in two places, the online world and the physical world. It is amazing to have so much information at our fingertips. I strongly recommend that families make sure parental controls are on all your devices.
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Family life can be so busy and it is easy to slip into a hurried and/or harried state. I hope some information about the concept of equanimity (much of which comes from the writings of Shizen Young) will help guide you through the ups and downs of the packed weekly routine. Equanimity comes from the Latin word aequus, meaning balanced and animus meaning spirit or international state. In the physical world we say a person has lost balance if they fall to one side or another.
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Children by their very nature are both fragile and resilient at the same time. To help prevent or minimize both big and small traumas of childhood, it is important for the adults to be calm.
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Some people will want to bring their children along as they march in protest. In some families, teenagers will want to attend the protests without parental supervision. Here are some suggestions to help keep everyone safe.
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Suggestions on how to add mindful practices to family life.
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One way to be with a difficult or challenging experience or mind state is to focus attention on something visual. Using an object that changes over time can help settle a difficult emotion or experience. A glitter jar is a great tool to help kids and adults calm down and it’s a fun family project.
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My husband likes to roughhouse with our 3-year-old daughter and 5-year-old son. Their play is often quite physical and I hear lots of “No Daddy, don’t tickle me,” and “Daddy, stop. I don’t like that.” But in the midst of play, my husband continues to tickle and wrestle with our kids to the point the kids often come crying to me. I
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I want to get your advice on the right time to tell my daughter that my boyfriend is not her real dad.
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I want to say I love my kids. They are funny, smart and most of the time I absolutely adore them. But I am so happy they are going back to school. It’s been a long summer with too much family time and I am ready for a break. The problem is that I feel guilty for wanting them to be in school all day.
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