Parenting: Say What You See™
Everything In Its Place
“My 11-year old just isn’t responsible. He leaves his socks on the floor and doesn’t put away my tools after borrowing them. How do I find responsibility in that?” When this came up in a recent class, Eva took the challenge. “Well, let’s look. Does he ever do anything responsible like feeding the cat?” Right on cue, Mom said, “Actually he does. He...
Read MoreUnraveling Tension
What do you do when something just has to get done, and you and your child get all knotted up over it? Dr. Lawrence Cohen, author of Playful Parenting and co-author of The Art of Roughhousing, suggests this, reprinted from his newsletter with permission. His analogy of an actual “knot” helps you unravel the tension. The Knot of Tension A Knot of Tension is a set of distressing...
Read MoreDanger Spotter Plus
Want a quick way to empower timid or worried children? In a conversation where I was pointing out Eva‘s son’s ability to spot danger, he came up with the title “danger spotter!” Kids love this. They take pride in their danger spotter abilities, and no longer consider being cautious or careful a weaknesses. However, I recently saw the other side. I was playing with a...
Read MoreBully-proofing with STRENGTHs
Even big kids get picked on. A 10-year old boy recently told me about his embarrassment when a smaller boy threw something and hit him. At first he said, “Stop that! It hurts!” But when another boy said, “That shouldn’t hurt you. He’s smaller than you!” he didn’t know what to do except walk away. As expected, they laughed. What can you tell a child that...
Read MoreSeeing Kids With “New Eyes”
A first-grader gets overwrought at a school party and starts to have a melt-down. Instead of telling her to settle down, the teacher says, “Seems like you’ve had enough. If you’d like, you can hide under the table with me for a little while.” According to the parent who shared this with me, it only took a couple of minutes of hiding before the child was ready to rejoin the...
Read MoreNPR – What’s Behind A Temper Tantrum?
In an NPR interview this week, researchers James A. Green and Michael Potegal revealed their findings about the patterns of children’s temper tantrums. By studying audio recordings of over 100 toddler tantrums, Green, Potegal and Pamela Whitney found that the old idea that tantrums have two distinct stages, anger then sadness, was incorrect. Instead they found the two overlap: sadness continues...
Read MoreSay What You See Book
