Posts Tagged "anger"

“Mommy, why are you crying?”

“Mommy, why are you crying?”

When it comes to expressing emotions in front of your child, how much is too much? Recently, a parent asked about expressing strong emotions like sadness or anger. She's going through a rough time in her life, and was worried that she was crying in front of her child too often. She is also arguing with her husband a lot, and she wondered if I thought parents should limit those kinds of...

Read More

Pranks Aren’t All Bad

Pranks Aren’t All Bad

Some people love pranks and others hate them. Mixed feelings are common. How should you respond? I overheard some parents talking about their middle school daughters playing pranks on strangers like ringing the doorbell and running away, and making prank phone calls. The parents didn't want to come down too hard on them for fear that the girls would turn to something worse, and were wondering if...

Read More

Boundary Trouble?

Boundary Trouble?

All boundaries are not equal. Here are three types: Natural boundaries:   "Fire is not for touching, because you will get burned."   "Poison ivy is not for picking, because your skin will blister and itch."   "Baby sister is not for shaking, because that will hurt her brain."   Social boundaries:   "Clothing is worn in public, because your body is private."   ...

Read More

Ending Reactive Parenting

Ending Reactive Parenting

Ever feel like you are stuck in a cycle of negativity? A mom of two young children was, and she expressed her frustration in the comments of one of Rachel Macy Stafford's Hands Free Mama blog posts The Manager in My Home & the Five Words that Changed Everything. Thanks to a standing invitation from Rachel to assist her readers and share our public dialogs, I was able to offer this mom an...

Read More

Easy Brain Hack: Reversing Guilt

Easy Brain Hack: Reversing Guilt

Yesterday morning, my mom and I were talking about the phrase "I should have known..."   It's a family story, full of self-blame, passed down and shared between and within generations. The main problem with this phrase is that it implies that you're somehow wrong for not knowing something. Think about that a minute. At any moment, you either know something or you don't. That's just the nature...

Read More