Posts Tagged "“playful parenting”"
Undoing Harsh Words
For a number of years, I assisted Rachel Macy Stafford with replies to readers' comments on her powerful HandsFreeMama blog. Rachel's posts are deeply moving and motivational accounts of real-life moments with her daughters and evoke an outpouring of emotional responses like this one from the mother of a 4-year-old who was struggling to find her patience. This reader's comment and my reply are...
Read MoreOvercoming Fear Of Needles
In the April 2014 issue of the Playful Parenting Newsletter, Dr. Lawrence Cohen included a powerful story from a mom in California. Her story, reprinted here with Dr. Cohen's permission, demonstrates what can be achieved when you trust your child to direct his or her play. When put in the lead, children set exactly the right level of challenge for growth. "My 7-year-old son L. needed to get his...
Read MoreBigger, Better, Faster
What to do for the child who always has to be better than his/her siblings? Needing to be "better than" is another version of a child's need to win. Dr. Lawrence Cohen, author of Playful Parenting and co-author of The Art of Roughhousing, provides a playful yet effective way to fill this need in a Q&A reprinted from his newsletter with permission: Q & A: I need some good play to help my...
Read MoreBedtime Brilliance
The seeds of listening were planted long ago. My daughter Betsy at age 23, and the children she worked with reaped the rewards. For example, Betsy was babysitting one weekend for three children: 5-year-old Adele, 3-year-old Sam and 18-month-old Jimmy (names are changed). When bedtime came around, they all had separate rooms, so with Jimmy on her hip, she got Adele settled first. Sam was...
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...
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