With Valentine’s Day always comes lots of talk about love. I love you, Mommy. I love my teacher. I love chocolate. I love making Valentines. Kids are exposed to the word the moment the cord is cut in the delivery room. And it is reinforced and expanded over and over throughout their growing years Daddy loves you. See you after school…remember, I love you. But truth be told, love is a complicated concept. It’s just not as easy as it sounds. When I work with parents who are separating … [Read more...] about What’s Love Got To Do With It?
Parenting
Should Baby Read?
I heard a radio advertisement this week for a DVD , Your Baby Can Read, or some name like that. Needless to say, it grabbed my attention. This program promises to teach your toddler, even infant, to read. A mother of a three year old claimed that she had been using it for a year, and now her child was reading on a third grade level. Please save me from being sick! It took everything in my body not to drive off the road…as I seethed. Why on earth does anyone want her toddler (or infant) … [Read more...] about Should Baby Read?
Backseat Battlefield
It’s not likely that your car arrived factory equipped with a chauffeur’s screen, the one you flip up at the touch of a button. So, what the heck is a parent to do when the kids’ fighting in the back seat drives you nuts. To your kids, the back seat of a car is home sweet home. Just like they misbehave more, when they are at home, so do they squabble more in the car. ..when you are there! I am quite sure that your fellow carpool driver never complains that your child bickers with the other … [Read more...] about Backseat Battlefield
Talking to Children About Haiti
There is no debate that the disaster in Haiti is just that, a disaster. But there are differing opinions about whether young children should be exposed to this news. While I suggest that you have a look at chapter 11 (Is the Fire Going to Come to Our House?" Answering questinos about Natural Disasters, Terrorism, and War) in my book, Just Tell me What to Say, I offer a few pointers in the meantime. Of course it is wholly up to you whether and what you tell your children about the … [Read more...] about Talking to Children About Haiti
Lousy Local Conditions
While I cannot take credit for inventing the expression, "lousy local conditions," I use it all the time. It’s just so right-on-the-button. Lousy Local Conditions refers to those times when a child’s less than perfect behaviors are magnified or even created by the conditions of his environment. Children who went to sleep late or work up too early, who have missed a nap or a meal, who have been dragged on too many errands, who have attended one birthday party too many, will reflect those … [Read more...] about Lousy Local Conditions
Cultivating a Love of Books and Reading
Home is the first school house. And children’s attitudes about books and reading begin at home at the earliest ages. Pretty much all children start out loving books. Young children display their love of books in all kinds of ways: piling them high to make towers; pulling them off the shelf; carrying them around in a wheel barrow; organizing them according to size, color, shape; turning the pages, or just chewing on them! All of these are early ways of experiencing books. Most children … [Read more...] about Cultivating a Love of Books and Reading