A Fine Parent

It was dinner time and I called out to my 11-year-old daughter. When she did not respond, I wandered to her room to find her completely engrossed in Roblox with her friends.

I looked at her with dismay. Should I have been monitoring her more closely? What had she been doing online? Should I cut off her internet access completely?

A flood of fears coursed through my head and I grabbed her phone. “Mom!” she yelled as I walked off with her phone, triumphant in my protective instinct.

My daughter didn’t speak to me that night and got up grumpy the next day as well. I handed her phone back to her for her online classes but kept hovering around to see what she was doing. “I have to keep her safe!” I thought. After two days of buzzing around my daughter like a helicopter parent, I realized that something’s got to give.

How do I know I’m even on the right track, taking her phone from her? Was it okay for her to use the phone unsupervised… Or was I being a dragon mom? What about the predators waiting for my daughter to come online? How could I ignore the news that told me to watch out for online dangers?

I felt confused and upset. There had to be a way to avoid becoming the technophobic parent that I was turning into. If you feel worried and worked up when your child is online, you are not alone. Read on for 6 simple ways to avoid technophobia and make technology your friend. [Read More…]

Have you been racking your brain on how to raise a highly sensitive child? I know from personal experience that it is not a walk in the park!  

Picture this: 

You receive a luxurious dinnerware set as a birthday gift. Very posh, delicate, pricey, and exquisite. As you unwrap it, four words on the box stick out – “Fragile, handle with care.” You absolutely love the gift and can’t wait to dine with it. But you also know that those four words are not hogwash. You must take them seriously for the longevity of your gift. 

This is the exact feeling I get every day as I raise my highly sensitive daughter. She is undoubtedly a precious gift in our family. She blows my mind with her empathetic nature and extraordinary abilities. But she guards a very brittle heart. Over time, I have realized that I need to nurture her with a little more caution.

Highly sensitive children (HSC) have a highly perceptive nervous system. They take in more sensory information and process it more intensely. They are therefore more prone to stress and anxiety. They do not adapt to change easily and may wince at the slightest physical pain. On the flip side, they are loving, empathetic, intuitive, and gifted–both intellectually and creatively. [Read More…]

My ex-wife, our teenage son and I were sitting at a table in an airport café. He was telling her about our summer holiday with my parents.

“Why are you so well-behaved?” she said suddenly. “I mean, you’re a teenager! Shouldn’t you be more rebellious?”

Our son pondered the question.

“Do you know what it is?” he said. “I actually think your rules are fair. And if there’s a rule I don’t think is fair, I know I can talk to you about it and you’ll listen.”

His mother and I exchanged a glance. We were delighted, of course, but this had been our intention from the beginning. We wanted our parenting to be fair.

Still…wanting something and achieving it are two different things.

Do you find it challenging to achieve fairness in parenting? Does your child find your parenting fair? And do you and your partner agree on what fairness is?

Rest assured, you are not alone! [Read More…]

It’s one of those nights.

The kind of nights where my toddler does not want to go to bed and has made this abundantly clear by his squirms and whines and protests as I try to change his diaper and put on his pajamas.

He doesn’t want to listen to Mommy. He’s tired of her telling him what to do. And frankly, I don’t blame him.

Toddlers live in a world where they are constantly told “No,” what to do, and how to behave all day, every day. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that this would get tiring for them; resisting is often just an attempt to insert some independence!

So what do I do? Instead of yelling and persisting full steam ahead, I take a pause and then pick up his little pajama top and try a different tactic.

“Hmmm… does this go on your knee?”

He stops and stares at me.

“Nooo, does it go on your feet?”

He starts to giggle.

“Nope, not there. Hmm. Silly Mommy. Where does it go? I need your help!”

Just like that, my toddler’s confidence has been raised a notch and he starts to help. He feels smart and in charge. And I, playing the fool, have him just where I want him. [Read More…]

Once, as I stepped up to speak with a group of parents, the woman in charge introduced me with these words: “Here’s Jill, the Anger Mom.”

I thought, there are titles I’d rather be labeled. Pastor and change expert. Lord of the Rings fanatic. Generic “writer and speaker.” I’d take Crazy Cat Lady over “Anger Mom.” It wouldn’t be wrong.

“Anger Mom,” though, is what I’ve become to a couple generations of parents needing someone who’s walked the journey from angry parent to peaceful home. It’s the most popular topic chosen from my speaking list. I believe that’s because none of us ever expected to turn into that parent. [Read More…]