It started out as a typical lunch with my five young kids. I had made their favorite macaroni and cheese and was getting ready to dish up when I noticed their typical plates were still in the middle of the dish-washing cycle.

In our family, each child is in charge of washing their dishes in the sink after a meal. They have their own colored plate so it’s easy to see who still needs to do their chore before the next meal. But every now and then I throw them in the dishwasher to make sure they’re really clean.

I used some random plates from the cupboard and happily placed one in front of my 4-year-old.

She lost it.

Refused to eat, argued, screamed, and nonstop requests for her pink plate. She continued to escalate until the plate (and her lunch) went flying all over me and the floor.

After a seemingly endless meltdown, the dishwasher cycle ended and I placed the pink plate in front of her, explaining that I would be happy to get her more lunch but she’d need to help me clean up the mess.

The interesting part?

She kept screaming for her pink plate even though it was right in front of her! Her emotions had completely overridden her logical brain and even her senses. An hour later, I was exhausted and wished there was something I could do to help my children accept change and the unexpected better.

Sound familiar? [Read more…]

How do you handle frustration?

Do you vent to your spouse or a friend? Throw a mini-tantrum (albeit the “grown up” version)? Shut yourself into a bedroom and binge-watch Netflix with a pint of Ben & Jerrys? Punch a pillow? Go for a run? Pour a stiff drink? Meditate or pull out the yoga mat? Shrug it off and just move on?

Even as adults, we all find ourselves in situations that elicit behaviors we believe may help us cope with emotions…some perhaps healthier than others. While our mature minds may be better equipped for handling big emotions, we all still have our slip-ups; those moments we might look back on and realize that our behavior in response to the situation was less than stellar.

So why do we expect so much more from our children; whose neurological connections are still under construction and not yet fully able to process the big emotions that come along with life?

Even when misbehaviors are annoying, inconvenient, and frustrating, they still serve a purpose in development. If handled with empathy, consistency, limit-setting, and love, children can learn what behaviors work for them and what do not–both in getting what they want as well as getting the emotional stability that children crave.

So what’s the secret behind HOW to do this successfully? Well, if you figure out a method that works for every child in the world, please let me know! As with everything else in raising children, there is never a “one-size-fits-all” method.

Many factors can influence behavior, with age and brain development being at the top of the list.

We can take clues from understanding the brain development of a child and what is “age-appropriate” normal behavior to understand how we can effectively guide our kids. [Read more…]

We have all been there. Walking through Target with our toddlers in tow; everything is going well until we have to walk by the toy section.

Your toddler sees a toy he has to have. In my case, it’s a truck. My son wants it and asks for it. Very gently, I tell him that he can’t have a toy today, but it doesn’t seem to matter that I say it kindly and calmly. My son starts reaching out for the toy, whining, and then the tears begin. I can see it written all over his sad little face; he is headed straight for tantrum town.

Here’s the thing about tantrums–sometimes they are absolutely unavoidable. Perhaps I warned my son prior to going into the store that we wouldn’t be getting a toy on that trip. Maybe I even told him we could get one next time; or maybe I made the point of singing his favorite song or starting a game of “I Spy” right as we rounded the toy bin aisle. Yet…the tantrum STILL happened.

It isn’t our job as parents to make sure our toddlers’ lives are always happy and conflict free. In fact, wanting something that they cannot have is necessary for our young ones to learn how to handle disappointment. [Read more…]

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…]