I still remember getting my first perm in middle school and smiling from ear to ear when the most popular girl in the school touched my hair and told me it “looked great.” That compliment felt like a rite of passage, at an age where acceptance was constantly sought out by most girls–even at the cost of meanness.

Once I started playing sports, I found a group of girls that were supportive and caring, many of whom I still keep in touch with today. But even while my team gave a sense of belonging, I still witnessed how very real the mean girl problem was. As I look at my young daughter, so devoted and loving to her friends and peers, I can’t help but cringe at the thought of her eventual experience with the mean girl problem.

The National Center for Education Statistics reported in 2019 that an average of 22 percent of students ages 12 to 18 reported being bullied, with girls reporting significantly higher (25.5%) than boys (19.1%). 

Studies show that bullying can occur amongst any gender, race, socio-economic class, and even age (Do you know a bully in adulthood? Yeah, me too). We also know that there is importance in understanding the role that gender stereotypes play in bullying. Gender identity can impact how children adapt and interact with their peers; gender stereotypes can influence bullying as they impact the socialization of children into gender roles. 

Yes, even in 2021, young boys are still socialized to be strong and independent, while females are socialized to be sensitive and understanding. Children who don’t act according to their expected gender roles are at higher risk of bullying by their peers. [Read more…]

The pandemic has likely forced most of us to experience the disappointment of plans being cancelled left, right and center. For my family, it seemed all the more special when our first holiday in two years actually went ahead. It was great to have a much-needed change of scenery and an opportunity to try new things. But there were some challenging moments, mainly in the form of hard-to-watch, hard-to-hear meltdowns!

As a mother of six-year-old twins, I had hoped that the tantrums of a two-year-old were behind us. But this holiday shone a light on how my more strong-willed daughter was finding it increasingly difficult to calm down. 

My daughter’s explosions appeared to come out of nowhere and I struggled to balance the needs of both girls. My well-meaning parents provided side-line commentary on how I was ‘too soft’ on my explosive child, that it wasn’t fair on my other daughter, and I would never have behaved like this when I was her age.

In my professional life, I work with children to help them cope with life’s ups and downs. As founder of Happy Kids Coach® I am very familiar with dealing with big emotions, but when it came to my own daughter, I was finding things much tougher than normal. Her reactions triggered me in a way only your own child can! 

At a bit of a loss, I became a member of the AFineParent Academy and found Dr. Ross Greene’s “Collaborative and Proactive Solutions Masterclass.” His messages really resonated with me, and I was inspired to order a copy of his book, “The Explosive Child.”  [Read more…]

I was a shy kid growing up, evidenced by hilarious home videos at gymnastics or Easter egg hunts, where I would walk hesitantly from station to station or gingerly stroll as I collected a grand total of two eggs. 

While most of the other kids were going wild, being adventurous, and jumping into the action without a care in the world, I preferred to hang near my parents. I would stick close to a comfort person while I assessed the situation and in large groups, I would rather listen than be the one to chime in. I can still be like that now as an adult (although I have, thankfully, long stopped clinging to my parents’ legs).

I still remember situations throughout childhood in which I would overhear other parents say, “Ohh, is she shy?” their voices dripping with sympathy or pity. Every part of my insides would cringe and I would want to disappear.

Fast forward to the present and I now have a two-and-a-half-year-old son who reminds me of the same child I was, clinging to my parent’s leg. He hangs out by my side at birthday parties to assess the situation before jumping in to play with the other kids. As he navigates a playground, I can see him assessing the ins and outs of each slide before taking the dive down. 

[Read more…]

Little kids are naturally creative in ways that we may all wish we still were as adults. The young imagination can create games out of thin air: toys come alive to perform rescue operations of the downtrodden or to live their best life in Malibu.

When my son and daughter were little, I loved to watch them explore how his action figures could go on adventures with her Barbies. Their toys would be swimming in a pool one minute, then saving the world the next, each adventure building upon the one before.

A whole new world of creative play opened up for them as their toys became not only a door to the pretend world, but also a tool to interact with each other in a way that challenged their imaginations. Watching them create story lines and themes almost felt like having a front-row viewing of the exploding growth of their young brains.

But as my kids got older, I witnessed self-doubt make its inevitable invasion as they began to compare themselves to other kids and formulate ideas about what is “normal.” Free play and unrestricted creativity gave way to self-consciousness and wanting to do things the “right way.”

Here’s the thing about creativity and children: as parents, we have the ability to encourage a free-spirited nature even as our children mature and learn more about the world around them. Creativity is important because it opens the door for so many other skills that will benefit our kids as they get older. [Read more…]

Our children all have days when their whole world seems to be falling apart. Is the universe really going up in smoke? Probably not, but our children may need a lot of help to see that.

When my daughter was in kindergarten, she suddenly began to make negative comments about herself and her abilities. She would often say, “I’m not good at coloring” and “sports are hard for me,” indicating that she had low self-esteem.

The overwhelming transition into the world of elementary school left her struggling to make friends and made her quick to compare her abilities to those of her peers. I noticed she would make comments about how other students performed on tasks as compared to herself, and as time moved on, these comments spiraled into negative self-talk.

At a young age, she was already feeling insecure. This saddened me but I was eager to do everything I could to help her. I knew that her skills were not inadequate, yet her brain was tricking her with suggestions of inferiority and inadequacy. To my daughter, it felt like her inferiority was very real!

What is negative self-talk and why does it happen? We ALL experience self-talk or the inner monologue of that internal voice that tells us to eat the cookie or to go out for a run. Self-talk is most often constructive to our well-being and can be a positive way to process what is happening around us and to guide us through a task.

At times, however, self-talk can become critical. While intermittent critical self-talk is not necessarily cause for concern, when we observe our children engage in frequent negative self-talk we may feel some worry creep in. [Read more…]