I thought it was an ordinary Tuesday. A day full of hope and promise for fun and learning. A normal day … until I looked at the clock.

One minute the clock is kind – telling us we have plenty of time to get our people ready and out the door for a new day. Suddenly, it changes, almost screaming at us, “Hurry, hurry, hurry. We’re all going to be late!”

There is a missing shoe and cereal spilled on the floor; a stuck backpack zipper and a forgotten math test. I didn’t even hear myself until I was at least 6 words in to a rant about us always being late again and we can’t keep doing this and where in the world was that missing shoe?!?

We did what we always do. We let the dog clean up the cereal, I insisted (rather forcefully) on my youngest switching to a different pair of shoes, and then I started spouting out math facts as I worked on the zipper.

We were getting it done. But none of us were happy. And this was not the way I wanted to send everyone off on their day.

Have you had mornings like this?

A bad morning does not mean a bad day. Here are 8 ways to turn things around.

[Read more…]

Three kids. Two cats. One dog. Zero time to fret about myself and my job, let alone the state of our home.

But fret, I must, if I want a calm, clutter-free home.

My husband and I have three daughters, evenly-aged at twelve, ten, and eight, and a few years ago we found a chore schedule that transformed our household chaos and empowered our kids to make valuable contributions to our home.

I believe that while parents should expect their kids to help around the house, the skills that children gain by performing regular housekeeping tasks are crucial for character development.

Chores help kids become responsible adults. Julie Lythcott-Haims, a former Stanford University dean and author of the recent bestselling book titled How to Raise an Adult: Break Free of the Overparenting Trap and Prepare Your Kid for Success, says in her TED Talk that kids (and parents) should be less obsessed with things like school grades and test scores and more focused on things like love and chores.

“Did I just say chores?” Lythcott-Haims asks her TED audience, and indeed she did because the Harvard Grant Study, one of the longest longitudinal studies ever conducted, found that kids whose parents asked them to perform household duties were more likely to find professional success later in life.

And the earlier they start, the better, Lythcott-Haims argues. Kids need to feel like they are an integral part of the home. Giving them regular, age-appropriate tasks will instill in children a sense of community and shared purpose, a deeper understanding of responsibility, and the “grit” to accomplish a task that might seem daunting.

Curious to know more about how chores can really help our children develop grit and perseverance? We partnered with Julie Lythcott-Haims, Dean of Freshman and Undergraduate Advising at Stanford University, mom and best-selling author, in the Fostering Independence Masterclass, to explore the perils of helicopter parenting and how we can use age-appropriate chores to better raise independent and capable children.

This packed masterclass is one of the 70+ masterclasses you get when you join the AFineParent Academy today. Click here to learn more.

Our family had switched chore strategies faster than our clothes, mostly because one approach was fine for our older daughters but too complicated for our youngest, or another method was too “childish” for our big kids but just right for the littlest.

Before our family found this successful strategy, we had tried magnets-and-fridge chore charts, stickers-and-happy-faces on paper, and plain, old shouting out to anyone within earshot, “Can someone take out the stinky trash, please?!”

Sometimes, our charts were so complicated that even my husband and I couldn’t make heads or tails out of which kid had performed what job. It became so frustrating that I often resorted to doing every chore myself, and most parents know that when one family member is trying to hold everything together, things fall apart.

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A few weeks ago I discovered a wonderful opportunity to take a course that involved traveling from away from home one weekend a month to train in creative writing as a therapist.

Creative writing has been my personal therapy since my angst-filled teenage years and the idea of being able to offer this in a professional capacity to others felt amazing.

My husband was all for me taking a vocational training to further develop my career. My daughter was looking forward to weekends filled with daddy time, TV dinners, and going out for ice cream.

Then, following a conversation with my mum in which she questioned the practicalities of leaving the country on a monthly basis fear kicked in.

Could I really afford it? Would I be able to find a babysitter since I had to leave on the Friday while my husband was still at work? Would my daughter really be okay with me traveling so often?

I started to feel huge anxiety that I would end up with a financial deficit and a disconnected daughter; and that there was something terribly self-indulgent and wrong in me taking all this time and spending all this money on myself.

My husband, and best friend, reassured me it was a good idea, that it would be no big deal making the trip once a month.

I knew rationally it was a good idea. As a Hand in Hand Parenting instructor I’m always telling parents to take care of their own needs; that a happy parent equals a happy child. I also knew it was an investment for the whole family and our future.

So why did I feel like I was being selfish? Why had my initial excitement derailed into guilt and fear?

I needed a reality check so I asked a group of online mothers what they thought about it. [Read more…]

I walk into daycare at the end of the day.

My 2 year-old is at the table, playing with Play-Doh.

Upon seeing me, he holds his little hand out in a “stop” motion.  He shakes his head and says “no no no,” while covering the Play-Doh with his other chubby fingers.

His message is clear.  Mom is here, so that means it’s time to go… but I’m having fun and I want to stay.

That’s okay because I’m in no rush.  I hug my daughter and listen to her chatter about her day.  I gather up jackets and backpacks while talking to our daycare provider.

At some point, my son gets down from the table, grabs his teddy bear, stands in the middle of the room, opens his mouth, and lets out an eardrum-blowing scream.

The kind of scream that rises to an octave so high, I’m pretty sure all the neighborhood dogs will have gathered outside.

Unprompted.  Unexpected.  Happy as a clam just a second ago.

Behaviors like this, especially when they happen often (this is not the first time I’ve heard that blood curdling scream come out of my cute little blonde-headed babe), can be frustrating.

The frustration is there because these behaviors often seem uncalled for.  They are unpredictable and can be time-consuming.  Whether it’s your toddler testing her new found sense of freedom, or an older child who is struggling with something more specific, it can be easy to get swept up in the frustration of the situation and start thinking of them as “problem” behaviors.

We may find ourselves reacting in ways that we are hoping will just stop the behavior on the spot.  We may find ourselves yelling, reprimanding, threatening or picking our kids up and physically removing them from the situation.

Worse yet, we may find ourselves so frustrated by how the behavior has affected our day, that we don’t take the time to look deeper and understand why the behavior exists.

Here’s the rub: All behavior has a reason behind it. 

I am a behavior specialist in a public school system in Maryland.  I have 14 years of experience working with children from 3 to 21 in both the public and nonpublic school realms. I also have an almost unhealthy obsession for keeping up with the latest studies in this field; which comes in handy when it’s time to teach behavior-based trainings.

So I understand this: [Read more…]