A Fine Parent

A Life Skills Blog Exclusively For Parents

How To Be a Good Parent Through Dedicated “Lazy Parenting”

by .
(This article is part of the Simplify Life series. Get free article updates here.)

How to be a good parent through dedicated lazy parenting - main posterLet’s face it, parenting today takes work.

Something’s gotta give. We’re trying to do too much with our kids, too soon, too often.

By today’s impossible standards of how to be a good parent, I’m a complete failure. I love my daughter, and enjoy our time together, but at heart, I’m a lazy parent. Which is why you’ll never catch me:

  • following my toddler around on the playground
  • trying to cajole her into eating dinner
  • spending every waking minute fixated on her

I accept, and embrace, that she’s an individual. As an individual, she deserves the opportunity to make her own choices, solve problems for herself, and build awareness of her unique interests.

Which is why I’ve dedicated myself to be as lazy as possible, as often as possible, when it comes to parenting my child. I’ve embraced “lazy parenting” with all my heart.

Don’t misunderstand — I’m not negligent, or uncaring. My daughter’s not walking through broken glass barefoot or watching seven hours of SpongeBob a day.

We just try to avoid extremes. There’s no lengthy list of activities we participate in, no major demands we feel the obligation to meet. If we’re interested in something, we explore it; if not, we move on.

Rarely experiencing a #parentingfail feels great!

So, what does lazy parenting look like?

[Read more…]

A Simple 10-Minute Routine That Will Make You a More Mindful Parent

by .
(This article is part of the Mindful Parenting series. Get free article updates here.)

how to be more mindful - MainWe recently had another family over for dinner when my three-year-old decided to pass around her latest “art project” – a piece of construction paper that was supposed to resemble a fruit roll-up.

One by one, our guests put down their forks and politely examined her art, praised it, even pretended to eat it.

Why is it so wet? I asked when it was my turn.

I dipped it in the toilet, she whispered.

I probably should have leapt right into action, hauled our industrial-sized tank of hand sanitizer up from the basement.

But I just sat there, toilet water dripping from my hands, the writer-in-me already imagining what a great story this was going to make.

Writing Makes Us More Mindful

When Sumitha invited me to write a guest post for this site, I was immediately filled with existential angst. I’ve always found the articles on this blog to be enormously helpful, but poets aren’t exactly known for offering highly practical or actionable advice.

[Read more…]

How to Deal With the Never Ending Questions from Your Kids

by .
(This article is part of the Positive Parenting FAQ series. Get free article updates here.)

Inquisitive Kids - MainWe all know that children are naturally inquisitive. We also know their inquiry sometimes manifests itself in annoying ways or at inopportune times, “Are we there yet?” or “Is that lady having a baby?” being among the most common examples.

Our culture inundates us with examples of parents losing their cool with inquiring youngsters, from Al Bundy to Homer Simpson. In malls and grocery stores across the country, mothers and fathers are telling their little ones to stop asking, be quiet, or shut up.

In so doing though, they run the risk of stifling their children’s curious nature, which could hamper learning and close the door on possible futures at a very early age.

How to Respond to Questions You Can Answer

When our little (or not so little) ones ask us questions, we are presented with an opportunity to explain the world to them. Kneel down so you can be eye-to-eye and discuss dinosaurs or stars, or which bugs hide under rocks or why we have belly buttons, but the doll doesn’t. If you’re driving, turn down the radio (you’ll hear the song again) and address the question.

[Read more…]

How to Positively Nurture Your Child’s Competitive Spirit

by .
(This article is part of the Positive Parenting FAQ series. Get free article updates here.)

How to Positively Nurture Your Child's Competitive SpiritWe live in a world where sports and competitiveness are all around us and it often starts at a young age.

Think about your family: How much time is spent going to and from practices and games with your kid(s)? How much time do you spend watching or following sports and cheering on your favorite teams?

Though early sport involvement is usually about having fun and developing sport skills, it doesn’t take long for participation to become competitive (and time consuming).

If you head to your local park or sporting field on the weekend, you can likely find little kids (as young as 3 and 4) involved in team sports, with parents on the sideline cheering for their child and his or her team. Parents, coaches and kids cheer when goals are made and points are earned; high fives, hugs and congratulations are given to the winners and with good sportsmanship, hopefully there is respect for the “losers.”

Is all this competition at such an early age good for our kids? The jury is still out on this. And we’re not going to get to the bottom of that argument anytime soon.

In the meantime, though, competition continues to be a prevalent part of the fabric of our everyday lives.

What can we parents do?

For one, we can ensure that our response to it all does not unintentionally encourage a fixed mindset instead of a growth mindset.

What Do We Mean by “Fixed” and “Growth” Mindset?

[Read more…]

100 Self-Care Ideas That Will Fit Easily in Your Busy Schedule

by .
(This article is part of the Self Awareness series. Get free article updates here.)

100 Self Care Ideas

You have to take good care of yourself first if you want to take good care of others – all of us here know that, right?

And yet, we parents are the worst offenders when it comes to breaking this basic, fairly intuitive rule.

A couple of weeks ago, I was at my breaking point. Within the past few months, I have graduated from college, lost my grandmother, remodeled our kitchen and moved my mother-in-law in with us due to health issues, all while raising 3 energetic boys (who are great kids, but can bicker, brawl and in general drive me up the wall like any normal kids) and working as a freelance writer.

No big deal…most parents have a few balls in the air at any given time as we juggle whatever life throws at us, right?

Here’s the thing though. While I did get all these things done, I was noticing that I was starting to lack in terms of patience and then starting to reel from feelings of utter exhaustion and depletion.

At first, for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why I was feeling that way. Then it hit me. I had spent zero time on myself for months on end.

Knowing that we need to take care of ourselves as an abstract concept is one thing. Being able to actually fit that into our tight schedules is quite another.

So, I decided to sit down and make a list of all the different ways we busy parents can fit self-care into our schedules (it’s a good thing I’m a writer and can kill two birds with one stone :)) What I ended up with is this monster list of 100 different self-care ideas.

Take a look. I’m sure there are a few you can work into your life no matter how busy it is at the moment.

OK, here we go:

[Read more…]