Blog - A Fine Parent

What To Do When Your Child Lies

by Sumitha Bhandarkar.
(This article is part of the Discipline, Wisdom From the Trenches series. Get free article updates here.)

[This article is a part of our Wisdom From the Trenches series]

Have your kids ever looked you straight in the eye and lied?

Lately, my daughter has started doing that. Try as I might to not overreact, it still brings out all kinds of negative emotions in me.

A sense of betrayal… How could she lie to me?

Insecurities… What am I doing wrong that she feels the need to lie?

Worry… Will she ever stop lying? Will we ever have a trusting relationship?

Fear… What if she gets in real trouble someday and lies to me about it and I can’t help her?

And on and on my mind races.

I spoke to a few friends about this, and quickly a couple of things became very clear –
[Read more…]

Why We Give Up, And 3 Simple Tricks to Change Behavior (Backed by Science)

by Sumitha Bhandarkar.
(This article is part of the Community Challenge series. Get free article updates here.)

Have you ever gotten totally pumped about changing some behavior, got started with a lot of enthusiasm and then pffffffffft… the whole thing just quietly fizzled out?

Maybe it was a health/fitness goal.

Maybe it was a career objective.

Maybe it was the way you want to parent.

Whatever it was, it started with a bang, but like a balloon that is not knotted up tight enough, it slowly lost wind and went limp.

Well, you’re not alone. As it turns out, there’s a scientifically proven reason for why we give up. By becoming aware of it, we can trick ourselves into changing any behavior rather effortlessly.

But First, a Little Bit of the Back Story…

About 5 weeks back we started the Discipline Without Drama community challenge on this blog. It started with a bang. So many of you enthusiastically dived into it that my whole month’s video bandwidth was blown away in just 1 day and I had to scramble to keep streaming the videos uninterrupted!

As we progressed through the challenge though, I noticed the ‘balloon losing wind’ effect.

It gave me an eerie feeling of New Years Day in June… research shows that 88% of the New Year’s Resolutions end in failure.

I started digging into psychology studies to understand what causes us to give up even though we really want to change something. Why do we dive into something with so much enthusiasm, only to abandon it in a few days? (I have a few other reasons to be so interested in this question, but that’s a whole other blog post… 😉 )

What I found out is very intriguing. At the core of all failed attempts to change behavior is [Read more…]

Quick Note…

by Announcements & Such.
(This article is part of the Updates & Announcements series. Get free article updates here.)

The A Fine Parent community is currently taking on the Discipline Without Drama community challenge. We won’t be having regular blog posts during the challenge period. We’ll return to regular posts on June 16th.

In the meantime, please feel free to look through the archives or click below to take the challenge with us!

Frustrated About Discipline? It’s Time to Fix It, Once and For All…

by Sumitha Bhandarkar.
(This article is part of the Community Challenge series. Get free article updates here.)

Love kids, hate discipline? You know, every parent I know loves good behavior, but hates discipline.

How about you?

Do you love your little angels, but hate the drama and the stress that inevitably bubbles up when they misbehave and you are the one with the unenviable task of setting them straight?

What if we could keep the good behavior, but eliminate the stress and drama associated with discipline?

It’s not a wild-eyed fantasy or a pipe dream. If you are a part of our A Fine Parent Community for long enough, you know we’re all about research-backed, practical action-taking.

What say, we apply that same spirit to discipline?

Feel up for a little challenge?

Introducing Project: Discipline Without Drama

[Read more…]

The Orphan, the Millionaire and the Secret to Becoming a Great Parent

by guest_author.
(This article is part of the Inspiring Stories series. Get free article updates here.)

(This article is a part of our series on Inspiring Stories)

She lay in the hospital bed exhausted. She was 17 years old and had just given birth to a baby.

Normally, the delivery rooms of Mercy Hospital are filled with joy and celebration. On the day that Josh Shipp was born however, the tears streaming down his mother’s cheeks weren’t those of joy.

What had started out as an exciting prom night had turned into a sobering ordeal of teen-pregnancy, and lying there on that hospital bed, Josh’s mother had a critical decision to make.

She decided she wasn’t ready to take on the responsibility of raising a baby.

And just like that, Josh became an Orphan.

At the tender age of a newborn infant, he entered the foster care system – one of the 115,000 children in America waiting for adoption.

Except, in Josh’s case, adoption never quite happened.
[Read more…]