Do you wonder why your child seems to explode with an outburst at the slightest inconvenience?

Tantrums are pretty commonplace in the life of a toddler. One wrong move could set off a sour mood for the rest of the afternoon. If you’ve ever been at the mercy of a toddler’s meltdown, then you’ve probably also found yourself questioning your own emotional maturity. I have definitely experienced this first hand!

After having an especially hectic morning a few weeks ago, I rushed to make my 18-month-old son his lunch. I quickly realized that I had made the fatal error of using the wrong cup for his water, as disappointment sent him into a tailspin of frustrated shrieks.

As he wailed, I mentally reminded myself to take a breath. While exhaling, it hit me that while I realized what was needed to calm myself, my son did not have those tools. He did not yet understand that uncomfortable emotions are just temporary.

That moment was a deciding factor in my mind- I needed to find ways to teach my young child self-regulation. I also knew that the first years of life are vital to emotional development–it’s never too early to start.

Emotional outbursts can happen at any age. The one likely common denominator of emotional outbursts, regardless of age, is that we want to be able to handle them in a productive way for both ourselves and our children.

If we want to provide solutions for our children in having a healthy outlet for their emotions, we must evaluate how self-regulation plays a role in emotional well-being. After all, self-regulation is a skill that we know is especially necessary for the success of our children throughout their school-aged years and adulthood.

Self-regulation refers to the management of our own behaviors, body movements, and emotions. Self-regulation should not be confused with self control which concerns the inhibiting of strong impulses. Self-regulatory skills provide benefit to our overall well being and are necessary for a child’s school-readiness; therefore, we need to be enforcing these practices as early as possible. [Read more…]

As parents, we all need some good quiet time activities up our sleeve to pull out throughout the week—simple activities that will keep the kids engaged, creative, and yes, calm and quiet.

Activities like these come in handy in all sorts of situations and times.

To keep kids quietly engaged…

• When the baby goes down for a nap
• During travel, whether it’s a road trip or plane ride
• When you are in a meeting
• When the kids wake up early on the weekend and you’d rather stay in bed for another half hour
• When you have a friend over

To help with transition times throughout the day and week. A low-key creative activity can do wonders for smoothing over the sometimes difficult transitions that happen throughout the day and week. These can include:

• After school
• Dinner prep hour
• After nap
• Before bed
• After waking up

To help with waiting times at restaurants, coffee shops, or doctor’s offices.

To calm kids, keep the peace, and manage energy swings or potential conflict between kids during playdates or sibling situations. (I always tried to have at least one good quiet-time activity up my sleeve to keep playdates going smoothly when the kids were young).

There are so many times and places where we parents could use quiet-time activities as part of our parenting toolbox! The trick is having some good ones at the ready when we need them so that we don’t resort to screen time yet again (and end up feeling guilty).

I’m going to share my top 10 favorite quiet-time activities for kids. These are creative activities that will engage your kids yet they are simple to set up, they are quiet, and they are low mess. What’s not to like?! Plus most of these activities require minimal explanation or supervision. [Read more…]

What’s wrong with you?

Why are you so naughty?

Why can’t you be more like your sister? The neighbor? A “normal” kid?

If you’re raising a strong-willed child, you’ve most likely asked questions like these, or have watched as your child was being asked these questions by other family members or teachers.

As a parent myself and a play therapist who works with families struggling with their children’s behaviors, I’ve come to learn over the years that parenting in general is a hard job, even when you have an easy-going child. The role of parenting might lead you to say or do some things that you instantly regret, that plague you with guilt day after day.

But dealing with a strong-willed child? That’s an experience that only a small portion of parents get the luxury of experiencing, and if you’re reading this, it means that you’ve very likely won that lottery.

And that you know parenting this child brings a level of emotional and intellectual exhaustion that the typical parent cannot even comprehend (and never truly will). [Read more…]

As a behavior specialist, I am keenly aware of how difficult it is to practice at home what I preach at work.

At work it’s all about positive behavior interventions, proactive coaching, growth mindset, and staying calm in the face of crisis. I get home and some days, I am a model parent. And on others, it all flies out the window. 

I know I’m not alone in this. We all have strengths and weaknesses, and embracing a positive parenting philosophy is often easier said than done. 

But isn’t this where self-reflection and grace come in? 

Our ability to self-reflect on the areas of positive parenting that could benefit from improvement is the first step towards growth. 

The team from AFineParent.com invites all of our amazing readers to start assessing your positive parenting skills by taking our FREE Parenting Skills Quiz. [Read more…]

My daughter used to yell at, throw things at, and chase our cats. Although she never hit them, the behavior she exhibited scared our cats to the point in which they became wary of her. Our Siamese, Scott, would hiss at her when she’d pass by and our Scottish Fold, Opie, avoided her as much as possible.

After deciding that enough was enough, we began working on some strategies to help our daughter treat our pets more kindly. With much hard work, I’m happy to report a tremendous improvement in how my toddler treats our pets. I’ve also noticed that our cats have gotten used to her and Opie even tolerates my daughter’s playful petting and antics.

As amazing as it is to see our three-year-old be kinder and more gentle to our pets, getting to this point was not a walk in the park. These lessons took countless hours, weeks, and months of warnings and reminders. It was frustrating at times, but also a valuable lesson for me as a parent on how to encourage my toddler to listen to me without yelling.

While it wasn’t easy teaching our daughter how to be kind to our cats, it was a necessary lesson as our pets were around long before she was! In addition to the necessity, learning empathy and kindness towards animals opened the door for continuing to own pets and added some amazing benefits and positive side effects. [Read more…]