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Have you been racking your brain on how to raise a highly sensitive child? I know from personal experience that it is not a walk in the park!  

Picture this: 

You receive a luxurious dinnerware set as a birthday gift. Very posh, delicate, pricey, and exquisite. As you unwrap it, four words on the box stick out – “Fragile, handle with care.” You absolutely love the gift and can’t wait to dine with it. But you also know that those four words are not hogwash. You must take them seriously for the longevity of your gift. 

This is the exact feeling I get every day as I raise my highly sensitive daughter. She is undoubtedly a precious gift in our family. She blows my mind with her empathetic nature and extraordinary abilities. But she guards a very brittle heart. Over time, I have realized that I need to nurture her with a little more caution.

Highly sensitive children (HSC) have a highly perceptive nervous system. They take in more sensory information and process it more intensely. They are therefore more prone to stress and anxiety. They do not adapt to change easily and may wince at the slightest physical pain. On the flip side, they are loving, empathetic, intuitive, and gifted–both intellectually and creatively. [Read more…]

My ex-wife, our teenage son and I were sitting at a table in an airport café. He was telling her about our summer holiday with my parents.

“Why are you so well-behaved?” she said suddenly. “I mean, you’re a teenager! Shouldn’t you be more rebellious?”

Our son pondered the question.

“Do you know what it is?” he said. “I actually think your rules are fair. And if there’s a rule I don’t think is fair, I know I can talk to you about it and you’ll listen.”

His mother and I exchanged a glance. We were delighted, of course, but this had been our intention from the beginning. We wanted our parenting to be fair.

Still…wanting something and achieving it are two different things.

Do you find it challenging to achieve fairness in parenting? Does your child find your parenting fair? And do you and your partner agree on what fairness is?

Rest assured, you are not alone! [Read more…]

Once, as I stepped up to speak with a group of parents, the woman in charge introduced me with these words: “Here’s Jill, the Anger Mom.”

I thought, there are titles I’d rather be labeled. Pastor and change expert. Lord of the Rings fanatic. Generic “writer and speaker.” I’d take Crazy Cat Lady over “Anger Mom.” It wouldn’t be wrong.

“Anger Mom,” though, is what I’ve become to a couple generations of parents needing someone who’s walked the journey from angry parent to peaceful home. It’s the most popular topic chosen from my speaking list. I believe that’s because none of us ever expected to turn into that parent. [Read more…]

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…]

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…]