If you came to our house during dinner time a few years ago, you’d see me reminding my kids to "sit down in the chair" several times. You’d also see some food on the floor. Maybe some chair rocking. Slow eating. Getting kids to listen at the dinner table is a HUGE challenge point for families. And it turns [...]
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The Big Problem With Over-Praising Kids – And What to Do Instead
“Mom, mom, MOOMMMMMMM!!!” This is how every other minute of my day went. Kids live completely in the present moment, and it’s elegantly beautiful, but it can also feel very emotionally draining to a parent. Before I knew It, I fell impatient with stopping the whining and started using a lot of empty praise. I wanted to raise a [...]
What Really Goes Down on FaceTime During Deployment
My husband has deployed multiple times. He's gone to Korea for a year. He's been away on countless TDYs. So we've depended on programs like FaceTime and Skype to cope with deployment separations. It allows the kids to see their Daddy. It allows me to see my husband. But the conversations don't always go smoothly. This is, after all, [...]
2-Year-Old Not Listening? Try This Remarkable Tip
I’m not going to sugar coat this for you. I struggled horribly with my 2-year-old not listening. As a mom who researches things like how to make kids listen and how to be a positive parent to a strong willed child, the twos about did me in. Yes, really. (That's why I started researching why parents yell...) But here’s the real [...]
4 Surprising Reasons Why Empathy Doesn’t “Work”
I hear it time and time again, “Empathetic parenting doesn’t work with my kid.” Your child wants a toy at the grocery store. He wants to get out of bed multiple times per night. He refuses to take a bath. He throws all his food on the floor. Related: 10 Perfect Bath Toys for Older Kids to Keep it FUN You empathize with the situation [...]
10 Powerful Tips That Will Change Your Approach to Military Homecoming
7 months passed since I last saw my husband. I stood in an open field area on base at 3 am waiting in the darkness. All the military homecoming tips in the world weren't helping at that point. Among me stood about a hundred families anxiously awaiting the impending arrival of their service members. I felt giddy with excitement, but at [...]
5 Highly Effective Tips for Parenting a Strong Willed Child
From the moment he was born, my son made his presence known. My husband and I didn’t know it yet, but we were embarking on a journey of parenting a strong-willed child. As a newborn baby, my son cried for what seemed like hours on end, which as a new mom, brought on the mega meltdowns...you know the ones where you sob that 'nothing is [...]
How to Give Your Kid a Birthday Party They Will Always Remember
As I was putting a few things together for my son’s birthday, I tried to remember what a birthday celebration was like for me as a kid. Unfortunately, when I sat down and thought about it, I couldn’t remember a single birthday from my childhood. Not a single amazing party, gift or theme came to mind. It’s not because my childhood [...]
What Kids Secretly Want to Tell You About Roughhousing – Girls Included!
As I child, I remember roughhousing with my dad in the living room, playing Buck the Bronco. I would jump all over him, giggling incessantly. Then we would play Wake the Sleeping Bear, where he would pretend to be a sleeping bear and I would sit on his head, stand on his back and tickle his feet until he "woke up" and scared the [...]
15 Awesome Listening Activities for Kids
It's no secret that mothers are exhausted. You spend so much time worrying about how to make kids listen that it feels like carrying sandbags on each shoulder, sinking you deeper and deeper into the parenting trenches. It feels like there is no fun in parenting anymore. Turns out, listening activities for kids can help lighten [...]