Then Do It
Did you say yes to your kid? Did you say no? Whatever you said, if you don’t follow through, you’re demonstrating that your words don’t mean much and they can predictably tune you out.
Category: Parent
Say Yes as Often as You Can
Your kids have to accommodate your needs and wishes, because your needs and wishes matter, true. That’ll work best if you get in the habit of saying yes to them.
They Have to Accommodate
Kids’ needs and wishes matter. Their creativity, their malleability, their resilience, their openness — those aspects of their character matter, a lot.
A Game of Equals
I see family life as a game. There are rules. There’s also an objective: having as nice a time as possible while making sure everyone’s needs get met.
No Double Standards
Let’s get clear. In different situations, different rules prevail. You take your shoes off in one person’s house; at someone’s else, you don’t.
New Series: Parenting Diaries
Lately I’ve been wanting to write about parenting. I really like the Positive Discipline approach, which pretty much saved me about a decade ago when I was moving to France to be a nanny with no …
Describe the Indescribable: Go
The other night, King Sturdy wasn’t tired at bedtime because he’d had a late nap, and also because he was scared of the lion and the tiger in his room. I am not about to …
Sitting with Death
In one week, our total animal-count when from six to two. Upon getting back from Christmas, we found three chickens dead and interrupted the raccoon in killing the fourth. We’d pulled into the driveway around …