Head & Heart Parents

An experienced mother shares what she wishes she would have known about holiday traditions when her kids were young When my sons were little, I was so excited to live out my fantasies of being a great mommy who created Norman Rockwell-ish holidays. Since the time I was old enough to play with Barbies, I [...]

Little kids want to be big kids, and parents can leverage that desire to get cooperation when behavior problems arise. In one example, 4-year-old Emma’s mom asked her to blow her nose. “No!” Emma shouted. Remembering how important it was for Emma to feel like a big kid, Mom said, “Oh, that’s right, I know [...]

Bless my kids and their cranky days. If my 3 boys were perfect and delightful all the time, I’d have no credibility as a parenting instructor. Lucky for me, I don’t have that problem! Just the other morning, I was tempted to yell. I came right to the brink when two of them were participating [...]

Here are some ideas to manage the sibling bickering that can wear us down during long summer days. Bicker Jar When my kids bicker, they each have to draw a slip of paper from the “Bicker Jar.” The slips have various forms of distraction written on them, from chores (you should see how clean my [...]

Lisa was just about at the end of her patience with little Freddie. He was at that age where he was testing her constantly, and now he was at it again. He had been told many times not to tease the cat. In fact, she had threatened all sorts of dire consequences if he did. [...]

When kids go full blast until bedtime they have trouble. Parents who complain that their children have a sleep problem often discover the problem is that they are expecting their kids to make an abrupt switch from a high activity level to sleep. It is better for a child to slow down and then switch [...]

Do you ever worry that your kids might grow up and spend most of their time making excuses about why they are too busy to visit or to help you when you’re the most in need? Fortunately, there’s a powerful strategy that kills two birds with one stone. It creates kids who’re more likely to [...]

Marge’s kids had a history of keeping her upset during shopping trips. They ran all over the store and were frequently lost. They had trained her to keep her eye on them to the expense of her doing her shopping. Contrast that to my own dad, who trained his kids to keep their eyes on [...]

Rex had been terrorizing the other 5th graders at school. The other kids were beginning to refuse to play anywhere near him during recess. Rex’s teacher was often convinced that he was behind most problems that happened when her back was turned. She explained it to his mother one day with, “I never see him [...]

After reading Parenting with Love and Logic™, Tim’s mom instituted a new bedtime policy. She told Tim that picking a sleep time was his decision. He was expected to be in his room at 8:00 each evening, but he could decide when to go to sleep. In addition to this, everyone in the family was [...]