Head & Heart Parents

A dad I work with just announced to his 3 little boys that he has a new plan for a “Sunday Shelf.” Here’s how it works: • When the kids don’t pick up their stuff as asked, dad picks up for them and puts everything on the “Sunday Shelf.” • On Sunday, he pulls it [...]

On my kids’ first day of school this year, I first dropped off my high schooler. Gasp. How can I have a kid that old? I always thought being the parent of a high schooler was for grownups! Heck, I remember when I thought that having a child in elementary school was for grownups. As [...]

I recently received an email from a dad who has taken one of my early childhood parenting classes. He asked if I had a list of things that parents of younger children should know “not to get hung up on.” I surveyed a number of my friends with older kids and got so much great [...]

My son, Robert, and his girlfriend, Jenna, were here last night. Jenna asked me what I was reading, so I did a quick explanation of the updated version of Parenting with Love and Logic. After hearing this explanation, my son said, “So that’s who is to blame!” I laughed and asked innocently what he meant. [...]

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 [...]

“Mom, I lost my jacket,” my almost 12 year old son told me. “What? Grandma just gave that to you last week,” I accusingly replied.  ”Where did you last wear it?  Have you looked in your room?” “How could you have lost it?”  I ranted on. Then I caught myself.  Whose problem is this?  What happened to my [...]

Our world is getting more complex and dangerous for kids every day. How do we best protect them so that they will survive? Resist the urge to overprotect! Like vaccinations for physical disease, parents who apply Love and Logic allow their kids to develop decision-making “antibodies” by being exposed to plenty of small temptations, by [...]

We had been struggling to keep second grade Connor focused on his “morning school routine” list as he is a major dawdler, as most are. So one morning I realized both my husband and I were reminding him of checking his list, “Do you have your snack? Have you made your lunch?  Where’s your water bottle, etc”. [...]

How early in a child’s life can we start using Love and Logic? As soon as they can spit their pureed food, crawl away from you when you are changing their diaper, etc. Fortunately, the basic process is very simple: Step One: Hope For Misbehavior Mistakes made early in life have far more affordable consequences [...]

Those familiar with Love and Logic know that we’re big on kids learning life’s critical lessons by making lots of affordable mistakes and experiencing the affordable consequences of such mistakes. We’re not so big on trying to teach important lessons through lectures…or lots of words. The more words we use when our kids are upset [...]