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 [...]

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 [...]

Imagine this: you’re sitting in a restaurant and when the waitress asks for your friend’s order, your friend goes through the whole menu of what she DOESN’T want… “I don’t want the burrito and I don’t want the tacos and I don’t want the chimichanga.” How likely is she to end up getting what she [...]

For parents who deal with children being obstinate, defiant and challenging, here are a few thoughts on power struggles: If we deal with resistance by struggling back, not only will we damage our relationship with our kids and set them up to be rebellious, but we will be very frustrated.  It is a child’s JOB [...]

How can you use the Love and Logic skill of enforceable statements to get kids to cooperate? When kids hear “No,” they hear fighting words. Their defenses come up and the battle starts. So instead of saying “No,” say “Yes” to something else. Say what you’ll do, what you’ll allow, or what you have control over. [...]

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 [...]

One mom was at the park with her 2.5 year-old son named Foster.  He was heading down to the lake to play and Mom said, “Come and eat lunch or we’ll have to go home.”  He ignored Mom and walked towards the water. So Mom said, “So sad, looks like we have to go home [...]

Many of us have the idea that we need to deliver immediate consequences when our children misbehave. That misconception can lead to many problems for the parent and the child. As a parent, when we react with anger to our child’s misbehavior and shoot off the first thing that comes into our head, e.g., “That’s [...]

In a study mentioned by Daniel Goleman in his classic book Emotional Intelligence, researchers studied two sets of kids. One group was able to delay gratification, the other satisfied their wants right away. All of the kids had a choice about a tasty marshmallow set before them. When the experimenter left the room, they could [...]

In the mid 1960′s a few parenting “experts” began to question whether we ought to say this word to our children. Some worried that it would damage kids’ self-concepts. Others seemed concerned that it would stifle creativity. Kids need to hear “No” from time to time. Listed below are some practical guidelines:     •  Say “No” only [...]