chores
Lowered Expectations
As parents, we set pretty high standards for ourselves. When we’re expecting our first child, we plan on having a child who listens, who is patient while we’re shopping, who [...]
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Say What You Mean And Mean What You Say
Following through as a parent is hard. Who among us has not threatened to cancel Christmas or a vacation, knowing full well that we’d never do it? Who hasn’t said to [...]
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Whose Work Is Housework?
Not many of us relish doing housework. Most of us hardly get a kick out of cleaning the mini-blinds and baseboards. Kids? They tend to enjoy it even less. But if we all [...]
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Raising Responsible Children
When I ask parents what kind of adults they hope their children will grow to be, they often use words like responsible, respectful, and independent. Which is a worthy goal, [...]
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Independence Day
When is the right age for our children to become “independent”? There’s no clear answer for this, but we hope that it is sometime before the age of 30 (fingers crossed). [...]
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Doing What Works (And Quitting What Doesn’t)
People have a tendency to think that if something should work, but it doesn’t, that the next step is to then do that thing harder, more often or more intensely. (For example, [...]
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05Feb
Goals Of Misbehaviour Part 2: Power
Last month we began our quest to answer the question, “What are they thinking?!?” (“they”, of course, being our children). Recognizing that no behaviour happens by accident [...]
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Side-Stepping Power Struggles
“You’re Not The Boss Of Me!” There probably isn’t a parent alive who doesn’t cringe or roll their eyes at the phrase “power struggle”. We’ve all been there – and some of us [...]
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Decide What You Will Do
We spend a lot of our time as parents trying to “make” our kids do things. Whether it’s making them hurry up, pick up after themselves, be polite, or make the bed, a lot of [...]
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Are The Inmates Running The Asylum?
When parents learn some of the basic principles of Democratic Parenting, those with a background in more traditional “do as you’re told” parenting styles [...]
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