Goals Of Misbehaviour Part I: Attention
Andrea Ramsay Speers
Have you ever looked at your kids and thought, “What are they thinking?!?” It’s a common parental response to outrageous, wacky, disruptive, or hurtful behaviours. But there [...]
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Side-Stepping Power Struggles
Andrea Ramsay Speers
“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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Family Meetings:Your One-Stop Solution For Discipline AND Fun
Andrea Ramsay Speers
If you’ve ever had a job, you’ve probably attended a meeting. And although it may seem somewhat unusual to apply this same strategy to “running” your family, family meetings [...]
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Decide What You Will Do
Andrea Ramsay Speers
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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Ask One, Then The Other
Andrea Ramsay Speers
How do you handle a child who doesn’t take “no” for an answer, but instead quietly goes to the other parent and asks the same question? Kids can be crafty, [...]
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Do We Need Intuition In Parenting?
Andrea Ramsay Speers
Who do you trust for information about raising your children? Your doctor, your mom, your girlfriends, the internet? Who do you receive information and advice from (whether [...]
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“Because I Said So!”
Andrea Ramsay Speers
Who among us did not hear that as a kid? And who finds themselves saying it to their own kids now? Children can really wear you down, and some of them are more persistent [...]
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Catch Them Being Good
Andrea Ramsay Speers
It seems to be in our nature to notice the bad. Whether we’re cataloguing the things we would change about ourselves, the mistakes we have made, or why life isn’t perfect, we [...]
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Mistakes Happen
Andrea Ramsay Speers
Nobody’s perfect; we all know that. But it would appear that the best way to motivate children and get them to modify their behaviour is by paying less attention to their [...]
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Keeping Cool: Avoiding Anger In Parenting
Andrea Ramsay Speers
Anger gets a lot of attention. Everybody, it seems, is angry about something, whether it’s road rage, public policy, or kids’ sports. Anger in itself isn’t a bad thing. As [...]
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