Pet Peeves
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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Sometimes Kids Just Need To Hear No
Nobody likes to disappoint their children. It’s hard to turn them down, crush their hopes, or deny them. And it’s particularly hard to deal with their unpleasant reactions [...]
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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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When Parents And Grandparents Disagree
A lot of focus is put on how important it is for Mom and Dad to be on the same parenting page — which is definitely important — but a more delicate situation can [...]
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Goals of Misbehaviour Part 4: Inadequacy
This month wraps up our four month series of trying to answer that nagging question, “Why do kids do that?” Having looked at the “goals” of gaining attention, power, [...]
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Goals Of Misbehaviour Part 3: Revenge
The good news is that we are well on our way to understanding what is driving our kids’ behaviour. We’ve talked about the first two goals of misbehaviour, getting [...]
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Bathroom Technique
Time outs are nothing new to parents. There are many, many parenting approaches that advocate using them with your children. But what about parents? Don’t we sometimes need [...]
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A Yelling Resolution
I was reading a little poll in an old Today’s Parent magazine. Even though it was from the December 2009 issue, I thought it would be interesting to post the poll and the [...]
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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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30Jan
What Are You Tolerating?
We all have things that we tolerate in our lives. Some of them are big things (like a nasty neighbour), but many of them are small things (a messy desk is an example), and we [...]
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