Keeping Our Kids Safe
Andrea Ramsay Speers
Nobody wants their child’s name to be famous because the child is missing. I doubt there’s a parent anywhere whose heart doesn’t break when they hear that a child [...]
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Surviving Sleep-Overs
Andrea Ramsay Speers
Sleep-overs are an important rite of passage for teens and pre-teens. But any parent who’s ever hosted one will tell you that the potential for disaster (spills and [...]
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Teaching Our Kids Respect
Andrea Ramsay Speers
Respect is a big words for parents. Usually when we talk about respect, we talk about things like respecting our rules, respecting me as a parent or respecting that when I [...]
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“7 Secrets to Raising an Optimist”
Andrea Ramsay Speers
John Hoffman wrote an article in Today’s Parent (the December 2005 issue) with this title. I loved his list of seven things, so here they are: Be a responsive, loving [...]
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How To Talk To Your Kids About A World Crisis
Between the Paris attacks in November, Sandy Hook a year or so before, and now the mass shooting in Orlando, parents have, sadly, never had more opportunity to talk about [...]
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Eliminate Criticism and Minimize Mistakes
Andrea Ramsay Speers
This is the title of a chapter in Rudolph Dreikurs’ classic parenting book Children: The Challenge. It can be a tough concept for a parent to really grasp, though, [...]
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Conversation Basics
Andrea Ramsay Speers
I think every parent wants to raise a polite child. Sometimes how that is defined varies from family to family, but overall, there are some things that we have as a culture [...]
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Interruption Disruption
Andrea Ramsay Speers
I’m of the belief that one of the hardest parts of parenting is the constant interruptions. It could be interruptions while you’re talking, or just the idea that a parent’s [...]
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Is It Wrong To Ask For Help?
Andrea Ramsay Speers
We live in a culture that values independence. There’s a common belief that everyone can and should take care of themselves alone, pull themselves up by their bootstraps and [...]
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Skin Deep
Andrea Ramsay Speers
We’d all like to think that appearances don’t matter as much as what’s on the inside does. But if you haven’t heard, even researchers have to sadly admit that better looking [...]
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