The Gift Of Boredom
Andrea Ramsay Speers
“I’m Bored!” As your kids get older, you may find yourself hearing this refrain less and less (perhaps because your kids spend less and less time hanging around the house with [...]
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Independence Day
Andrea Ramsay Speers
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)
Andrea Ramsay Speers
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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Goals of Misbehaviour Part 4: Inadequacy
Andrea Ramsay Speers
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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Encourage To Flourish
Andrea Ramsay Speers
Encouragement Vs Praise What’s the difference? you may be asking yourself. It’s subtle, to be sure, and most of us never really gave it much thought. In a nutshell, [...]
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Goals Of Misbehaviour Part 3: Revenge
Andrea Ramsay Speers
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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Happiness At Home: Parenting Your Teen With Less Stress
Andrea Ramsay Speers
How to Maintain Communication Even though teens need to separate from their parents during adolescence, they also need to know that the safety net of home and family is always [...]
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The Importance Of Failing
Andrea Ramsay Speers
It’s tempting for a parent to want to spare one’s kids the pain of failure. No one likes to see someone that they care about – and that they’ve been charged with protecting – [...]
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A New Year’s Challenge
Andrea Ramsay Speers
What is one thing you could do this month to improve your relationship with your children? We all know that we’re not perfect and that we have room to improve. So [...]
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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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