11 Things to Remember When Your Child Gets Angry
When our kids get angry, it pushes buttons for most of us. We're not perfect, but we try to be loving parents. Why is our child lashing out like this?…
Surviving Shots: 12 Tips for Parents and Kids
In our family, ’tis the season for flu shots; in every family, shots happen — at nearly every trip to the doctor until age 4, and at intervals thereafter. Rare…
The Mechanics of Homework
The homework wars among education wonks, teachers and parents don’t, as my friend and colleague Bruce Feiler writes in “The Homework Squabbles,” his This Life column for Sunday Styles, matter…
Stop telling your kids to be fair. You’re making them more selfish.
“Make sure you play fairly,” parents often say to their kids. In fact, children do not need encouragement to be fair. It is a natural feature of human social life,…
Planting the Seeds of Mindfulness
My five-year-old daughter flipped out this morning when she learned that she needed to get a blood test. While I’m not a big fan of tearful wailing at 8:00 AM,…
Teaching Children Empathy
When Harvard University’s Making Caring Common Project released their report, “The Children We Mean to Raise: The Real Messages Adults Are Sending About Values,” many parents and educators — myself…
Don’t Just Pay for Chores. Pay for Performance.
‘Tis the season of chore-time slackerdom. School is starting again, practice for fall sports is in full swing, and, inevitably, it’s simply no longer possible for children of any age…
Need Kids to Follow Instructions? Don’t Ask. Tell.
A year ago, I committed what is known as a “mom fail” (basically any false move committed during the act of mothering). Preparing my then-2½-year-old son to go out in…
10 Secrets Every Parent Needs to Know About Saying No
Last week, we explored why kids don't jump to it (Obedience: Why Do You Have To Tell Them Five Times?) when we ask them to do something, as part of…
Letting a Child Make the Small Sacrifice
It so happened, recently, that my 10-year-old daughter and I wanted the same thing. It could have been anything — the last brownie, the window seat — but what matters…