It’s the time of the year when there are lots of family gatherings and lots of opportunities for your relatives to observe you parenting your children.  As parents, we always want to be proud of our kids, so we have lots of expectations that our children will behave a certain way at family gatherings.

Unfortunately, family gatherings also typically mean that our kids get overstimulated and jacked up on...

Do you have a child who is really good at pushing your buttons and getting a reaction from you?  They might be the type that gets easily frustrated, which has you walking on eggshells or bending over backward to support and make things okay for them — or maybe they’re strong willed and prefer to do things their way.

Power struggles happen with all different types of kids at all different ages.

I...

Do you have a child that really pushes your buttons?  Let’s face it, most of our kids know what bothers you, your spouse, and their siblings.  They know if a comment, rolling their eyes, or just looking at their sister is going to evoke a reaction — and yes, sometimes they do it on purpose, but it’s typically not for the reasons you would think.

Kids can push buttons to evoke a reaction from...

Thanksgiving is right around the corner, and this time of year we are typically counting our blessings and discussing that which we are grateful for — and once we intentionally start looking for things that we’re grateful for, our brains start to filter for it and we start to see things differently.  All of a sudden, we are seeing more of what is right in our world and finding the gifts in the...

As we are now into the season of gratitude, what are you most grateful for?  

Years ago, my kids and husband gave me a 365 Days of Gratitude Journal and I committed to filling it out for the year — and it was one of the most eye-opening experiences of my life.

I realized that it wasn’t the big things or experiences that I was most grateful for, it was the small moments of connection with the humans in...

Do you have a child that avoids homework or has a hard time getting started?

Last week guest expert Jen Dwyer shared information on Executive Functioning and some guidelines for setting up EF supports, but for kids who struggle with focus and fidgeting there are a few additional things you can do.

As Jen shared last week, please remember that for kids who struggle it isn’t attitude, misbehavior, or...

When your child is not behaving as you would like, do you get frustrated and start focusing on getting them to STOP?

It seems like the logical answer.  That’s what I did when my children were little and what many parents do today.  Because let’s face it, unwanted behavior from our kids can trigger us as parents in all sorts of ways.

Let me give you some real examples from my coaching with parents...

It’s 7 PM and 9 year old Ashley has been sitting at her desk staring absently at her math workbook for a solid 5 minutes. She sighs, rolls her eyes and begins doodling on the edges of her workbook. The graph and analysis in her math workbook are due tomorrow and she is struggling to start. 

Does this sound familiar? This scenario happens on the regular for so many of us with kids who struggle with Executive...

Have you ever been in a situation where you know your child is lying?  

Maybe you got a call from the school or you checked the online portal to find out your child is missing a number of homework assignments, but then you ask your child and they insist they did their homework.

Or you have a child that hits a sibling or took something they shouldn’t have, and they insist they didn’t — but...

Should I be concerned about my child’s lying?  After one of my recent in-person workshops, a Dad approached me to ask for some advice about lying.  He was concerned because his kindergartner had gotten caught in quite a few lies recently, and he wasn’t sure if he should be concerned about it or what he should do.

I started our conversation by reassuring him that it was completely normal for...

Are you raising a “difficult”  or an “easy” child?  As parents, we tend to put our kids into one bucket or another based on how easy or difficult they are for us to parent.  If they listen well, are flexible, and go with the flow, then we label them as “easy”.  But if they are more opinionated about what they want and don’t bend easily to how others think...

As parents, we all take pride when other people tell us that our children are great kids…  and that they are so well behaved.  It makes us feel good, and we tend to make that mean that we’ve done a good job as a parent.

But what about when they “misbehave”?  Especially if you are out in public with an unruly child, do you worry about what other people might think?  Do you...