Author: Shelly

Posted on

The Number One Most Important Thing You Can Do For Your Kids

When my daughter and I were traveling to Illinois to visit family, we spent time in several airports.

There was a moment when we had just gotten off of one of the planes and we were using the bathroom. A mom and her 6-year-old daughter were in the next stall and the tone of voice that the mother used literally made me want to crawl out of my skin. I wished my daughter had never heard anyone use that tone and my heart went out to the young girl who was on the receiving end of her mother’s wrath.

Essentially the mom was having a tantrum and was directing her anger and frustration at her child. It hurt my heart to listen to the way she spoke to her daughter. Where was the respect and compassion? read more

Posted on

The Secret to Improving Your Child’s Attention Span

The way to help children improve their attention span is counter-intuitive. You might think that giving children tasks that require their continued attention would help. Or maybe challenging them to accomplish long and complex sequences will help memory and cognition, improving attention span. But the current research is showing something counter to what we might think.

In fact, research shows that allowing kids to have unstructured playtime can actually improve their ability to focus on a task. In the book “Nurture Shock” by Po Bronson I learned about a kindergarten program which encourages children to choose a character to play in an imaginary play scenario that lasts for several hours. Researchers found that the children who were able to remain in character did better on later academic tests than children who were taught their letters and numbers instead of engaging in imaginary play. read more

Posted on

What to do When Kids Ask Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?

The “Why” stage has hit. My daughter cannot seem to stop herself from repeatedly asking why. Almost every kid I’ve known goes through this at some point and if you’re anything like me, you find this incredibly irritating. “Why,” you ask? And I remember the long ago voices of my parents tightly saying, “Because I said so!”

I used to hate that answer but now I think I understand it a bit better. The repetition that I found so comforting and habit forming as a child, is just really very annoying as an adult. read more

Posted on

I’m Not Pregnant Anymore

Ouch. We’ve had a miscarriage. Our baby died. And even though I know that one in four pregnancies end in miscarriage, that doesn’t make this any easier. If you’re squeamish or don’t want to read the details of my experience, read no further. I’m about to share exactly what happened from my perspective.

I thought I was at the end of the first trimester, so when the nausea went away at 13 weeks, I just thought it was because I was transitioning into the second trimester. But then I had a tiny bit of spotting. At that point, I got worried. read more

Posted on

12 Easy Ways to Help Kids Unplug

I’ve been reading Dr. Laura Markham’s book, “Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids” and this week as I read about helping children cooperate, one of her suggestions really stood out. Dr. Laura recommended that if you’re not getting enough connection and cooperation, you might want to try unplugging.

This is not just some thought, idea, or wild theory about how to reconnect with your kids and support their healthy development. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends no screen time for children under 2 and limited screen time for kids over two. Their website claims that the average amount of screen time for today’s children is a whopping 7 HOURS per DAY. Whoa. That’s more than half of a typical child’s waking hours in a day! read more

Proudly powered by WordPress