Awake Parent

August 22, 2012

Forced Apologies Undermine Conflict Resolution Skills

Remember what it was like when you got into a squabble with your siblings or friends and at the end there was the inevitable, “Say you’re sorry” and you half-heartedly responded, “I’m sorry” and then the two of you were supposed to “make up” and play together again as if nothing had happened?

I don’t know about you, but I felt angry and frustrated when this happened to me as a child. And I never really meant it, even when I said it. And the other kid knew that I didn’t mean it. They didn’t mean it either. And it took a while before we were able to actually let it go and be true friends again. read more

August 15, 2012

Circumcision is Genital Mutilation

OK, now that I’m sure I’ve got your attention, I can’t believe I never realized this before. When we think of genital mutilation, most people think of the African practice of removing a young girl’s external genitalia purportedly to reduce libido.

International organizations have joined together to help end the horrific practice of female genital mutilation. But there is a socially accepted form of genital mutilation that happens to newborn baby boys every day here in America and elsewhere. It’s called circumcision. read more

August 8, 2012

I put myself into hypnosis to deal with the pain of breastfeeding

Wow, breastfeeding. It’s one of those things I always knew I wanted to do, but until I experienced it myself, I had absolutely NO IDEA how challenging it could be. I thought, “We’re all built for this, so it will just automatically happen and it will be easy.” Unfortunately, that was not the case for me.

Breastfeeding did happen, but it certainly wasn’t easy. For the first two weeks, my milk didn’t come in so I pumped like crazy and gave my daughter syringes filled with milk donated to us by a neighbor. If you’ve ever had to use the syringe method to supplement your breastfeeding then you know that you need about six hands to be able to accomplish it, especially when both mother and baby are new at breastfeeding. But we got through that hurdle and my daughter started gaining weight. Hooray! read more

August 1, 2012

DIY Montessori Three Part Cards

In Montessori education, three part cards are used for all sorts of things. They can be used to teach a wide variety of information using a basic form that can be reproduced easily. Let me be clear here, three part cards are intended to be used with children who are reading. If your child isn’t yet reading there are things you can still do with certain parts of the cards, such as producing two matching sets of picture only cards for a memory or matching game. But for the most part, three part cards are meant to increase the vocabulary and scientific understanding in children who can already read. read more

July 25, 2012

Five Signs I’m Not Taking Care of Myself

OK Moms, it’s time to get real. We take excellent, outstanding, superb care of our children almost all of the time. And then the rest of the time we yell at them or do other things we don’t like. But by in large, we are very good mothers doing a really hard job extremely well. But here’s the kicker, we’re not so great at taking care of ourselves sometimes. And that’s where we’re actually failing our kids.

By neglecting ourselves and taking care of others instead, we’re not modeling selflessness, as we might like to believe, we’re actually modeling martyrdom. And it’s no good. I mean do we really want our daughters to grow up and serve up a delicious and nutritious dinner for their families and then go in the other room and cry about how exhausted they are? I don’t think so. We don’t have to suffer to be good parents. In fact, we’re much better parents (and partners) when we’re feeling pampered and privileged, than when we’re on the verge of a mental break down. read more