by Susie Windle | Jan 16, 2013 | Parenting Playbook, Parenting Skills, Parents: Practice Self Care
If you find yourself too often thinking or saying to your children, “Hurry up! We are running out of time!” it may be time to make some time to evaluate commitments. Otherwise, it is too easy to slip into a mode of continual acceleration and nonstop doing, resulting...
by Susie Windle | Jan 9, 2013 | Discipline and Trying Times, Parenting Playbook, Parenting Skills
Falling into the feeling that there just isn’t enough time in twenty-four hours is easy, and this attitude may be particularly true for parents who are managing multiple schedules. Whether we feel pressed for time or driven by a lack of time, we can find ourselves...
by Susie Windle | Dec 26, 2012 | Discipline and Trying Times, Parenting Playbook, Parenting Skills, The Importance of Emotions
Most parents tell their children, “Talk to us if you are upset or have a problem.” Yet sometimes that statement can be more accurately translated as, “Talk to us if you are upset or have a problem, when it is convenient for us.” A child can find it hard to believe...
by Susie Windle | Nov 14, 2012 | Parenting Playbook, Parenting Skills, The Power of Play
When we think about nurturing resiliency in children, we need to include thoughts about supporting development of their own true and unique selves. Helping our children be who they are means that we allow them freedom to sometimes be solitary, give them a chance to...
by Susie Windle | Oct 31, 2012 | Parenting Playbook, Parenting Skills, Your Child's Brain
Self-esteem refers to the judgments individuals make about themselves. These judgments connect to their own worth as a person as well as to the feelings that are associated with those judgments. People tend to have a global appraisal of their worth along with a...
by Susie Windle | Oct 10, 2012 | Parenting Playbook, Parenting Skills, Parents: Practice Self Care
There are 24 hours in every day, and we each get to make at least some of the decisions related to filling those hours. If we don’t make well-considered choices, it is easy to get caught up in responding to emails, making phone calls, working long hours, scheduling...
by Susie Windle | Oct 3, 2012 | Parenting Playbook, Parenting Skills, Parents: Practice Self Care, Sensory Information
We have all heard the saying “It’s the little things that count,” and we probably have all experienced “little things” counting on more than one occasion. In terms of how this adage applies to our health and well-being, research is showing that little daily practices...
by Susie Windle | Sep 19, 2012 | Parenting Playbook, Parenting Skills, The Importance of Emotions, Your Child's Brain
Words can hurt. In fact, words—along with the tone of voice that delivers them—can do real damage. Just think about comments that have been directed your way over the years. Comments of criticism, shame, rejection, anger, or mockery have an impact on our feelings,...
by Susie Windle | Sep 12, 2012 | Discipline and Trying Times, Parenting Playbook, Parenting Skills, The Importance of Emotions, Your Child's Brain
As emotional beings, we all need more than food and water to feel satisfied and healthy. Eric Berne, a psychologist, first coined the term “psychological hungers.” Three of the psychological hungers he first identified were stimulation, recognition, and structure....
by Susie Windle | Aug 29, 2012 | Discipline and Trying Times, Parenting Playbook, Parenting Skills, The Importance of Emotions, The Power of Play, Your Child's Brain
When all is going smoothly—meaning the children are happy and the parents are too—it seems easy to be respectful. When kids are doing something they aren’t supposed to be doing, such as pulling on the dog’s tail, knocking over a sibling’s tower of blocks, or avoiding...