by Susie Windle | Jan 28, 2015 | Parenting Playbook, The Power of Play, Your Child's Brain
Play is fun and important. Play allows children to try on new roles, rehearse new skills, and learn about their personal capabilities and limitations. It encourages children to learn social rules and the difference between fantasy and reality. Play is also one way...
by Susie Windle | Jan 21, 2015 | Parenting Playbook, Parenting Skills, The Power of Play
As a parent, you can’t prevent stressful events from entering your child’s life. You can, however, teach your child what to do to control reactions to stress. Here are a few quick tips that you can teach your child to use in the face of stressful situations. Talk it...
by Susie Windle | Jan 14, 2015 | Parenting Playbook, Parenting Skills, The Importance of Emotions, The Power of Play
When children and parents spend time apart during the day, adjustments are necessary when reconnection takes place. This reentry into each others’ lives can create some missteps because everyone is full of feelings remaining from their time apart. Everyone also has...
by Susie Windle | Dec 17, 2014 | Discipline and Trying Times, Parenting Playbook, Parenting Skills, The Importance of Emotions, The Power of Play
Parents can easily begin to feel that they are either disciplining their kids or chauffeuring them from one activity to the next, and nothing much else. It’s important to make time for some family fun! As humans we are hardwired to play, explore, and connect with...
by Susie Windle | Oct 22, 2014 | Parenting Playbook, Parenting Skills, Sensory Information, The Importance of Emotions, The Power of Play, Your Child's Brain
Neuroscience has confirmed what would seem sensible on a gut level: that environmental factors influence the prenatal and postnatal brain. Since this is so, the question becomes, how can we create conditions that foster healthy children and their developing brains in...
by Susie Windle | Aug 27, 2014 | Parenting Playbook, Parenting Skills, The Power of Play, Your Child's Brain
Children thrive in our world when they thrive on the inside. The inside—where personality, imagination, heart, and mind reside—often seems to receive less attention than the behaviors and interactions we observe on the outside. Yet a shift that occurs in that internal...
by Susie Windle | Mar 26, 2014 | Parenting Playbook, Parenting Skills, The Power of Play, Your Child's Brain
Power is a human attribute that comes in a number of forms. Confidence is a kind of power that if pinpointed on a negative-positive spectrum would tip toward the positive end. Examples of confidence include standing up for what is right, a willingness to be safely...
by Susie Windle | Mar 19, 2014 | Discipline and Trying Times, Parenting Playbook, Parenting Skills, The Importance of Emotions, The Power of Play, Your Child's Brain
At times, a child’s challenging behaviors are fueled by his or her need for emotional contact with you, rather than a desire for attention. The need for emotional contact is genetically programmed, so if a child feels that connection is lost, he or she may act...
by Susie Windle | Oct 30, 2013 | Parenting Playbook, Parenting Skills, The Power of Play, Your Child's Brain
Structured activities for and with your child can be fun . . . some of the time. For example, it might be fun for you and your child to enjoy an art, gymnastics, or Kindermusik class. Just be sure to balance structured activities within the context of your already...
by Susie Windle | Aug 28, 2013 | Discipline and Trying Times, Parenting Playbook, Parenting Skills, The Importance of Emotions, The Power of Play
Every child, even an only child, has the feelings, thoughts, and behaviors that are commonly associated with the catchphrase “sibling rivalry.” If you look underneath the conflicts that go along with sibling rivalry, you will usually find questions: Am I truly and...