Parenting Playbook

Playing board games with kids . . .

Board games provide a great way to spend time together as a family, and playing games as a family is one way to practice social skills—particularly around developing a healthy attitude toward winning and losing. In order to teach how to win and lose gracefully, a few...

Creating symbols . . .

By the time your toddler is twenty-four to thirty months old, he or she will be able to create mental symbols and ideas. These multisensory pictures allow your toddler to form a mental image of his or her wants and desires, and your toddler can label it with words....

The whys of whining . . .

Whining, that fussy tone of voice between talking and crying, is commonly heard from toddlers, but it doesn’t necessarily mean you have a spoiled child. Often, children whine when they can’t truly express their feelings. You are most likely to hear whining when...

Sibling rivalry . . .

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...

Family rules about fighting . . .

Having clear family rules about fighting that hurts is important. A good place to set these rules is at a family meeting. Family meetings model communication with words, not fists. Working out problems through talking rather than physical fighting is supported by...

Preschool . . .

Preschool is one way to gently introduce children to a school setting. When school is viewed as inviting and tempting, a love of learning is more likely to develop. Preschool is appropriately a time for children to explore, feed their curiosity, take initiative, and...

Stress sets off an alarm for all of us . . . including babies.

Children can be, and most often are, quite resilient. That does not mean they are immune to stress, however, or to the resulting responses in the brain and body. In fact, children are highly vulnerable to stress during the first few years of life. As a parent, you can...

The importance of integration . . .

As parents, we become expert about a child’s body. For example, we know that a fever occurs when our child’s body temperature is above 98.6 degrees, and we know to clean a cut he or she has suffered to avoid infection. It is also important for parents to understand...

Language development . . .

Research findings suggest that the quality of conversations we have with our children make a strong case for putting down our cell phones. To learn more about children’s language development, researchers attached small digital recorders to a group of children as a way...

Choose your battles . . .

Parents do need to set limits, and the hard part about doing this is deciding which lines to draw. Your personal values and attitudes will guide you, and it will also be helpful to remember to set your boundaries wide and then enforce them while keeping your child’s...

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