by Susie Windle | Feb 13, 2013 | Discipline and Trying Times, Parenting Playbook, Parenting Skills, Your Child's Brain
Children differ in their rate of development of self-regulation. Because of this difference, it can seem that some children won’t follow instructions when in every other way they seem perfectly capable of taking direction and completing tasks. Children can even seem...
by Susie Windle | Jan 23, 2013 | Parenting Playbook, Parenting Skills, The Importance of Emotions, The Power of Play
“Floor time” does not have to occur on the floor. Floor time simply refers to time spent interacting with your child on his or her own turf, where your child’s interests, resourcefulness, and thoughts are considered. When you play on a level that is eye to eye, which...
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 | 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 | 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 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...
by Susie Windle | Aug 22, 2012 | Discipline and Trying Times, Parenting Playbook, Parenting Skills, Sensory Information, The Importance of Emotions, Your Child's Brain
How we all make sense of things and create meaning from our experiences depends on our state of mind. As parents, our state of mind importantly affects how we create the meanings tied to the behaviors exhibited by our children. Specifically, it’s important to notice...
