by Susie Windle | Mar 22, 2017 | Discipline and Trying Times, Parenting Playbook
Giving children choices rather than routinely telling them what to do engages the child’s higher thinking brain. By offering choices with consequences, your child will get some practice in planning and thinking through his or her choices as well as experiencing the...
by Susie Windle | Mar 15, 2017 | Parenting Playbook, The Importance of Emotions
Beyond the basic emotions—happy, sad, mad, and scared—humans are capable of experiencing a second group of higher-order feelings, such as shame, embarrassment, guilt, envy, and pride. These higher-order feelings are referred to as “self-conscious emotions” because...
by Susie Windle | Mar 8, 2017 | Parenting Playbook, The Power of Play, Your Child's Brain
Downtime is important for the healthy growth and development of your child. Your child’s brain needs breaks in order to process the incoming flood of new information. Being idle allows the brain to take what it already knows and then think, reflect, and change. Idle...
by Susie Windle | Jan 18, 2017 | Discipline and Trying Times, Parenting Playbook, Your Child's Brain
If you have ever taken your child with you shopping, you probably realize that stores—especially stores with toys—can activate the seeking system in your child’s brain. Curiosity, exploration, willfulness, drive, expectancy, and desire are a part of this system. In...
by Susie Windle | Nov 2, 2016 | Parenting Playbook, Parenting Skills
Family meetings are a great way to promote constructive communication skills. During family meetings, everyone in the family can learn what each individual family member thinks and feels about a particular situation or issue. Family meetings promote the practice of...
by Susie Windle | Oct 19, 2016 | Parenting Playbook, Parenting Skills
When children regress—that is, when they act younger and less mature than they really are—their behavior can trigger annoyance in parents. Usually, regression happens when children (and parents) are feeling stressed, as when a new sibling has arrived to join the...
by Susie Windle | Oct 5, 2016 | Parenting Playbook, Parenting Skills, The Importance of Emotions
Patience refers to our ability to accept or tolerate delays, troubles, inconveniences, or distress without getting angry or upset. As any parent knows, parenting provides an opportunity to examine the meaning of patience on a daily basis. Though it is true that some...
by Susie Windle | Sep 14, 2016 | Parenting Playbook, Parenting Skills, The Importance of Emotions, The Power of Play
Tears can be an opportunity for connection between a parent and child. Your child gives you a sign that the tears are an effort to connect when he or she “peeks out” and looks for you. If you see your child peek out for you after a good cry, he or she may want and...
by Susie Windle | Sep 7, 2016 | Parenting Playbook, Parenting Skills, The Power of Play, Your Child's Brain
Children develop their ability to reason at different chronological ages. Some children arrive at the age of reason when they turn four while others are seven or eight years old before they have reasoning powers. It makes sense then to instruct children accordingly....
by Susie Windle | Jun 15, 2016 | Parenting Playbook, Parenting Skills, Sensory Information, The Importance of Emotions, Your Child's Brain
As your toddler reaches the age of about eighteen months, he or she will realize that his or her angry “me” and loving “me” are within the same person. During this time, your toddler will also realize that the people he or she trusts and loves can also be the people...
