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 | Aug 8, 2012 | Parenting Playbook, Parenting Skills, The Importance of Emotions
Empathy—feeling what another person might feel—is an emotional capacity more common in early childhood than during the preceding toddler years. Empathy is one of the important motivators of healthy social behavior that leads to sympathetic responses of concern and...
by Susie Windle | Oct 5, 2011 | Parenting Playbook, Parenting Skills
Why not learn to manage stress effectively? Then we—parents and other adults—can teach and model stress management to and for our children. Managing stress is something we do every day, yet learning to manage it well is omitted from the more formal training we all...
by Susie Windle | Apr 6, 2011 | Parenting Playbook, Parenting Skills, Your Child's Brain
The stress-response systems in a child’s brain are largely influenced by the type of parenting a child receives. If a parent’s form of discipline relies on criticism and commands, the rage or fear systems in a child’s brain can become oversensitive and overreactive....
by Susie Windle | Dec 8, 2010 | Parenting Playbook, Parenting Skills, Parents: Practice Self Care
Heightened feelings of stress are familiar during the holidays because this time of year often includes the extra to-dos of the season, worries about finances, and additional time commitments. The holidays also set the stage for renewing family connections, which can...
by Susie Windle | Oct 7, 2009 | Discipline and Trying Times, Parenting Playbook, Parenting Skills, Your Child's Brain
Parents and teachers can get frustrated by behaviors that seem to be characteristic of the teen years—behaviors such as using bad judgment, having trouble foreseeing consequences, and acting impulsively. These “juvenile” behaviors in teens are the result of an...
by Susie Windle | Aug 26, 2009 | Parenting Playbook, Parenting Skills, The Power of Play, Your Child's Brain
The beginning of the school year has arrived for many children, so taking a look at the importance of recess seems timely. Recess is defined as a break in the school day that offers children a chance to engage in free, unstructured, active play. Research about recess...
by Susie Windle | Aug 12, 2009 | Parenting Playbook, Parenting Skills, Your Child's Brain
In From Neurons to Neighborhoods, a book about early childhood development, scientists refer to three basic kinds of stress: toxic stress, tolerable stress, and positive stress. Exposure to toxic or tolerable stresses can be damaging to a child’s developing brain, but...
by Susie Windle | Dec 17, 2008 | Discipline and Trying Times, Parenting Playbook, Parenting Skills, The Importance of Emotions, Your Child's Brain
Distinguishing between a tantrum for control and a distress tantrum is important so that you can respond in a way that will be most helpful to the development of your child. The two tantrum types require two different reactions in order to nurture essential brain...
