Finding Christmas and New Years Joy
Dear Caring Parent, Finding Christmas and New Years joy can be challenging. If you and your family celebrate Christmas and New Years, you likely experience additional irritability, full blown emotional outbursts, and trips down memory lane (pleasant and not pleasant),...
Meet Your Estrogen
Meet Your Estrogen! Interesting Facts when in Hormone Harmony It comes in 3 forms: Estrone (the only type of estrogen after menopause, produced by the adrenals) Estradiol - can facilitate a balance in the bodies making and use of serotonin, thereby alleviating...
Nuances in Early Language Development
Dear Caring Parent, There are some nuances in early language development. Marci wished she’d known this when, at her daughter’s wellness appointment, the doctor said ‘there’s a problem here’. She descended into mom guilt. It’s great the doctor is paying attention....
A Contentious D of Parenting
Dear Caring Parent, I was wondering what D of parenting I would write about, when the other day a dad and I were talking. His focus was on how he and his wife discipline differently. I like to write about things I hear parents telling me about so here we go on...
Three Often Confused Quiet Child Characteristics that Matter
Dear Caring Parent, There are three often confused quiet-child characteristics that matter. Because how we support each of them is different! I can think of several cultures in which these three are outside of the cultural norms/expectations for sure. These three are...
What’s Under This?
Dear Caring Parent, I witnessed this scenario and it made me wonder how many conversations do we have as parents in which we need to get curious about ‘what’s under this?’ Here's what I heard: Dad, putting some garden stuff into a trash bin. “Hey Beth” Beth - 10 year...
What’s the BIG DEAL About Your Parenting Team?
Dear Caring Parent, What's the big deal about your parenting team? In short, these are people that are your modern version of ‘it takes a village’. We no longer have that house-to-house, across the neighborhood blocks, village for our free.roaming kids (or such is...
One BIG C in Parenting
Dear Caring Parent, We all encounter this - the one big ‘C’ in parenting. Control. Control is that every present feeling, according to dear Webster, that we have 'the power to direct behavior or a course of events'. And of course, as parents we do have that power. But...
Two Bs in Your Parenting Experience
Dear Caring Parents, There are two Bs in your parenting experience that are fun to think about. They can help you out of guilty times and allow some annoying things to even be funny. It's all about adopting these two Bs - becoming and being. I must admit that balance...
Two A’s in Your Parenting Experience
Dear Caring Parent, Have you noticed these two A's in your parenting experience - acclimation and acceptance? We usually think of acclimation when we're changing seasons or hiking higher mountains. Acclimation means to adapt to a new temperature, altitude, climate,...
Always Needed Supplies for Family Outdoors Activity
Dear Caring Parent, Summer is in full swing! I finally have this year’s ALWAYS NEEDED supplies for family outdoors activity. Pack your bag with these and you will be ready for most things. It’s taken me a bit longer because I wanted to test a couple of them out before...
Listening to Our Children Differently
Dear Caring Parent, Let's grow how we are listening to our children differently. We parents often say, "You're really suggesting I listen more to my child? All I do all day is listen to them! They are screaming, whining, speaking their words of wisdom (or not),...
Calm Parenting Has A Problem But There’s a Fix
Dear Caring Parent, Sometimes when we parents hear the prompt to provide calm parenting, it feels like an insult. That's because there's a problem with being a calm parent. How can I be calm when my teenager is slamming doors? And then there's my toddler with nerve...
Snails Paced Greening of My Household
Dear Caring Parent, Every year I think about my next-step for my snails paced greening of my household. It’s too much in life’s busyness to do it all at once! I'm a budget watcher and want to know about the reliability of products so it takes me a while to pick new...
Are We ‘Shoulding’ Our Children Into Disconnecting?
Dear Caring Parent, Are our children disconnecting from themselves because we are 'shoulding' our children into disconnecting? We live in a culture of 'shoulds'. For example, we should walk 10,000 steps a day, or more, for health. Then there is all this and that...
Everyday Parenting Can Be Exhausting
Dear Caring Parent, Everyday parenting can be exhausting. Or, every day, parenting can be exhausting. That's what I am thinking about right now - the sneaky, everyday causes of parenting exhaustion. These aren’t real obvious because they’re so everyday we have...
Reflection on Parent Exhaustion
Dear Caring Parent, “I’m exhausted!” I hear parents saying this very often. Parental exhaustion is real. It’s not ok. It’s not, 'oh well, I’m a parent so of course'. I’ve hesitated to write about this topic now, because with COVID19 and all it’s additional...
Parents Get Better At Listening
Dear Caring Parent, I've been thinking about telling vs listening lately as I talk with parents and children. While some things definitely need telling, I've concluded that we could all do a lot more listening. At home and in schools. How do we parents get better at...
What Does Blue Light Do To Children?
Dear Caring Parent, I took a look to see what new research shows about the effect of blue light on our children, given the increase in online activities with schooling-at-home during COVID19. Generally we wonder about eye strain and sleep disruption with blue light...
Covid19 Parent – More Busy Or A ‘Great Pause’ ?
Dear Caring Parent, Covid19 parent is it more busy or is there what some call a 'great pause' for us? Many of us find ourselves busy in new busyness. I marvel at what this requires of parents. An invisible group of molecules is changing us a lot. So it does not seem...
Letting Go For Parents Is A Constant
Dear Caring Parent, Letting go - for parents, it's a constant dance. We attach then we let go. It's not that we suddenly ‘let go’ when our children finish school, get married or begin their career. Instead, parents experience many phases of letting go. . Letting Go...
Saying No To Children
Dear Caring Parent, Saying no to children can be hard! I was just talking to a dad about how to not over-spend the budget for a birthday. It got me to thinking, again, about how hard it is saying 'no' to children! After my conversation with this dad, I thought...
Attuning to Toddlers – The Hoppin’, Poppin’ Years
Dear Caring Parent, Your beautiful children are now between one - four years old. Toddlers! And attuning to toddlers, tuning-in, is different than attuning to your baby during the first year. Truthfully, you’ve found yourself wondering, who IS this? In the first...
The Joy of Raising Boys
The Good, the Bad, and the Hilarious Author - Diane Auten I can't stop smiling! This is such a delightful read. The Joys of Raising Boys -The Good, the Bad, and the Hilarious! Through real-time anecdotes, this book follows Diane's momlife from when her sons were two...
How do Babies Understand Their World?
Dear Caring Parent, Ever wonder, how do babies understand their world? Of all the things that are so important in the first year of life, what's tying it all together? Attuning is - how you and your baby are tuning-in to each other. I LOVE watching a mom or dad tune...
Confidence Building in Your Child – What Comes First?
Dear Caring Parent, ...
4 SMART Communication Strategies When You Have Teens
Dear Caring Parent, These 4 smart communication strategies will come in handy because, as we all know, communicating with your late tween and any-age teen will test your parental communication skills. This has forever rung true to parents. We now know it’s because...
30 Activities for Tired Parents and Bored Kids
Dear Caring Parent, August is the month for tired parents and bored kids! Parents are tired of taking care of everything and the kids are feeling that the less-scheduled summer has been great so far, but suddenly it's boring. School now seems inviting! It becomes...
How to Deal with Your Child’s Irksome Behavior
Dear Caring Parent, How do we deal with our child's irksome behavior? They challenge our parenting skill! We can often feel like we don't know how to deal with our child's irksome behavior! The helpful skill? Visualizing. Here's how one mom worked through dealing with...
EEE-Gads, Moody and Mouthy Toddler and Teen
Dear Caring Parent, In the first poll I ran on this site, I asked you which was the most difficult age for you to parent. And most of you clicked on either the toddler years or the teen years. Kinda the same as I hear anecdotally. These are the years that bring...
Listening Changes the Homework Argument
Dear Caring Parent, I’ve noticed that sometimes I am a stormy creature when it comes to homework problems. When I would notice it wasn’t being attended to, I would react by storming through homework time. Are you a storming, angry parent over homework problems right...
I’m Struggling with My Child
Dear Caring Parent, Our love for our children can in fact hit trouble. Sometimes we fall out of what I call our parenting love zone- that easy, flowing, heartfelt connection to our little beings. This falling out could be caused by our pre-occupation with something...
Are My Child’s Tantrums Normal?
Dear Caring Parent, Of course, it's at the grocery store, the restaurant, or right when you want to get to work or the gym up comes the toddler monster! We parents wonder, are these tantrums normal? Why oh why do my child's tantrums be so crazy?! We know that a...
I Believe Motherhood Saves Us
A Guest Blogger for OMG Parenting has this to say about motherhood.... Mixed emotions accompany the topic of motherhood. Motherhood is a beautiful, challenging responsibility, unique to women, and unique to each woman’s experience. Mothers are any and every type of...
Things I Learned from a Tween
Dear Caring Parent, There's not as much parenting advice about tweens as there is about babies, toddlers, and teens. That's because the tween years are quieter, or so it seems. Tweens are 8 - 12 years in my book, although others might say 9 - 14 or 10 -14 years....
MaMa Guilt – Is It Just a Part of the Job?
Dear Caring MaMa, Do you ever find that you are repeatedly upset about the same thing with your kids and what follows is mama guilt then more frustration? They don't put the dishes away, they eat poorly, your toddler is so clingy, they're always late, they don't pay...
Call it Gaming LIFE, Not Gaming Limits
Dear Caring Parent, Many a parent ponders children gaming. We look for parenting information about it; the worry being of course that there is too much of a good thing going on in our child's life. It's hard if we think our child is out of balance and gaming too...
Rocking Chair Wisdom
Dear Caring Parent, One of the gifts my daughters given me is my rocking chair. Yes, today I still have the rocking chair I got for rocking her during her early years. I love that chair. It used to be a great haven for her and me. When she no longer needed it, it...
That thing I have sometimes…
Dear Caring Parent, Parenting requires so much patience, doesn't it! I have heard countless pregnant moms say their biggest worry about parenting is that they have no patience in general. And yet a year later when I ask them what they've learned about themselves that...
Are You a Tired Parent Because of This..?
Dear Caring Parent, Does being an introvert or extrovert affect parenting? Well, it for sure affects your needs as a parent. I am an introvert parenting a child, who is really a young lady now, who had masses of kid friends and activities, not to mention 'situations'...
Parents Saying No
Dear Caring Parent, That word, NO! It's hard for parents to say no, yet it's one of the first words kids say! The one-year-old shakes their head 'no' to everything, says 'no' to answer all your questions, pushes the envelope a bit when you say 'no' - you know, that...
Unexpected Moments of Mom Joy!
Dear Caring Parent, During my pregnancy, and heck, before my pregnancy, I could easily imagine the joys of parenting. From baby's first smile to graduations, all those milestones! Not everyone who is pregnant is filled with these gushes of lovey-doves, but I was. And...
The Sex Dialogue – Take 10
Dear Caring Parent, "So, how do you know what's going on in your kid's inner world about sex", asks the parent of tweens and teens. Great question! As you all know, kids are hearing about it and reacting to it at younger and younger ages. Some think about it more...
Games and Brains
Dear Caring Parent, I usually write my blogs. But then I came across this incredible infographic on what is going on in a brain whilst participating in video games, and I knew I didn't need to overdose you by adding any of my own writing. This has become more and...
To Worry or Not to Worry
Dear Caring Parent, Because of my work with parents and kids, wherever I go people tell me their stories about parenting. And I hear about volumes of worrying! So of course, it gets me thinking about the things I worried about as a parent and to wonder, did I need to?...
The Busy Bs and Essential Nine
Dear Caring Parent, My Mom was ahead of her time when she had us taking supplements since, well, since I can remember. As I've moved through the years, I've learned more and more about these little buggers called vitamins. And minerals. As a health care professional...
You are a Great Parent!
Dear Caring Parent, I have been thinking lately about the parenting stresses I have felt and that I hear about from others. From logistics, managing emotions, determining if our child fits in to the developmental norms, budgeting sanely, to managing one's own life,...
Five Parenting Truths for the OMG, TEEN years!
Dear Caring Parent, Ok, so we all know that the toddler and teen years are the two childhood phases with big parenting challenges right? While knowing why may increase our understanding, hence our patience and humor around it all, having some strategies helps. Teens...
Mean, Lenient or Balanced Parenting with Techy Toddler toys?
Dear Caring Parent, When you are in conversation with other parents, and one describes how his 3 yr old son screams bloody murder when his iPad is taken from him, so he (Dad) just lets his kid have it saying "after all, he's going to be growing up with this stuff", do...
What's the BEST Parenting Hormone?
It makes you feel good. It makes you feel like connecting to others. It brings on the nurturing. Men and women have it. It is produced in similar quantities within the hypothalamo-pituitary magnocellular system in both men and women. Sometimes its receptor genes are...
Porn in MY kids Life?
Dear Caring Parent, A follower of these blogs got in touch and asked me to write something on young teens and porn. She told me a pretty humorous story about her young teen viewing some porn on TV. And it reminded me of my awakening to how easy it is to access porn....
Five Steps to Power-Up your Parenting Affirmations
Dear Caring Parent, Do you ever just want to energize your parenting or something in your life that is put aside because, parenting? Maybe you can't see your next-steps? Or you start into them and get side tracked all the time? All of this is so natural in a parents...
The Monster Food!
Dear Caring Parent, The monster food - sugar! It makes us happy. It makes us sad. And it certainly makes us confused! There are so many kinds of sugar, I stopped counting! Table, brown, cane, molasses, honey, syrup, fructose, maltose, dextrose, corn syrup....
Video Games and the Brain – good or bad?
Dear Caring Parent, So you wonder about all this video gaming and what it really does to your child. What a great thing to be thinking about since it's such a potent force in a families life. To give you some good, and entertaining, insight into the effects of video...
What’s a Puppy Photo Got To Do With Parenting?
Dear Caring Parent, This morning I was particularly frazzled. I needed to calm! Such a parenting issue! So much to do, so many deadlines, so many household things to attend to, so many things on my mind….you know the drill. I was fast to be irritable with my daughter...
The Parenting Path
Dear Caring Parent, Parenting is like hiking on trails (for those who don't hike, imagine walking new routes through a major city). Some days are so full of beauty, our hearts burst with joy. Some days are so full of the worrisome, our mind fills with fear. Some days...