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Welcome!
THE WHOLE-BRAIN CHILD is a bestseller! I’m excited to let you know that my new book, co-authored with Dan Siegel and published by Random House, has been listed on the Los Angeles Times Bestseller List for the past three weeks.
Harvey Karp (The Happiest Baby on the Block) says that Dan and I “turn leading brain science into simple, smart–and effective–solutions to your child’s struggles,” and Mary Pipher (Reviving Ophelia) calls The Whole-Brain Child “my new baby gift.” You can see other blurbs to the right.
Order your own copy! (Or order two and give one to a friend or family member.)
Thanks for reading.
Tina
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Knowledge, Instinct, and Self-Understanding: Basic Parenting Tips
There’s plenty of advice available on parenting, but there’s no one Parenting Rulebook that answers all parenting questions. In fact, it’s helpful to have a handful of different strategies and approaches, and to keep in mind that your approaches should evolve as you mature as a parent, and as you approach each new phase of childhood. It’s almost always problematic when parents rigidly adhere to any one philosopy.
My overall suggestion? Combine knowledge, instinct, and self-understanding.
Knowledge
Knowledge is definitely power, and parents usually find it useful to have a few strategies to help them deal with their children. Simply by reading and talking to other parents, you can arm yourself with all kinds of tools and approaches to help you more easily manage your children and the role of parenting in a way you feel good about.
Knowledge is also powerful when it comes to dealing with developmental phases and challenges, from the early newborn days all the way through adolescence. When a new mother becomes frustrated because her six-week-old is nursing every hour all day long, a part of her may begin to resent the infant because of this loss of freedom. However, if she were to read a bit about newborns and their growth patterns, she’d discover that during a growth spurt, a baby will often “cluster feed” for a week or two. An understanding of this important phase in her son’s life can help the mother be much more patient and understanding, even if she continues to feel a bit frustrated about the amount of time she’s spending nursing.
The same would apply to a toddler. A father can address the tantrums of his two-year-old much more lovingly and effectively if he has an understanding of what this phase means for his daughter (that one of her most important jobs at this age is to discover and assert her own independent self). Again, his frustration (and even anger) may still be there, but the father can handle those emotions much better if he can understand that his daughter is in the process of claiming her own personhood and testing to what extent she is actually separating from her parents.
The basic idea is that knowledge can help you view parenting struggles as opportunities to know your children better and to help them through difficult times. It doesn’t mean that you won’t get frustrated; but good information can make all the difference in your perspective. The more we can understand our children and learn about their process of development, the better prepared we’ll be to guide them along their journey toward healthy adulthood.
Instinct
Be wary of any parenting approaches that offer an “all or nothing” mentality or that seem extreme. Certain “parenting gurus” will present THE ONE WAY to get babies to sleep through the night, or THE ONE WAY to get your teenager to make straight-A’s. But most of the time, moderation and a combination of different approaches produce the best results. Listen to lots of experts (and non-experts), and then pick and choose different aspects of different approaches that seem to apply best to your situation.
Again, knowledge is power. But don’t Read the rest of this entry »
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Why We Should NOT Ignore a Tantrum — or — Where NPR’s Health Blog Missed the Boat
Several people have asked me recently about Shankar Vendantam’s post on NPR’s Health Blog, where he writes about a subject I’ve discussed a good bit: tantrums. In Vendantam’s article, he discusses a recent study that appeared in the journal Emotion, where scientists examined different toddler sounds that typify a tantrum.
I find the whole study – which analyzes the patterns of sound and action that usually accompany a tantrum – absolutely fascinating. And I’m grateful to any scientists (in this case Michael Potegal and James A. Green) who offer us new information that can help us better understand our children so we can be more loving and nurturing as we interact with them. I also want to mention Vendantam’s book The Hidden Brain. I haven’t read it yet, but it’s on my “get to” list, since I understand that it raises some really interesting questions regarding how much our brain drives who we are, even without our awareness.
Having said all that, a couple of objections kept nagging at me when I read Vendantam’s blog post about Green and Potegal’s science explaining “what’s behind a temper tantrum.” Specifically, I kept wanting to hear less about how parents can “get a tantrum to end as soon as possible” (though I totally understand this desire and have felt this way during many of my own children’s tantrums), and more about how parents can be emotionally responsive and present when their kids are upset.
In other words, I wanted a tantrum to be presented not only as an unpleasant experience that parents can learn to manage for their own benefit, but instead as another opportunity to make a child feel Read the rest of this entry »
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Empowering our Children against Sexual Abuse
The holidays can be such a fun time with our kids. We build memories, create rituals, focus on what’s most meaningful. Sexual abuse prevention and the nagging thought that “I really should talk to my kids about this” is rarely on our minds during the holidays. But during this season, as you spend extra time with friends and relatives, be aware that you need to be thinking about protecting your kids as well. Statistics show that children are much more likely to be sexually abused by someone they know and even trust–including older kids at various parties you attend during the holidays–than by some creepy guy in a van.
Since one-fourth of girls and one-sixth of boys are victims of sexual abuse, this isn’t something we should think we’re immune to. Now is the time to educate yourself and empower your kids so they know how to respond if they’re in an inappropriate situation. Talking to them won’t spoil the holiday spirit, and it will make you feel better knowing that you’ve begun these important conversations.
Don’t know what to say? Don’t want to scare them? I’ve got help for you. In the video below, Greg and I visit with Pattie Fitzgerald, founder of Safely Ever After, Inc., about how to not only keep our kids safe, but empower them against sexual abuse. Also, here’s an article I wrote about the subject in the past.
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Worried about Worrying? Discussing Childhood Anxiety on THE INTENTIONAL PARENT
Here’s a recent episode from my new web-based parenting show, “The Intentional Parent.” This episode features the amazing Dr. Andre Van Rooyen. Andre, Greg, and I discuss what anxiety is, how to identify it, what different kinds exist, what can cause it, techniques to deal with it, and when/how to manage it with medication. You can also view it at “The Intentional Parent” website, where there’s a minute-by-minute breakdown of the episode’s content.
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A Different Take on Spoiling
The other day a reporter asked me to respond to a few questions about spoiling, and what it means for our kids. With the holidays coming up, this seems like a pretty timely subject. Here’s how I answered the reporter’s questions about what spoiling is, and just as importantly, what it’s not.
WHAT IS SPOILING? DOES IT HAVE TO DO WITH MONEY SPENT? TIME? NEVER SAYING NO? ALL OF THE ABOVE?
Let’s start with what spoiling is not: Spoiling is NOT about how much love and time and attention you give your kids. You can’t spoil your children by giving them too much of yourself. In the same way, you can’t spoil a baby by holding her too much or responding to her needs each time she expresses them.
SO HOW DO WE SPOIL OUR KIDS?
The dictionary definition is “to ruin or do harm to the character or attitude by overindulgence or excessive praise.” Spoiling can of course happen when we give our kids too much stuff or spend too much money or say yes all the time. But it’s more than that. It’s also about giving them the sense that the world and people around them will serve their whims.
Again, it’s impossible to spoil children with too much nurturing or love or attention or time. Nurturing your relationship with your child or giving them a sense that they are entitled to your love and affection (or holding them when they’re little) is exactly what we should be doing. In other words, we let them know that they can count on getting their NEEDS met.
Spoiling, on the other hand, occurs when parents (or other caregivers) create their child’s world in such a way that the child feels Read the rest of this entry »
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Beyond “How was your day?” – Getting Your Kids to Talk After School
It’s a classic parenting dilemma, isn’t it? How do we get our kids to talk to us?
The conversation itself is even more cliché:
–How was your day?
–Fine.
–Anything interesting happen?
–Not really.
A few years ago I found myself almost literally wincing as I heard myself ask my six-year-old the “How was your day?” question as he got into the car at the pick-up circle. It’s not that it’s a bad question, it’s just that I knew it wouldn’t encourage him to talk to me.
So why was I even asking the question? Wasn’t there something else I could do or say or ask that might get him to offer some of the mundane morsels I hungered for when I’d been away from him for six hours while he was at school?
I realized I needed to be more creative when it came to drawing out meaty details about my kids’ school lives. What I eventually came up with was Read the rest of this entry »
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How Much Am I Screwing Up My Kids When I Don’t Handle Myself Well?
How well do you handle yourself when you’re upset with your kids?
Me? Sometimes I respond extremely well, making myself proud of how loving and understanding and patient I remained. At other times, I lower myself to my kids’ level and resort to the childishness that upset me in the first place.
My message to you today is that when you respond to your kids from a less-than-optimal place, take heart: most likely, you’re still providing them with all kinds of valuable experiences.
For example, have you ever found yourself so frustrated with your kids that you call out, a good bit louder than you need to, “That’s it! The next one who complains about where they’re sitting in the car, has to sit in that same seat for the rest of the year!”
Or maybe, when your eight-year-old pouts and complains all the way to school because you made her practice her piano, you say, with your parting words as she departs the mini-van, “I hope you have a great day, now that you’ve ruined the whole morning.”
Obviously, these aren’t examples of perfect parenting. And if you’re like me, you beat yourself up for the times when you don’t handle things like you wish you had.
So here’s hope: Those not-so-great parenting moments are not necessarily such bad things for our kids to have to go through. In fact, they’re actually incredibly valuable.
Why? Because these less-than-perfect parental responses Read the rest of this entry »
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Proactive Parenting: Getting Ahead of the Discipline Curve
When your kids misbehave, your immediate reaction may be to offer consequences with both guns blazing.
You hit your sister? That’s a time out.
You broke the book shelf while climbing to reach the matches? You just lost your playdate this afternoon.
Your kids act, and you react.
If you’ve heard me speak, or if you’ve read other pieces I’ve written about discipline, you know I’m a big believer in setting and enforcing boundaries. At times, giving consequences may be the best response in order to teach lessons about appropriate behavior and observing boundaries.
But here I want to make the case for stepping in before things escalate, before you have to start thinking about consequences. I’m talking about proactive parenting, as opposed to reactive parenting.
When we parent proactively, we watch for times when we can tell that misbehavior and/or a meltdown are in our kid’s near future, and we step in and try to guide them around that potential landmine. Sometimes you can even Read the rest of this entry »
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The Whole-Brain Child: The Opening Pages
My new book with Dan Siegel, The Whole-Brain Child, comes out one week from today! I hope you already pre-ordered your copy. Below you can read the book’s opening pages.
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You’ve had those days, right? When the sleep deprivation, the muddy cleats, the peanut butter on the new jacket, the homework battles, the play-dough in your computer keyboard, and the refrains of “She started it!” leave you counting the minutes until bedtime. On these days, when you (again?!!) have to pry a raisin from a nostril, it seems like the most you can hope for is to survive.
However, when it comes to your children, you’re aiming a lot higher than mere survival. Of course you want to get through those difficult tantrum-in-the-restaurant moments. But whether you’re a parent, grandparent, or other committed caregiver in a child’s life, your ultimate goal is to raise kids in such a way that lets them thrive. You want them to enjoy meaningful relationships, be caring and compassionate, do well in school, work hard and be responsible, and feel good about who they are.
Survive. Thrive.
We’ve met with thousands of parents over the years. When we ask them what matters most to them, versions of these two goals almost always top the list. They want to survive difficult parenting moments, and they want their kids and their family to thrive. As parents ourselves, we share these same goals for our own families. In our nobler, calmer, saner moments, we care about nurturing our kids’ minds, increasing their sense of wonder, and helping them reach their potential in all aspects of life. But in the more frantic, stressful, bribe-the-toddler-into-the-carseat-so-we-can-rush-to-the-soccer-game moments, sometimes all we can hope for is to avoid yelling or hearing someone say, “You’re so mean!”
Take a moment and ask yourself: What do you really want for your children? What qualities do you hope they develop and take into their adult lives? Most likely, you want them to be happy, independent, and successful. You want them to enjoy fulfilling relationships and live a life full of meaning and purpose. Now think about what percentage of your time you spend intentionally developing these qualities in your children. If you’re like most parents, you worry that you spend too much time just trying to get through the day (and sometimes the next five minutes!), and not enough time creating experiences that help your children thrive, both today and in the future.
You might even measure yourself against some sort of perfect parent who never struggles to survive, who seemingly spends every waking second helping her children thrive. You know, the PTA president who cooks organic, fully balanced meals while reading to her kids in Latin about the importance of helping others, then escorts them to the art museum in the hybrid that plays classical music and mists lavender aromatherapy through the air-conditioning vents. None of us can match up to this imaginary super-parent. Especially when we feel like a large percentage of our days are spent in full-blown survival mode, where we find ourselves wild-eyed and red-faced at the end of a birthday party, shouting, “If there’s one more argument over that bow and arrow, nobody’s getting any presents!”
If any of this sounds familiar, we’ve got great news for you: The moments you are just trying to survive are actually opportunities to help your child thrive. At times you may feel that the loving, important moments (like having a meaningful conversation about compassion or character) are separate from the parenting challenges (like fighting another homework battle or dealing with another melt-down.) But they are Read the rest of this entry »
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Recent Blog Posts
- Knowledge, Instinct, and Self-Understanding: Basic Parenting Tips
- Why We Should NOT Ignore a Tantrum — or — Where NPR’s Health Blog Missed the Boat
- Empowering our Children against Sexual Abuse
- Worried about Worrying? Discussing Childhood Anxiety on THE INTENTIONAL PARENT
- A Different Take on Spoiling