The WHY behind what parenting choices we make matters sometimes maybe even more than WHAT parenting choice we make. About four seconds before bedtime, my then-4yo switched which toy he wanted to bring to bed with him. Literally on the stairs to his bedroom he spotted a toy plane. It’s one half of a set, … Read more
There is no need to borrow worry from the future. And that’s exactly what this kind of thinking is: it’s borrowing worry. 5 year olds are not just future adults. They are also present 5 year olds. And they need time to be 5. I tend to talk in generalities when it comes to the … Read more
To speak in very general terms of averages — because that’s all I can talk about, is average child development, not your kid’s specific child development — 5-6 is when children start to really become aware of winning and losing, but they still can’t handle it well yet. This is the age of racing ✨everywhere✨, … Read more
“Sometimes, my son asks me a question. If I tell him I don’t know the answer—and I truly don’t know the answer—he’ll get mad and protest, ‘you DO know!’ How do I explain to him that I really don’t? How do I make him understand?” This is one of those instances where parents commonly think … Read more
I read a post in one of my favorite facebook groups the other day that made something so incredibly clear to me, that I sometimes struggle to put into words clearly enough for other parents and professionals to understand. So, I’m hoping to share that with you. (The group is called The B Team, run … Read more
If a child called “oppositionally defiant” could label the adults in their life, what kinds of things might they call them? Needlessly antagonistic? Endlessly demanding? Perhaps their adults themselves would receive the diagnosis of ODD — Overly Dictatorial Disorder. What about a child called “pathologically demand avoidant”? What might they call their adults — the … Read more
PSA: Everyone is “sensory”. 😊 (A second, more pedantic, more pet-peevy PSA: “sensory” is an adjective, not a noun!) Everyone in the world has a sensory system. Everyone interacts with the world around them through that sensory system. When people say a kid is “sensory”, they usually mean it as shorthand for “sensory-seeking”. But it’s … Read more
When you start to understand how thin — or nonexistent! — the dividing line is between “playing” and “learning/growing”, suddenly so much more of what children do makes sense. And suddenly so much more of when adults do/don’t choose to correct them about it seems…totally nonsensical or arbitrary, from a child’s point of view. My … Read more
Hey! This post is going to be about Jesus, and child development, and the kind of Christianity I grew up in, that I’ve moved away from, and where I see myself now. I recognize that there is a lot of hurt and tenderness in this topic for many people, as well as you maybe just … Read more
I have a child on my caseload who is Autistic and a “gestalt language learner” — a descriptive term for children who learn to speak in phrases or scripts (as opposed to learning to speak one word at a time). There’s many categories of gestalt language learning, and this isn’t meant to be a whole … Read more