There are a lot of ideas that are popular right now, many of which get lumped under the header of “attachment parenting”, which suggest (either directly or indirectly) that babies and toddlers and children are, or ought to be, fragile and clingy and needy and desperate for your attention every second of every day. And … Read more
Two people have asked me questions about reward charts in the last week or so, so that seemed like a reasonable question to answer next. The reason for both of them asking it was because I put “reward charts” — i.e., you do x, you get a sticker on your chart (and often when you … Read more
When you start to frame autism, ADHD, or other neurodivergences as really and truly just a difference instead of a disorder… It leaves space for realizing things like how the “social skills” that we teach to little neurodivergent kids aren’t actually, like, hard-and-fast rules of the universe so much as they are just societal norms. … Read more
It’s “trendy” to offer your kid choices. 😉 It’s one of the easy, catchy, go-to parenting “tips and tricks” that I guarantee you’d see on almost any advice article, book, or even just talking to another parent. “Your kid feels like they don’t have enough power, offer them choices!” (Sometimes this spirals into giving them … Read more
On my recent post about children being developmentally ready for games with winning and losing, somebody asked me if the same information applied to video games, which was a great question. I think the umbrella term “video games” is pretty huge, and that sometimes makes it really hard to talk about what we’re talking about. … Read more
While going through old posts, I found a great exchange in the comments that now I’m turning into its own post… Q: It’s important to me as a parent to let my child play freely and explore and learn through playing. However, their older sibling feels like they need to “teach” them how to do … 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
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
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