Raising young children is hard work. We all have days that are harder than others (as do our children). Sometimes the weather keeps us stuck inside, the babies keep crying, and the toddlers keep hitting. Sometimes we're at our parenting best, and sometimes we're not.
Let’s admit that some days raising little ones can be more grueling than rewarding. Did you know that two-year-olds are the most violent beings on Earth? There’s a reason Seinfeld said, “A two-year-old is kind of like having a blender, but you don’t have a top for it.”
If you’ve been following my writing for a while, you’ll be familiar with my “best of” or “favourite resources” posts. I like to survey my readers and colleagues about twice a year to find the parenting resources they find the most helpful.
I walked up my stairwell the other day, past the pictures of my children when they were one and three, and suddenly froze. I trot past those pictures many times a day, but for some reason I stopped this time and stared deeply into their young eyes.
Welcome back to the A to Z of Taming Tantrums video series. This episode is about the letter M, and M is for Mantras.
Mantras are go-to phrases we can use when common parenting challenges happen. When we have a handful of these mantras to rely on, our bodies can go into autopilot, using these during rough patches.
In this video, I share my favourite phrases to help prevent and reduce tantrums:
A study published in the BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, suggests that mothers have a higher chance of experiencing depressive symptoms four years after giving birth than in the first twelve months after their child is born.
It can be incredibly hard to stay calm when our own children hit us. Both our instinctual physical defense system and intense emotions can get triggered in a flash!
I am routinely asked for specific parenting resources that cover the wide range of experiences parents can have. In order to make it easier to find these resources, I created a list of Facebook pages to share as needed.
I recommend pages that are current with research, tell stories that help us to be better parents, and provide concrete, useful parenting strategies. If one of your favourite pages is not on this list, I’d love to know about it—please put a link to it in the comments below.
As more parents re-enter the workforce fulltime after having babies, families are hiring nannies in response to an increase in the cost of childcare and decrease in the number of daycare spaces available, particularly in larger cities.
A significant percentage of these nannies are foreign workers, often from the Philippines, who leave their own children, homes, and husbands to come take care of families in North America.
I was listening to a mother tell me how much of a “jerk” her five-year-old was. She explained that he was “out to get her,” and “trying to make her life miserable.” With a deep sigh, she told me she didn’t want to be with her son, which made her very sad. “I mean, I love him, but I can’t stand him right now.”
