In order to help our children develop into caring, productive members of society, there is a lot on our parenting "to-do" list — teaching kindness and empathy, encouraging autonomy, and modeling industriousness and self-sufficiency, to name a few.
The problem...
How many times a day do you tell your children to be careful? Five? Ten? Fifty times? If you kept track, I bet you'd be astounded. A recent article in the New York Times about anti-helicopter parents in Silicon Valley...
Sensory bins are a favorite activity at our house. A sensory bin is a container filled with things to touch and explore. Young children learn through touch, and sensory bins are a wonderful way to let them explore different objects...
Make no mistake, there are wonderful and valid reasons to strive to have family meals as often as possible. Extensive research has shown that engaging in family meals is linked to fewer depressive episodes, greater academic achievement, more positive...
I'm raising a gentleman. This has always been my mantra. Raising a son to me is a heavier responsibility than raising a daughter. I often hear the opposite from friends who insist that raising a strong woman is critical,...
If you had asked me a few years ago if I would recommend having children close in age, my answer would have been a resounding, “No!”
While flying by the seat of my pants was my default for dealing with motherhood, I had a sneaking suspicion it wasn’t going to fit this particular challenge. Then the following phrase came to mind: Control what you can control. I have no idea where and when I heard it, but it started to make perfect sense.
I'm amazed by what my son has learned academically this year. Yes, I knew in September that the curriculum would be more rigorous than it had been when I was in kindergarten, but I didn't realize my son would be reading me 'Green Eggs and Ham' by Dr. Seuss' birthday. It is truly lovely to be read to by your child.
The fact is, this isn't about bento box at all. This is about the constant pressures of motherhood, the constant fear that we are not providing the best for our children, and the constant battle of social comparison. To me, the bento box encapsulates the constant striving for perfection. And, the fact is, I'm done striving for perfection. I'm striving to be perfectly fine.
When my parents were newlyweds, they used to collect and exchange a comic that was popular at the time. It generally featured two naked, childlike characters — a short and stubby man and his short and stubby lady. The...
If there is one adage I can relate to over the course of COVID-19, it's "You don't know what you got 'til it's gone." One of countless things I admittedly took for granted pre-pandemic is the immeasurable value of...
Parenting is hard.
It is equal parts exciting and exhausting. Every phase brings a new learning curve, and we aren't always equipped with the right tools.
We're being pulled in a million different directions every day with our many commitments to...
In Case You Missed It..
My Kid Is Not On the Honor Roll — and I...
It's that time of year again. School graduations and parent-teacher conferences and awards ceremonies occur, and suddenly social media is flooded with pictures of...
