Your child is struggling. Again. They are frustrated and unload their stress on everyone around them in an uncontrolled emotional outburst. It might be a classic toddler tantrum or an older child stuck in explosive patterns. How can you turn…
I can remember angrily looking at my determined, strong-willed child, thinking something like, “Oh, no you don’t! You’re not going to win this one!” and the power struggle was game-on! The final score was usually 0-0, lose-lose, even if I…
Caroline was thoughtful as I described how our young adult kids call from time to time and ask us to help them think through a situation. “After they describe their dilemma, we usually ask them thoughtful questions to guide…
Teaching the art of asking good questions is a favorite goal in our daily work with parents. Why? Because we’ve learned that lectures and answers often shut kids down and build walls between parents and their kids, while good questions…
Deep inside most parents is a strong urge to control their children. It may seem beneficial or even “work” for a few years, but there are diminishing returns if the goal of control is not given up significantly by…
We often see a common parenting cycle when kids are prone to anxiety. In short, it goes like this: Child feels anxious Worried, but well-meaning parent “encourages” the child toward to overcome the anxiety by pushing the child The…
We’ve all been there. A child sasses, lies, whacks a sibling or shirks a responsibility, and we feel compelled to tell them what they did wrong and why it’s wrong. It’s good to tell kids what’s right and what’s wrong,…
In a coaching session, Karen shared that their family’s weekly schedule seemed to take them captive every Sunday night. Lilly, their third-grader, unofficially declared it “Moan and groan about Monday morning” time. The whole family would get drawn into her…