Last week, one of my daughters hid her younger sister's homework packet. She stood there silent while the family searched every where for the missing packet. All day long. While her sister cried and cried throughout the day, distraught from the idea of having to re-do all the work she had just ...
A mom during a coaching call described her nightly dinner battle: "If my 5-year-old son doesn't eat enough lunch at school, I make him finish dinner before dessert. He just refuses, gets upset, and hits me."
The problem was that she was fighting a battle she could never win.
You cannot force fo...
I could hear the exhaustion in a dad's voice during our coaching call:
"My 4-year-old hits us more now when she doesn't agree with something or wants to say no to a request. If she doesn't get the treat she wants, she immediately goes to smack me. If I give her choices and she doesn't want eith...
A parent in my coaching community recently told me something that broke my heart.
"We finally had a breakthrough. Four, maybe five days in a row where my son didn't hit or bite anyone. I thought we'd turned a corner. Then my mom came to visit for the weekend, and it all fell apart. The hitting ...
Last week, I gave you the scripts to handle hitting in the moment.
But here's the truth: In-the-moment responses manage the behavior. They don't eliminate it.
If you want hitting to actually decrease over time and if you want your child to start using words instead of hands, you need a proactiv...
I just lived through this last week with my 2-year-old son.
We were at the end of our bedtime routine, already past the point of exhaustion, and he melted down over stickers. Not because the stickers mattered, but because his little brain was maxed out and had nothing left to give. When I final...
Maria thought she had cracked the code on parenting. Her 3-year-old son, Kai, was thriving at his new preschool. His teacher raved about his behavior during pickup. "He's such a sweet boy," she'd say. "Never any problems here." Even Maria's husband could breeze through bedtime routines without ...
I once worked with a dad - letβs call him Amir - who was getting daily emails from his son's teacher. His previously well-behaved 5-year-old had suddenly become the kid who was pushing, hitting, and telling everyone he didn't want to be at school.
Amir was exhausted. His family had just moved t...
Mike was trying to get his 5-year-old daughter ready for bed when she completely lost it. She didn't want to brush her teeth, didn't want to put on pajamas, and was melting down about everything. When he gently but firmly guided her toward the bathroom, she spun around and hit him in the chest ...
During a recent coaching call, a dad shared something that made my heart sink because I knew exactly what he was going through.
His 5-year-old son was having explosive tantrums at home over things like wanting a second helping of dessert. Full-on screaming, stomping, demanding behavior that lef...
Every child has two essential curriculums for their development:
The one at school: Letters, numbers, colors.
And the invisible one at home: How to ask for space, how to share, how to calm their body when it wants to explode.
The first helps them succeed academically.
The second helps them thri...
It was a normal weekday night.
Pajamas on, bedtime stories stacked by the nightstand, the hum of a tired family just trying to get everyone to sleep.
In the middle of the bedtime rush, a 4.5-year-old little girl got silly with her younger brother. She crossed a boundary, grabbing a toy from his...
