Connected Parenting

Parents often come to me telling me that.. … their kid is having a huge meltdown over something small… their child gets so upset when they lose a game and is inconsolable… their child has such big emotions coming home from school each day and that no amount of repeating back their emotions, guiding them […]

Is your child quick to shut down? When they’re reading, if they get a word wrong, do they close the book and stop reading? (do they even try with a word they don’t know?) After soccer, do they come home upset when they don’t get a turn? This is how so many of the parents […]

I want to give you some wisdom from my grandma. I had a dream about her recently. She died last year, and was a big influence on my life. She spoke many languages, Yiddish among them, and shared this Yiddish folktale with me. She especially shared it right after I had my baby, when I […]

I was talking to parents last week about their 11-year-old who seems to lack motivation in school and at home. He’ll start his homework and leave it after a few questions. Or, he’ll put off writing a paper until the very last minute, even though his mom has been bugging him to write the darn […]

You are in the kitchen, and your spouse, who is a better chef than you are, is watching you make dinner. You cut the onions, and your spouse comes behind you and re-cuts parts of the onions to be smaller. You grab a spatula, and your spouse tells you “it’ll be easier for you to […]

This is true for our kids. Whoever we decide they are, is who they will be. What does this have to do with helping and resilience?  Last week, we talked about pausing before correcting/helping your child in order for you to see if your help is necessary.  (you can find that information here.) We know […]

Let’s talk about tests.  We want our kids to do well on tests.  Yesterday, I had two conversations that I didn’t think were related, but were.  One was with a mother who has a son in third grade and test prep has been coming up in his school. He goes to a really high-performing school […]

[Read a previous post on: Coby’s Story During The Resilient Reader Program] I’ve been doing a lot of reading about attention lately. How to keep it, how to use it, how to stop checking if I got a new text while I’m typing this blog..  In my reading, I learned a term for something we […]

[Read a previous post on: Why NOT to teach your child the ABC’s (do this instead] Often, one of the first things I hear from parents coming to me is, “my child refuses to read to me.”  Their kid has a hard day at school, and they know that when they get home they have […]

[Read a previous post on: Reading is more than an Academic Subject] You may have seen this recent New York Times article, or this New Yorker article, on the literacy crisis in this country. Currently, only 37% of 4th graders are reading at or above grade level. 63% of fourth graders are below grade level […]