Connected Parenting

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: Turning Reluctant Readers into Resilient Readers] This is me as a kid. And, I have a secret to tell you… I was a bad student. I was the kind of student who constantly got calls home with well-meaning declarations from teachers: “she has much potential” but “she just needs to […]

[Read a similar post on: Normalizing Mistakes] The other day, a parent said to me “I know it’s my fault that my daughter is such a perfectionist.” I could tell that she was feeling so guilty. Like all of us feel when we see characteristics we don’t love in ourselves show up in the tiny humans […]

[Read a similar post on: Meaningful, Fun, Celebration] I’ve been thinking about taking pride in the small stuff. Not waiting until a big accomplishment, but noticing the small wins along the way.  For our kids who are struggling with a subject in school, particularly in reading, it can feel like until everything is right, nothing […]

[Read the previous post on: Reading is More Than an Academic Subject] I have been talking to a lot of people about how to help our kids with the transition into school. Yes, we’re getting ready to go back to school. It’s going to be September before we know it, and we do want to […]

“Kids these days don’t like to read – they just want to be in front of a screen!” “I loved reading as a kid, but my child would rather do anything than sit down with a book. Where did I go wrong?” “My kid gets extra frustrated with reading homework. They just won’t put any […]