Category Archives: Everyday Parenting

The Value of Mental Flexibility, and How to Help Your Kids Build It

My 4-year-old daughter had a plan. Pancakes for breakfast, the blue cup, her favorite show before school. Then: The milk was gone, the blue cup was in the dishwasher, and the show got preempted for the news. What follows isn’t really about pancakes or cups. It’s a full system meltdown over a morning that didn’t go the way her brain had already decided it would. UGH!!!

You’ve probably lived some version of this. And, if like me, you’ve ever wondered why a small deviation from plan can produce a disproportionately large reaction, most of the time the answer has less to do with willfulness and more to do with a skill still under construction: mental flexibility.

What Is Mental Flexibility?

Mental flexibility is the ability to shift thinking, adjust expectations, and consider more than one way of seeing a situation. It’s what lets a person move from “this isn’t how it’s supposed to go” to “okay, here’s another way we could do this.” It’s a core piece Read more…

Finding the Middle Ground: It’s Where Connection is Found

Why is it so hard for most of us to find the middle ground in communication? We want to be right. We want to get our point across, to be understood and seen. Our egos are very strong. We want what we want. It’s hard to find a balance where everyone feels seen and heard and no one is out to win. Why? I believe it’s because we are naturally pendulum thinkers.

A pendulum swings back and forth from one end of the continuum (of anything) to the other end where extremes are quite distinct from one another. On a given day, any of us can feel both elated and disconsolate. On a large scale, trends, societal norms often swing back and forth. Finding the middle ground takes patience to wait for the pendulum to rest. Let’s look at the pendulum swing of everyday parenting.

One end of the spectrum is permissive parenting: it’s easier to say yes than no. It’s hard for you to be firm. You believe your child’s needs are always more important than yours. You Read more…

A View from the Other Side: Creating relationships that last a lifetime

Being on the “other side” of parenting, I have a perspective I believe is important to understand. Most of you are in the thick of it, and when your day to day is mostly conducted in survival mode—”How do I get through this day? I’m so exhausted. What do you mean pay attention to how my child is feeling?”—the last thing you think about or plan for is what your relationships may be like when your children are grown.

This is a big birthday year for me. I decided what I wanted for my birthday was to spend one on one time with each of my two children—both parents of young children and very, very busy people. They both responded with “Great. Let’s do it.”

I just returned from several days on Block Island with my daughter. Earlier this year, I spent several days in Jamaica with my son. We never lacked for things to talk and laugh about. We had meaningful, heartfelt discussions that took us into deep places. And they each expressed having a wonderful time. I feel Read more…

Setting Healthy Summer Screen Boundaries

It’s summer vacation and screens are everywhere. Our children are growing up in a digital world, and summer, with its open schedule and unstructured hours, is when screen time tends to spike the most. A 2025 national survey found that nearly half of parents rely on screens every day to help manage parenting responsibilities. That’s understandable. But summer is also one of the most important windows for children’s physical growth, social development, and brain-building play. But common sense, backed by research, tells us that too much screen time can quietly erode all three.

So, let’s talk about it. This isn’t about fear or restriction. It’s about using summer intentionally so our children get what they actually need.

Why It Matters More in Summer

When school is in session, structure naturally limits screen exposure. Summer removes that structure. A major 2025 review of 46 studies found consistent links between high screen use and reduced physical activity, poorer sleep, attention difficulties, and challenges in emotional and social functioning. For children already trending toward more screen time, a long unstructured summer can accelerate Read more…

Deconstruct Your Kid’s Defensive Behavior One Brick at a Time

Does this sound familiar? (read with a tone of frustration and blame)

Don’t do that! You know you’re not supposed to….
What do I have to do to get you to listen to me?
Stop hitting. Cut it out.
How many times do I have to tell you?!
Quiet down, you’re just too much!

Imagine being the child on the receiving end of this. What happens to you when you hear “Why can’t you just listen?!”

Do you tense up, look away, run off, shut down? Where does your focus go?

As a child, depending on your temperament and how you have learned to avoid trouble, you choose a defense mechanism that keeps you safe. When you hear that familiar tone of frustration in the adults around you, you immediately hide behind your wall—your defense of choice. This could be yelling, crying, avoidance, laughing, people pleasing, becoming invisible, or anything else that shifts attention away from you.

Children don’t focus on the effects of their behavior when called out; they focus on themselves and strategize how to keep from getting Read more…

A Mother’s Day Letter

Dear Mom/ Step Mom/ Grandmother/ Surrogate Mother

You know that thing you did last Tuesday? The thing that took about four minutes and that no one acknowledged, maybe no one even noticed? You tracked the unsigned permission slip with several phone calls to make sure your child got to go on the trip. You reschedule a doctor’s appointment so your child could go to the birthday party. You organized drivers for all your kids so all their activities could happen. You remembered that your child had been quieter than usual at breakfast and held that in the back of your mind all day. You rearranged a small part of your afternoon, without fanfare to check in.

You do dozens of these things every week—every day. Most of them will never be named. Many of them are things no one else would have thought to do at all, because you are the one whose mind is organized around the people in your family, constantly running a background check that keeps things from falling through the cracks.

Thank you! We see you. Read more…

When Your Child Embarrasses You: A Connective Parenting Perspective

Your three-year-old throws herself on the ground at the playground right as you try to leave. Your seven-year-old has a complete meltdown at a birthday party, in front of every parent you know. Your teen yells quite loudly in the restaurant, “Would you just leave me alone. You don’t know anything!”

Few parenting moments sting quite like being embarrassed by your child in public. And that sting can send us straight into reactive mode before we’ve even had a chance to think.

These moments are frustrating and embarrassing, but how we respond in those moments matters far more than the embarrassing behavior itself.

Your Child Isn’t Trying to Humiliate You

When a young child does something mortifying, our instinct is to make it stop…fast. We hush, threaten, and apologize to everyone around us while shooting our child a look that says we will be discussing this later.

But before we react, it’s worth asking a different question: what is this behavior telling me?

If you have been following the Connective Parenting work for a while you already know that a Read more…

Helping Children Push Through Discomfort

There is a question that we ask again and again in our parenting classes, especially as our kids grow and push against their comfort zones:

Is this unsafe, or just uncomfortable?

In a world that is increasingly aware of emotional and physical safety, many parents find themselves unsure where protection ends and growth begins. We want our children to feel secure, respected, and supported. At the same time, we want them to develop confidence, resilience, and the ability to navigate the world without us clearing every obstacle in their path.

The tension is real, and it’s exhausting.

Part of what makes this so difficult is that discomfort can feel a lot like danger, especially through a child’s nervous system. When a child’s body reacts with fear, tears, resistance, or shutdown, it triggers something deep in us. Our instincts tell us to stop the experience, remove the stressor, or intervene immediately.

We can feel all the parts of their anxiety, helplessness, and fear as if it were happening to us, or reminding us of a time when we were left helpless Read more…

Resisting the Urge to Help

One of the hardest parts of parenting (especially for thoughtful, attuned parents) is resisting the urge to help.

Not the neglectful kind of stepping back, but the very human impulse to jump in, fix, remind, rescue, explain, or smooth the path when our children are struggling. When we see them frustrated, overwhelmed, disappointed, or headed toward a mistake, something tightens in our chest. Our minds race ahead to the outcome. And before we even realize what’s happening, we’re already intervening.

“Did you email your teacher?”
“Here, let me show you how to do it.”
“Just do it this way—it’ll be easier.”
“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

We help because we care, because we’re afraid, because watching our kids struggle can feel unbearable.

But sometimes, our helping gets in the way of their development.

When Helping Is Really About Our Own Discomfort

In Connective Parenting, we talk a lot about buttons, those internal places that get pushed when our children are distressed. The urge to help is often one of those buttons.

When our kids are struggling, what stirs inside Read more…

How to Navigate Holiday Triggers: A Practical Parent’s Guide to Stress-Free Family Time

Big Feelings over Family Gatherings?

It’s the holidays! And family gatherings bring warmth, familiarity, and celebration, but they also stir up old stories, unspoken expectations, complicated dynamics, and emotional landmines. During the holidays, many of us find ourselves managing not only our children, but the weight of our own childhood patterns resurfacing amidst family dinners with our parents and siblings.

On this blog we often talk about how our reactions to our child’s behavior are never just about the current moment. They are connected to past experiences, unresolved emotions, and the messages we absorbed from our own family. Gatherings with relatives often bring those patterns back, often with high emotion.

Why Family Dynamics Are So Intensely Triggering

Family is wonderful, but it can be hard. I get it. Older siblings never see you as a full adult, younger siblings always feel a little immature, and parents and extended family are quick to judge your parenting style or life choices. Add food allergies and a little politics and it can become an explosive mix. Family is where we first learned what Read more…