“My child is so ungrateful.”
“Why can’t he ever appreciate anything?”
“She has no consideration for anyone but herself.”
Gratitude isn’t something to be taught but to be experienced. I’m coming to understand that gratitude is hard to come by without love. It’s hard to feel gratitude or consideration for others when one feels unloved or unlovable. As Mr. Rogers said, “All anyone wants is to feel loved and know they are capable of loving.”
Love must involve feeling unconditionally accepted for who you are. That is the work for all parents. Once you can accept your child for who he is—that means not sending the message you wish he were different, she was more like her sister, he can’t meet up to your expectations, there’s something wrong with her—you never need worry about whether this child will be grateful or considerate of others. It doesn’t mean accepting behavior. It does mean accepting that this child at this moment in time is behaving this way because she can’t help it—because she is having a problem.
I learned this a long Read more…
It’s Okay to Let Kids Quit Things
The family is a nurturing ground, not a training ground. When I hear parents say, “My job is to prepare him to deal with the real world. People out there aren’t going to care how he feels about what he has to do,” I hear a justification for traditional, authoritarian parenting, and I want to counter it to expose the moving parts.
Q. My husband and I see the world—and parenting—differently. He is a type B personality (always looking for his keys), and my son and I are type A personalities (we never misplace anything because there’s a place or “home” for everything and everything in its place. How do we raise our son with two different and most times opposing parenting styles? Do we go by Mom’s style when Dad’s at work and Dad’s way when Mom’s at work. I figure that our son is learning to be flexible and learning that different rules apply at different homes or with different people. My husband, on the other hand, thinks we’re confusing him. He and my son seem to butt heads more often than our son and I do. When this happens, my husband thinks we are ganging up on him. 
Heightened aggression in children, characterized by intense anger outbursts, defiance, and physical attacks, impacts children’s social interactions, academic progress, and emotional growth. Crucially addressed in early childhood, this issue, if unchecked, can result in lifelong anti-social or 
Story: My strong willed 8 year old was diagnosed with anxiety and displays this with anger. Last March I got diagnosed with cancer and needed surgery. His anxiety hit the moon. He’s been acting out by throwing a ball at kids, stepping on their feet, throwing sand, yelling, etc. I practiced your principles of empathy, and he was able to tell me about a kid teasing him for not climbing the rock wall. I would never have found this out had I not set aside his behavior and my problem, used compassion and empathy, and listened. Yesterday when I picked him up, he came running into my arms and cried and cried really, really hard. WOW! He hasn’t cried like that in years. He cried the whole way home and continued at home and let me just sit there with him. I used empathy when needed and let him say all these horrible things about a kid who’s been bullying him. Bingo, I got to the root of his behavior, went right past those weeds. I did my best to 
It’s really easy to get down on yourself for behaving regretfully toward your child. What’s hard is forgiving yourself because you’re human and making amends. 
Vulnerability does not equal weakness. Vulnerability 
Q. I am the mother of two kids, 6 and 8. My mother’s overprotectiveness and interfering nature drives me nuts. She is a fixer for sure and has even called my boss when I shared problems I was having at work. It’s like she is my children’s parent, and I am the nanny. She tells me what to do and what they need. My parents are hugely helpful as my husband and I work from home and the kids are with them 4 days a week. But they give the kids way too much sugar and buy them things without consulting us. I don’t feel like I can tell them not to because they do so much for us. My husband thinks they don’t trust him to look after us. They are always dropping off things they think we will need. I feel angry and guilty and don’t know what to do. 
If you want your children to become respectful, responsible people, you must model that behavior. With poor boundaries, this is hard to do.