By now you’re probably poised for "Back to School." Backpack? Check √. School supplies? Check √. Lunch box? Check √. Positive attitude? Check √ Check √ Check √. But how long will it take for that positive attitude to wear off? For your focus to shift to the negatives, the problems, the feeling that it's all just a grind? Don't worry, the issues will crop up, and you will have to deal with them, but there are some things you can make part of your routine that help you and your kids focus on the positives throughout the school year. One way to keep up a positive "Back to School" attitude is through practicing gratitude, appreciation, and finding "3 good things."
Read moreParenting from a “Who is My Child?” Perspective
Over the years I have read more than my share of parenting books by well-intentioned experts who profess to have the “secret sauce” to parenting. Though I have found many of these books enlightening and sometimes useful, most of these authors take a prescriptive or “how to” approach to raising children — for example, let your child cry it out to learn how to fall asleep on his/her own; put your child in time out to learn how to control his/her inappropriate behavior; don’t help with homework so they can learn how to become independent learners. While some of these “prescriptions” may have some validity in some situations with some children, I take the “how to’s” more as suggestions to try in the appropriate context if I feel they are right for my particular child at a particular time in a particular context.
Read moreFire Child Water Child: Book Review
As I was reading Stephen Cowan, MD’s Fire Child Water Child, a book that Deepak Chopra called “groundbreaking work,” I kept thinking to myself, “I wish Dr. Cowan had been my child’s pediatrician, and wouldn't it have been great if this book was available when I was raising my son.” The perspective that Dr. Cowan presents does indeed break through our commonly held assumption that when it comes to helping children learn and focus “one size fits all.”
Read moreYou Know More than You Think You Do
Still looking for the instruction manual that you expected to come with your child? You already have it, but don’t know it. “You know more than you think you do,” was the theme of one of the best selling books of all time The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care, written by Dr. Benjamin Spock. Millions of parents of “baby boomers” (my generation) relied on Dr. Spock’s book for advice in the late 1940’s, 1950’s and 1960’s. But with all of the “how to’s” from the good doctor himself, his main message to parents was to trust their instincts and have confidence in their own abilities.
Read more