Category Archive:
Children’s basic needs

Why Establish Routines?

why establish routines

Establishing routines with our children is an effective and powerful way to set boundaries. Setting limits helps our children feel safe, and allows them the freedom to focus on skill building and learning. Our routines, though, may have unintended consequences. If we spend the morning reminding, organizing and coercing our children in order to get […]


Priceless Presents

Do you ever worry about selecting the right gift for the special people in your life? Let’s take a few minutes to consider gifts that are free, yet priceless. Download the article and audio recording below: ARTICLE: Priceless Presents AUDIO: Priceless Presents Leave your comments below!


The Steps To Reading

steps to reading

“It’s just a miracle!” parents exclaim. “Our son is five years old and he’s reading.” When children begin to read, it does seem miraculous. Remember when your child began to talk? It seemed as if one day she couldn’t say a word and the next day she could, then you could never get her to […]


What? Don’t Teach The ABCs?

don't teach the abc's

Don’t teach your children their abc’s,” I tell surprised parents of three-year-olds. “They’ll learn their abc’s later, but to be wonderful readers they need to learn something else first.” Most of us learned the letter names, as we sang our “abc’s” (aye-bee-sees). To learn to read faster and more efficiently, help your children learn the […]


Reading Begins At Birth

reading begins at birth

Avoid the trap of thinking that the road to reading for your child will begin in kindergarten. Parents tell me, “Oh, I’m too busy. I’ll just let my child learn to read in first grade.” For many children important skills for reading are not developed at the time of their lives when it is the […]


On The Road To Reading

understanding how children learn to read

Car seat manufacturers announced changing their installation instructions because the reading level was too difficult for over half of their customers in the United States. How high was that reading level? A fifth grade level. As a young mother, I had a knot in my stomach when reading this kind of article, along with a […]


Words Can Hurt, Too

Words can hurt too

Name-calling seems to be a juvenile behavior that unfortunately can continue until adulthood. Research shows that name-calling negatively affects our perception of the victim of name-calling. Doesn’t that appear to be valid? Once we hear something negative about a person, true or untrue, we tend to remember that assertion, even though we may know the […]


Stopping Biting

stopping biting

Most biting in young children occurs between the ages of fourteen to thirty-six months.  At this age biting is more connected to oral and language development.  Biting in the four-year-old may be about developmental delays in impulse control, social skills or meeting situational expectations. The younger child learning to speak as well as to control […]


My Amygdala Made Me Do It!

My Amygdala Made Me Do It

Learning to control impulses is an important task for our children, and all of us, to learn. Until our children learn to control urges to hit, kick, punch, pinch, bite, spit, name call and more, we’ll see all those behaviors emerge when life becomes overwhelming. How is self-control established? Let’s look at the young child’s […]


The Night Night Nasties

night night nasties

Bedtime battles. Trying to get our children to sleep when and where we would like appears as one of the top parenting issues time after time. Once we understand the big picture, plan and patiently execute the plan, we’ll be able to get those much needed nights of rest. Seeing the big picture of what […]