The 2024 election season has put a lot of us through the wringer. We may have deeply held values around fairness, freedom, and what it means to belong in a community – and it can feel scary when other people don’t share those values. For parents, the election obviously gives us an opportunity to discuss…
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Note: This blog post is an adaptation of the podcast episode How to Create a Culture of Consent in our Families When my daughter was three, her doctor prescribed antibiotics for an infection. She said she didn’t like the flavor and refused to take them, and I forced the dropper into her mouth. I…
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Does it sometimes seem like things would be a lot easier if your children would just listen to you? Would it make you feel uncomfortable to see your boy dressed in pink clothes, and your girl being loud, demanding, and ‘rude’? Do you ever feel as though you’re always trying to get to the bottom…
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When my daughter was a toddler, I used to tell a lot of stories. Of course there were the stories I made up for her before bed; her favorites were the ones where she went on adventures with Squirrel Number One and Squirrel Number Two from our backyard. At least once in every story she and…
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A few weeks ago I sent an email to YPM subscribers about Juneteenth, and how I see the connections between parenting and power, and one of you wrote back to me: I as a white parent am exerting power over my white child. How does this connect to racism? I understand modeling how…
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Last week I published a long podcast episode on why we shouldn’t read Dr. Louise Bates Ames’ Your X-Year-Old child books any more, which got quite a big response from listeners. In this blog post I’ll briefly summarize the main points of that episode and then answer the question I received most often via email…
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“On average, authoritative parents spanked just as much as the average of all other parents. Undoubtedly, some parents can be authoritative without using spanking but we have no evidence that all or even most parents can achieve authoritative parenting without an occasional spank.” Perhaps you won’t even believe the origin of that quote: it’s…
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If you’re like most parents, you find yourself asking ‘why, why, why?’ on a daily basis. Sometimes you’re referring to your child’s behavior–‘why did he decide to lick the floor at the grocery store?’ Other times, you’re likely asking yourself about your own behavior–‘why did I just lose my mind about an unfinished bowl of…
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Have you ever observed a child setting a toy car at the top of a ramp and watching it roll down over and over again? What is it that enables a child to do this for 45 minutes at a time when they won’t sit and listen to a story for more than five minutes?…
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The vast majority of the parents I work with are struggling with some form of anxiety related to their parenting. Sometimes this fits the clinical definition of anxiety, but other times it is just continual self-doubt or fear of ‘messing up’ their children. In this post I’m going to discuss six of the most significant…
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