You, your partner, and other primary child-givers are going to be teaching your children how to talk. Here are some tips to promote clearer communication and to help you foster increased self-esteem, confidence and understanding through this process. Learn sign-language and start by 6 months of age. Consistently use these 7 main signs with babies: eat, [...]
While gathering information for articles about toddlers, I have discovered desperate posts like this on the Internet: "Two-year-old for sale. Cheap!" Raising little ones can be very hard! In order to parent children under 3, adults need to accept the challenging parts that come during this time (along with the super-cute parts). Toddlers will yell, [...]
Smoothly getting your 1, 2, or three-year-old toddler out the door is a combination of planning ahead, clever language, getting enough sleep, and consistent routines. To make the out-the-door transition as smooth as possible, consider the stage of development your child is in and steps to completing tasks. First, toddlers do not want to leave [...]
One of the most challenging moments with young children are during a “transition.” A transition is when you are moving from one activity to the next. Transitions often mean that your young child has to stop playing or doing something he loves to shift into naptime, mealtime, bedtime, or to go somewhere else. Reasons transitions [...]
Helping your child through a freak-out that has been caused by a compromised state includes juggling between finding a way to reduce the compromise and handling the melt-down. Being "compromised" means when a child is upset due to hunger, thirst, sleepiness, lack of rest, or overstimulation. The trick is to identify what is compromising the child and [...]
After reading my Being Mindful Of Your Nice To Nag Ratio post, I heard from K.J. Dell’Antonia at The New York Times Motherlode Blog. She wondered, “What do you do when you have to correct a child because it is necessary, as in the case of a special needs or speech issues?” This is a [...]
A positive parenting strategy that works well to reduce dawdling and increase cooperation is one I call the “either/or.” This is where a child is presented with a choice to make that still accomplishes the task at hand. Offering choices is a wonderful way to grow problem-solving skills; however, giving too many options can cause frustration. [...]
One of the hardest skills for any person to develop is how to stop an emotional and physical eruption from happening or how to cool ourselves down once it has. We call these explosions “tantrums” in children, but adults have these, too. I call an adult freak-out a bigtrum: big person tantrum. While reading Jamie [...]
One of the ways to connect more deeply with your child (which reduces unwanted behaviour) is to concentrate on filling what I call a child’s “ALIVE tanks.” These are imaginary tanks that hold your child’s most important needs: to feel connected, loved, important, heard and capable. Picture a child having some metaphorical tanks inside her. [...]
Andrea Nair is a psychotherapist, parenting educator and international media parenting expert based in London, Ontario, Canada. Her therapy background helps parents to understand at a deeper level what to do when kids drift away, behaviour goes wild, buttons are pushed and old negative self-talk gets too loud.
Her goal is to let parents know they are not alone in their struggles and to provide practical help that makes big positive changes. Parenting can be very hard—and Andrea wants to help.
