Your job as a parent is not to make your child happy. Your job is to make your job obsolete one day. Your job is to raise independent, capable children. Will they be perfect when they reach the age of 21? No. But they will be ready to make their own decisions, learn from their mistakes, and grow into functioning adults. They will do this… Read More »Wrong Belief #5: I Need to Make Sure My Child Is Happy
It’s the little things sometimes that make or break us. Here are some ideas for making going back-to-school easier: Lock up all electronic devices one hour before your kids’ bedtime. Turn off the TV. Stop looking at any lighted screen. Get ready for bed and wind down. This goes for everybody in the house! You need your rest! Do not let your children sign up… Read More »5 Back-to-School Life Hacks
Good morning! I hope you are having better bedtimes (read previous post). Now it’s time to get your children out of bed and off to school. Here are some tips to help de-stress mornings at your house. Help your child establish the habit of laying out his/her clothes the night before. This one tip is worth its weight in blog posts! If every single thing… Read More »3 Tips to Make Getting Your Children Off to School Easier!
If you are having trouble getting your kids to go to bed (and stay there!) you are not alone. While bedtime has always presented challenges, there are now so many more distractions that parents have to deal with. I hope these tips help. Decide on what time bedtime is and stick to it. For younger children, 8:30 is a good time. For twelve-year-olds and older,… Read More »Four Tips to Make Your Child’s Bedtime Easier
Are you running to keep up and feeling like you are failing? It could very well be that you are lacking one very important concept. If your home life is a source of almost constant friction and irritation, sometimes spiking into intense frustration, hopelessness, and despair, and then degenerating into resentment and blame, then I want to ask you something: How do you get things… Read More »How to run your household like a Boss
Now, I am not condoning murder, or child abuse! I’m just saying children, whether they are your biological/adopted children, or your stepchildren, can drive you crazy almost faster than anyone else. Doesn’t mean you are a bad person because you wish they would just go away for a week, or a month, or just move out entirely. So, please, stop torturing yourself because you don’t… Read More »It’s Perfectly Normal to Want to Kill Your Children.
I am going to assume your children’s rooms are completely out of control. They can so easily get that way. There are food encrusted plates under the bed, old peanut butter sandwiches in the drawers, and all manner of toys, crayons, papers, socks etc., which have melded into a glacier of stuff. Telling your children to “clean your room” is a joke. YOU couldn’t clean… Read More »A Peaceful House – Children’s Rooms
I know that a lot of people think creating a routine is something only very boring, non-creative people would do, but I disagree! Creating and tweaking your own routine can free up energy for the rest of your life. The fact is that laundry and dishes and cooking and cleaning and errands, etc. are a part of life, and they are not going away. It’s… Read More »Getting Ready for the Next Day
Going back to school is exciting, but it can also be stressful. Your family may have gotten into their summer routine, which involves sleeping later and being a bit more relaxed about schedules, etc. Here are some ways which may help you go back to school without all the stress and upset: Move bedtime up by half-hour increments Do this every three days until you… Read More »5 Tips for Managing Back-to-School Stress
First of all, stop telling them to clean their rooms. From now on, think of their room as 5 separate zones instead of one room. The zones are the bed, the floor, the desk, the closet, and the nightstand and chest of drawers. If you like, you can even separate the last two and make 6 zones. Second, stop saying “clean”. This means nothing. Set… Read More »How to Get Children to Clean Their Rooms