Positive Discipline Parenting Blog

Siblings: Get them in the ring

The most popular night of my seven-week Positive Discipline parenting series is the night we finally get to talk about siblings. From the first week, this is a source of angst for parents. It is on every list of challenges that we make, and usually the sibling fighting is a trigger that brings out the “Final straw! I’ve had it, that’s it!” moment in the night where we turn into the version of our parents we swore we would never become. It takes a full six weeks of building on parenting tools before we can get to this meaty and layered challenge. In this class, I always start by asking that same question, “what did you learn from your siblings?” After some scoffing, the answers range from:

Talking to Kids About Death

As an elementary school counselor, one of the hardest parts of my job was talking to young children about death. It felt so unfair for a little person to bear such sadness. The loss of a mother. A father. A grandparent. A brother. A sister yet to be born. An aunt. A friend. There was […]

Want to Raise Happy Kids? Teach Gratitude.

Ask any parent what they want for their children and they will likely say, “I just want her to be happy.” It is what we strive for within our own lives, and what we anguish over for our children. It guides education decisions, discipline, and even shopping. Lately there has been a surge of books, documentaries, and research that lay out the “guide” to happiness, with a common theme arising again and again: gratitude.

An Open Letter to the World ~from a mom of a transgender child

“Humans are diverse and beautiful just like our planet. We are so lucky to live in a world where there are not just one or two or even three ways of being, but so many we can’t even count them. Humans aren’t just boys or girls. Gender is a spectrum. It’s like a rainbow of possibilities. First, there’s how we identify: girl, boy, neither, both, or more! Then, there’s how we want to express ourselves through our clothes, hair, etc.”