The gift of knowing and hearing one’s worth and value is priceless. Learned that lesson in living color again this week. Ever since my junior tribe members were toddlers, I would take them out for lunch on their birthday. Just the two of us. Always right on the day…unless it was a weekend, and then …
Nurture changes brain structure
School-age children whose mothers nurtured them early in life have brains with a larger hippocampus, a key structure important to learning, memory and response to stress. …”This study validates something that seems to be intuitive, which is just how important nurturing parents are to creating adaptive human beings,” says lead author Joan L. Luby, MD, …
Have You Hugged Your Kid Today?
Have you hugged your kid today? Hugs can NEVER be overrated. Hugs are powerful…oxytocin is released during a hug…it connects people, it calms the soul, and soothes troubled emotions. Hugs help children settle, it “slows down a racing engine”, it reduces pain. Hugging is part of spending time, showing you care, nurturing and loving another. …
Mr. Dressup
CBC turned 75 years old this week. They’ve been playing bits of archival material, and because its one of the stations I listen to when I’m in the car, I’ve been catching bits of them…like pieces of “As it Happens” interviewing a hostage taker in the middle of Washington’s hostage crisis years ago, or the …
Deep Breath–and Love with Action
Sometimes it doesn’t take a lot for it to mean a lot. I was talking to a friend the other day…a friend who has had it “up to here” with adolescent sons…you know, the normal kind that burp (loud!) without apology, needs rides hither and yon, and just generally think they are the center of …
A Mixed Goodbye
All over this country, mothers and fathers are having “anticipatory grief”…knowing we are in the latter half of August. Soon kindergartners will leave their mothers for school…some can hardly wait to use their new knapsacks and tuck into school. Soon, new high school graduates will be packing up their suitcases and going off to college. …
Stayin Together 101 Part 4
The real cradle that holds the baby is the emotional climate between new parents. Many significant social problems [like violence] in our society can be traced back to this negative emotional climate in families. John Gottman I often tell couples who are struggling with the needs of a child who that are …
Relational Compensation…A Painful Balance
So…what happens when you put a cold mama and a hot junior tribe member in a Honda? Nope, this is not the beginning of some corny joke. It’s life in my household. A coupla times in the last coupla weeks, I found myself in a situation where I am running around doing errands, in and …
The Raising of a Mother
Parenting demands more love, more patience, more endurance that I would have thought possible. Mothering involves sleepless nights and cleaning up puke, restlessly trying to break a little one’s fever, talking to a teacher that has hurt a little one, phoning a doctor’s office to advocate for month’s sooner appointment even after they said it …
Parenting Perspective
I had a choice the other day when one of the junior members of my tribe asked me to join him for a bowl of popcorn and a show we both enjoy. My temptation was to say that it didn’t work…we were moving our office. That meant that I was doing a bunch of things …