My youngest son loves to help in the kitchen. One day when he asked my sister if he could stir the spaghetti sauce on the stove, I shuddered at the thought of red sauce being flicked out of the pot, but she calmly responded: “Sure. Be low and slow.” He looked at her, smiled, and [...]
Growing up in a small, isolated mining community far away from large cities in my childhood and teenaged years, I don’t recall really being aware of death. In our isolation, likely also do to the absence of the Internet at that time, we didn’t hear that much about death. Sure, if you watched one of the two [...]
I remember very clearly the day a neighbour saw me outside with my then three and one-year-olds and remarked, “Wow, I miss those days so much.” I felt like hitting him! That reaction freaked me out and really told me there was something off in my world. I believe I smiled weakly and replied, “Yeah, [...]
I’m a bit of an introvert, but certainly not as much as one of my children. If he had his way, he’d be happy to read all day! This in some ways is beneficial because he is independent and I can actually have long, hot showers; in many ways, it is quite challenging: transitions can be [...]
Do you let your kids help when you're in the kitchen? They can make a pretty big mess, but there's great lessons to be learned there for kids. In fact, the kitchen can still teach us adults a few things, too! My youngest son loves to help in the kitchen. I stared at my sister [...]
One day I just sat down on the sofa and cried — a lot — for no reason. Instead of doing what I typically do as a psychotherapist, which is to jump into solving mode to “get myself out of this,” I just allowed myself time to cry. I did this because I had faith [...]
Having children brought out the worst in me (at first). I expected parenting to be more joyful than it actually was. My reality, however, was that I spent a lot of time crying when my children were born. I don’t think we do a good enough job of admitting how hard parenting can be sometimes. [...]
A calm-down corner (or area as it doesn’t have to be in a corner) is a place for angry and upset children to go to engage their minds and release their anger. I used this when my children were little in place of time-out because time-out didn’t work for my sensitive son. Here, I’ll show [...]
When my three boys were two, four and five, we played a game called “Secret Teddy.” Teddy was a small, ragged stuffed bear that “mysteriously appeared” on one son’s pillow each night with a little note describing how he had been especially caring that day. (Trying to be sneaky was always challenging). I only needed [...]
From the moment your baby bump starts to show, others are likely to provide unsolicited advice or comment on your parenting strategies. The motivation for unsolicited advice is interesting. Some people are genuinely concerned with helping, whereas others might be attempting to steal power from you by asserting a false parenting superiority. The comments I [...]
Andrea Loewen Nair is a counsellor, 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.
