I walked up my stairwell the other day, past the pictures of my children when they were one and three, and suddenly froze. I trot past those pictures many times a day, but for some reason I stopped this time and stared deeply into their young eyes. My own eyes started to water, as feelings [...]
Be prepared! Your child might come home after school or daycare and fall apart at your feet. I call this “After School Restraint Collapse.” It’s a thing! Actually, you might see this in your partner or even yourself. You conduct, orchestrate, produce, think, smile, keep things in your inside brain that you wish you could say [...]
Young children first start communicating their needs by making statements like, “I’m hungry,” or, “I was playing with that!” We often jump in to help before realizing that they actually haven’t asked us to do that. If kids receive help without asking for it, they may carry on expecting people to consider and address their [...]
Have you heard of positive and negative core beliefs before? These are the beliefs we hold of ourselves, other people, and the world based on our life experiences. Positive and negative core beliefs happen as a result of decisions or interpretations we make about situations we encounter. For example, when a child tries to build a [...]
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 [...]
A parent submitted a question about a child who lies, and I will answer it here in case any other parents have a similar one. Q: My eight-year-old continues to lie. For example, if I ask if she has eaten breakfast, she says “yes” when she really hasn’t. When I ask if her homework is done, [...]
Years ago, each time I posted pictures of my children on Facebook, I felt joy knowing my family members and friends could see my boys' smiling faces. I had put my privacy settings on the highest settings, feeling secure that I could safely post pictures of my children and know they would not meet stranger's [...]
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.
