Mary Sheedy Kurcinka Ed.D and Lynn Jessen MA
Birthday parties are deemed one of the top stressors for young children. What’s a parent to do? Avoid all birthday parties? Or recognize that birthday parties provide an excellent opportunity to develop essential life skills.
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“I’m bored. There’s nothing to do. You never play with me.” Sound familiar? If you are feeling drained by your child’s seemingly endless demands for interaction, your first reaction may be to insist they play independently. But have you ever noticed that the harder you push, the more they seem to cling? So, if pushing doesn’t work, how can you get a break....
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Those of us with "Spirited" children often get caught up on the challenges. That is why it is important for us to take time and focus on our children's gifts.
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Must tears, shouts and snowsuits be synonymous? No, but the secret to happy cooperation is recognizing who you are working with. "Spirited" kids are active, sensitive and intense. To keep things moving along smoothly it is important to plan accordingly.
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Your child is screaming, “You are stupid.” Or worse, “I hate you!” You feel yourself spiraling, every cell in your body triggered. Do you yell too? Flee? Burst into tears? Or do you somehow stay cool?
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It’s so hard to not feel like a failure when your child is gyrating on the floor and screaming, especially when they save these moments for you.
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Mornings have been going well. Drop-off at school, not a problem. Even pick-up from school AND bedtime have been relatively peaceful until everything blows up. It’s as though a force has taken over your child. NOTHING is right.
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Children synchronize to our stress level. That is why the best thing you cna do as a parent is take good care of yourself so you can meet the needs of your children.
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Perhaps it was the foot stomp punctuating the shrill rebuttal to your simple question that caught your attention today. Lately, it seems “normal” for your child to scream every time you ask her to do anything. How did this happen?
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Darkness falls at 5:00 PM here in Minneapolis. Long, cold nights make us want to curl up under a down comforter with a good book or to simply fall asleep. But like the snow piling up outside, the “to do” list of the holidays dumps more on our schedules already filled to the brim. So how do you keep the “happy” instead of the “hollering” in the holidays?
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The demands of being a parent can feel relentless. Frequent meltdowns wear you down, and leave you feeling powerless to stop them, but you are not. Today, Lynn and I offer you four effective strategies to lower stress by preventing some of the meltdowns from occurring in the first place.
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Pockets of Predictability--Blog 1 of 10
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“I promised myself I was not going to yell at her again,” Kristin confessed. “But sometimes it is as though it erupts from me. The force of it shocks me. I keep wondering, who is this?”
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Ever find yourself silently screaming wondering why your child behaves for others and falls apart the minute you walk in the door? Are you an unfit parent? Are you a failure? Or, do these comments signify that you are doing a GREAT job!
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You have asked your child to pick up his toys and he’s refusing. When you ask, "What's up?” he drops into a full-fledged meltdown, screaming and kicking at you. This was not in the script running through your head.
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It's hard to give my spirited daughter time to process emotions, because her actions push me away, when really, I think she wants me close. It's so hard to be near her at those moments. I need time to process at that point. - Tatum
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