I recently worked with a mom who has a really cute and mostly happy 4 year old daughter. Mom describes her as being a true delight.

Most of the time she is easy going, friendly and helpful and mom enjoys being with her.

When we talked about what she struggles with as a parent mom shared with me she has a really hard time dealing with her own emotions while trying to stay calm and help her daughter navigate her big emotions.

Mom shared her mostly loving daughter is also highly sensitive and sometimes her emotions can be unpredictable. She can be happy one moment and sad or angry the next.

It’s so hard for this mom because when her daughter is unhappy she is very intense in her reactions and as mom puts it, “a lot of energy goes into expressing her emotions.”

Mom wants to be a loving, kind and patient parent but when her 4 year old gets upset mom quickly reacts. She feels her daughter’s response is beyond what’s necessary and her behavior is out of control.

The next thing you know, mom gets overwhelmed and irritated with her. She gets impatient with her daughter and ultimately feels bad that she ends up yelling at her little one (and sometimes punishes her), but this is mom’s quick go-to response.

She wants the behavior to stop! It’s hard for her to handle these intense negative emotions in her daughter.

The reality is we all have emotions.

Some of us are comfortable with our feelings and some of us are uncomfortable with anything of the sort, and especially so around other’s emotions.

When emotions come up it’s common to feel anxious and insecure.

Learning to accept and value your own emotions while guiding your children to value and be comfortable sharing their emotions is not always easy … but it’s important!

Research has found that children who are raised in a family where emotions are valued, respected and talked about do better in so many ways. These children:

• Trust their feelings
• Form stronger friendships
• Do better in school
• Handle their moods better
• Bounce back from emotional events quicker

Kids feel valued and comforted when all their emotions are accepted.

At the same time, it’s important for them to learn that there are limits on their behavior when they have strong emotions.

In my private coaching with this mom we had many meaningful conversations about her feelings around her emotions.

We explored her childhood and how she was parented and how she brings meaning form her past into her parenting today.

We identified her parenting style and I taught this wonderful mom how to become more aware of her emotions and helped her to understand her emotions better so she can better meet her needs and her daughters needs in the heat of the moment.

As our coaching work together goes on we continue to explore her struggles with parenting, we talk about feelings that come up for her and we reinforce coping skills for mom and her daughter for when emotions run high.

Mom has applied what she has learned to her parenting and as a result she is much less anxious about emotional outbursts when they do come up.

In fact, she notices her own feelings more now in all areas of her life and recognizes them for what they are, just feelings!

She can now be more caring and empathize with her daughters feelings when they come up and is really doing great beginning to nurture her daughters emotional development.

If you find yourself struggling to parent differently, or need support implementing new positive parenting strategies, you are not alone.

Changing patterns of behavior is hard and it can be confusing to try new things.

Parent coaching will provide you with the learning, support, and encouragement you need to help you get clear about your parenting and begin to make practical, long lasting changes.

If you can relate to any of this mom’s situation and want to learn more about how I can help you, or if you want to schedule a free phone conversation to see if my work is right for your family, please email me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Entitlement is believing that you are special and people owe you something. It’s the attitude that having good things is your birthright, not a privilege or a gift - and the very best antidote we have to combat entitlement is gratitude.

Research shows that gratitude is healthy for us and benefits kids and adults alike. Regularly experiencing gratitude plays a major role in increasing our happiness and protects us from entitlement, stress and depression. More than just happiness, gratitude is known to increases self-esteem, hope, empathy and optimism. We know that kids who practice grateful thinking are less materialistic, less envious and more satisfied with life. When we struggle emotionally, feeling grateful can help heal us. The truth is the deeper our gratitude and the more we find to be grateful for, the more we get out of life.

Knowing all the positive benefits of gratitude here are three important things parents should know when fostering gratitude and appreciation in children.

1. Teach your kids to be grateful for people in their lives, not just things. Start when your kids are really young to set limits on materialism and get in the habit of saying thank you. Help your children notice when another person has helped them or done something nice for them and teach them to take time to say thank you. There are countless opportunities every day to say thank you – thanking the waitress who serves you food, the cashier at the grocery store, a teacher for teaching, and a coach for leading practice. Putting effort into acknowledging other people for their kindness registers in your child’s brain that something good has happened and with repetition, goes a long way to building a trait of gratitude - not to mention the added positive that people in your child’s life will glow with happiness when they are intentionally thought of and acknowledged.
2. Gratitude thrives on specificity. Expressing gratitude feels more authentic when expressed specifically rather than generally. Rather than saying, “thank you for the wonderful gift” the best expressions of gratitude acknowledge the specific good intentions or acts of kindness received from others. Being specific shows you were genuinely paying attention to the other person, not just going through the motions – “Thank you for the hug. You really made me feel better when I was feeling sad.” From a young age begin to model thanking and specificity for your child.
3. Gratitude doesn’t make problems disappear. It’s easy to be grateful for the good things in life but kids need to learn to find the positive in the hard things too. Looking at life experiences through a grateful lens doesn’t mean denying our negative experiences. It’s important we help kids realize that in every negative experience (and they will experience many of them) we can reframe the experience to find the positives they may be overlooking. Help your children learn to turn an obstacle into an opportunity and a loss into a potential gain. This teaches our kids to be resilient.

Gratitude starts at home. Be a grateful parent and tell your kids why you love them and are grateful to have them. Let them know that you are thankful for their smiles, their hugs, and their help. Tell them what makes them special and show your kids that living gratefully is so much more than toys and material things. How wonderful would life be if our kids felt blessed every day because of the loving, caring, and genuine relationships in their lives?

Your parenting counts!

Strong emotions can be scary for all kids and especially young children. Their big emotions can bring on strong reactions. For children to feel more in control of their thoughts and feelings, to ultimately be more settled in how they deal with their emotions, it is important for them to have coping strategies. Coping strategies are built consistently over time. To build a repertoire of coping skills it is necessary for parents to help children learn about their emotions and work with them to develop effective skills.

Here are four points to be aware of when helping young kids develop coping skills.

Find your children’s triggers

Take time to observe your child and see if you can develop a better understanding of their struggles. Which situations are hardest for your child? Are transitions between activities particularly tough? Are there times of the day that are harder than others? Are there certain routines like bedtime or getting dressed in the morning that are more triggering? Consider what changes might be necessary to help your child cope. Do there need to be changes made to their routine? Would a picture schedule be helpful? How might your responses be adding fuel to the fire?

Be present and understanding

When your child is feeling emotional they need your attention and understanding. This is a time to focus on your child and their distress. Listen to them with the intention of trying to understand their emotion/s and the source of their upset. Ask related questions and let your child know you care and you are willing and wanting to help. Your empathy will go a long way.

Give words to feelings

When children are able to name their feelings, when they can talk about how they are feeling and what might be causing them to feel that way, emotions feel more manageable. From the time your children are little let them hear you labeling your emotions. As they grow help them label their own emotions. It is true for our kids that if they can name their emotions they can begin to tame their emotions. Visual charts, pictures of different emotions, and stories are extremely helpful in helping kids identify and learn about their emotions.

When talking about their emotions it is important for children to answer three questions – “How are you feeling right now?”, “Where are you feeling it in your body?”, and “What do you think caused you to feel this way?”

Stick with what your child loves

To build effective coping skills it is important to figure out what works and what doesn’t for your child. What does your child already do to feel good and have fun? Do they enjoy being active like riding bikes, playing with balls, or running outside? Do they prefer indoor activities like reading books or doing puzzles? Start building coping strategies with the things your child already likes to do. This may just be the fastest way to help your child get back to a place of calm. Help preschoolers build a list of 3-5 things they enjoy doing. Adding yoga, mindfulness, breathing exercises, and guided meditation are also helpful in teaching preschoolers about their emotions and giving them the skills necessary to process their thoughts and feelings.

All children at one time or another will struggle to deal with anger, disappointment, change, fear, sadness, stress or worry. Helping your child to learn and practice using coping skills will strengthen their wellbeing and allow them to cope with their big emotions and manage their behavior. Promoting the use of coping skills will strengthen your child’s chances for success now and into the future.

Your parenting Counts!

Avoiding all sibling rivalry in a family may be an impossible task. Every sibling relationship will have its share of resentment, envy, and differences of opinion. Living in a family and learning to get along can be challenging. Helping children bond and build their relationship takes time.

At the heart of sibling conflict is the reality that it is hard for children to share their parents. With the addition of a new sibling children feel the family’s emotional resources become limited and they now need to compete for a parent’s attention, affection, and time. According to Dr. Laura Markham, “Once you are aware of this primal competition the single most important antidote to sibling rivalry is that each child must be convinced from their daily experiences, that no matter what their sibling gets, there is more than enough love, attention, and appreciation for them. Once children live and believe this sibling rivalry softens and love has a chance to bloom.”

Here are 10 important things to consider when fostering a sibling friendship:

1. Each child wants to be known and loved as an individual. Children want to be loved for their unique qualities and characteristics. They don’t want you to love everyone equally. Consider what makes each of your children unique and point out special things that you notice about each of them individually.
2. Create strong bonds with each child. Consider how you respond to each of your children’s needs. Spend one-on-one time with each child individually. Connect with them in a way that really resonates with them and makes them feel loved. It does not need to be for long periods of time, but it must be meaningful. Think quality over quantity of time.
3. Monitor and regulate your own emotions. Remain neutral when conflicts arise. Realize that both children need support and solutions for working out the problem.
4. Allow big feelings. Rather than using logic or reasoning to convince them otherwise, give your child permission to express frustration, anger, and even wishes to “send the baby back.” Empathize with their big feelings and join them in their experience.
5. Intervene if necessary. Your kids may be too young or too inexperienced to “work things out” on their own. Initially, you will need to step in to help them find alternate ways to work out the problem. Over time they will be able to work through conflict independently.
6. Work toward teamwork. Rather than creating competition (example: who can get their shoes on fastest), find opportunities for your kids to support and encourage each other. Helping each other, giving hugs, drawing pictures, etc. are helpful ways to build bonds between siblings.
7. Respect Boundaries. Learning to respect boundaries is something all children must learn in order to have successful relationships with others. Teach your kids to respect the personal boundaries of their siblings and give them space when they ask for it. Allow time for older child to play independently and not always with a younger sibling.
8. Don’t force sharing. Sharing is learned as children’s social, emotional, and cognitive development increases. Adjust your expectations accordingly and recognize that that it is reasonable that children will always have some toys they do not want their siblings to use.
9. Don’t Compare. Stop comparing your children with each other. No two children are the same. Children will develop at different rates and have different strengths. Comparing children to their siblings lowers self- esteem and invites sibling competition.
10. Take care of yourself. Don’t undervalue your efforts and time invested in helping your children build a special friendship. You are in this for the long haul and the day in and day out work of parenting can leave you feeling trapped, exhausted and depleted. Think how can you arrange your schedule where you give yourself permission to take time off so you can refuel emotionally and physically. You need to be able to go the distance.

Sibling rivalry is a concern for almost all parents with two or more children. It is frustrating and stressful to parents but it is important to remember that sibling conflict is normal. Every family will have their share of squabbles and bickering. Remind yourself this is not an emergency and work to stay calm so you can support your kids through their difficulties without adding fuel to the fire. When you handle sibling conflict calmly and with fairness everybody comes out on top.

One of the most important jobs we have as parents is to nurture the development of skills in our children. Through our years of parenting we want to instill healthy like skills and characteristics in our kids. For our children to one day become healthy and well-balanced adults means we need to look at our whole child and support all their development needs rather than focusing on a few isolated skills.

This whole-child approach requires us to focus on building skills in six important areas of development – language, communication and literacy, gross and fine motor skills, creativity, academic skills, spirituality, and social-emotional skills. Here is a brief description of the six developmental domains for you to consider in your everyday parenting interactions with your child.

1. Language, Communication, and Literacy: This includes expressive language (speaking), receptive language (listening and understanding), conversation skills, as well as in time your child’s reading and writing skills used to communicate.

2. Motor Skills: This domain includes growth and development associated with the body. Gross motor skills are large movements associated with the arms and legs. Fine motor skills are smaller movements performed with hands and fingers. In this domain, consider your child’s balance, strength, coordination, and dexterity.

3. Creativity: Developing your child’s sense of wonder and curiosity, and fostering their ability to think creatively, innovatively, independently, and “outside of the box.”

4. Academic/Cognitive: Includes your child’s thinking, reasoning, logic, and problem solving skills. For toddlers and preschoolers this also includes their beginning to learn colors, numbers, letters, shapes etc.

5. Spirituality: Building your child’s sense of connectedness through their religious beliefs, family traditions, and community practices. This domain helps children find meaning, purpose, and contribution in their lives.

6. Social-emotional: Development of internal traits that strengthen your child’s ability to build meaningful relationships and interact positively with others. It also includes the ability to process emotions effectively and to self-regulate when they are upset.

Development for children progresses in a pretty predictable order within generally predictable windows of time. Within this window of time it is important to remember that not all children will be at the same developmental level at the exact same time. When we are considering development it is important to keep in mind that every child is beautifully unique. They will each have their own ‘season for blooming’ and typically, over time, development will even out

It is also very normal for children to show more advanced development in one area than in another. Meet your child where they are at. Support their areas of strength and encourage other areas of growth by providing a wide range of learning opportunities for them to practice and develop new skills without pressure.

Play experiences for children are so powerful. The best way to put deposits into each of these developmental domains for young children is through high quality play experiences. As a parent, when you provide repeated opportunities for your children to play, growth is happening in multiple of the developmental domains all at the same time.

Your parenting counts!

Aggression is hard to watch as a parent. It is upsetting to see our children hurting someone else. Few things trigger parents as quickly as when our children are yelling at us, slapping us, or sinking their teeth into a playmate’s arm. Our children’s angry and aggressive behavior may be extremely concerning to us and bring on feelings of shame and embarrassment. If the behavior has been continuing for a while you are likely tired and left feeling helpless and seriously doubting your parenting abilities.

Toddlers and preschooler’s brains are developing and becoming capable of more complex feelings. In times of outburst behavior children have intense emotions going on- confusion, frustration, anxiety, overwhelm, or disappointment. Something is going on or something happened to trigger these feelings inside and your child doesn’t yet have the ability to understand and cope with their big feelings appropriately. They react by yelling, throwing things, slamming doors, and hitting you, siblings or friends. This is the best they can do. They don’t have the words or skills to do better in this moment.

As a parent, you know you need to respond to your child and their behavior and you’ll do whatever it takes to stop the aggressive behavior. You might already have a battle plan. Maybe you start off calm and with patience hoping to diffuse the situation. When this doesn’t work, you may yell or threaten timeout, punishment, or consequences to try stop the behavior. In the end, you match their intensity with your own in a desperate attempt to calm the situation and stop the barrage of negative behavior.

The reality is that when children act out aggressively they need our help. This is not a time for punishment or consequences. In this moment your child needs you to look past their behavior and understand the needs driving the behavior, and they need help managing their big feelings. We need to shift the focus from wanting to stop the aggression to wanting to understand the aggression. Behavior is communication and when a child behaves aggressively communication is happening. Feelings are being communicated with hands and feet instead of useful words. We need to step back and see the bigger picture – we need to figure out the why behind the behavior.

There are a few common sources that may be triggering your child’s aggressive responses. Many of these may be going on beneath the surface and are not observable to you.

Environmental Factors – Are there environmental factors that may be contributing to the behavior? Do they feel unsafe? Is the environment too overstimulating for your child- too crowded, too noisy, too busy? Is the environment not stimulating enough? Is your child bored?
Physical Needs – Is your child hungry, thirsty, or do they need sleep?
Verbal Ability- Many children have difficulty expressing their thoughts and feelings. With younger children, there is the added piece that their ability to communicate and be understood through language is limited. This inability to express themselves can lead to frustration which comes out as aggression.
Need for Power- Young children want to be independent and may act out when they feel trapped or powerless. Maybe they were not given choices, maybe something was taken away, or maybe they were not able to accomplish something independently.
Need for Attention – Many children act out in an effort to connect with you and get your attention or to get other children to notice them.
Limited Skills –Young children have limited coping and problem solving skills and a limited ability to deal with big emotions. Are there specific skills that need to be taught and developed for your child?
Emotional Influences – Challenging and aggressive behaviors may be the result of your child feeling rushed, insecure, unwelcome, or frightened.

When trying to figure out the why or source behind a child’s aggressive behavior, we need to begin by being curious instead of critical of children’s behavior. It is important to stop, take a deep calming breath and consider these questions:

What is my child likely thinking in this moment?
What is my child likely feeling in this moment?
What might be difficult for him/her right now?
What skills does my child need to learn?

Aggression is a sign that your child needs your help. Children have a lot to learn so they can manage big feelings and do better in the future. When they are behaving aggressively your child needs your understanding. They need you to be strong and they need you to be the calm, confident center in the middle of their big, overwhelming emotional storm.

Your parenting counts!

As parents it is heartbreaking to know your child has not been included. It is devastating for us to think that our child is struggling to make friends and might be sitting alone and upset at school (including preschool). When this happens we desperately want to fix the problem and make it better for our child. We want to know what we can do to help when our child is excluded.

The best thing you can do as a parent is make sure you are raising kind kids. Are you empowering your children to be empathic includers? We need to teach our children about kindness, compassion, and accepting people for who they are. We need to teach about injustice and why it is so wrong to exclude others. We need to raise our kids to be people who will do the right thing, even when the right thing might be the harder thing to do – and we need to teach children prosocial behaviors that encourage the inclusion of others.

Everything our children will do on a bigger or grander scale when they are older begins at a basic level when they are young. Here are five parenting tips to help set the foundation for empowering young children to become empathic includers of others:

1. Model Appropriate Behavior. If you want your children to be inclusive and reach out to others we need to do the same. Look for opportunities where you can include others. Let your kids see you make new friends by introducing yourself to new people and starting conversations with people you don’t know. We must also make an effort to be understanding when others make mistakes and model tolerance.

2. Coach Children to celebrate differences. As parents it is important we give children the tools to be comfortable around children who might be different. Look for opportunities to notice differences in people and have conversations around tolerance and respect. Celebrate differences and at the same time teach children how we are also the same. Allow your children accept others for who they are.

3. Keep an eye out for exclusion behaviors. Observe your child as they play and watch for exclusive behaviors. Young children like familiarity and routines. They tend to sit with and play with the same group of children and this can be limiting. When you see these behaviors happening talk to your child kindly and calmly and educate them about what it means to exclude others and how they can include others. Help children make the connection between being excluded and the possible negative emotions it can cause. It is also important to teach them about the possible positive emotions that come from being included. Reading feelings books together will help your child develop their feelings vocabulary and allow your child to get more involved in the conversation and add more meaning to your conversations.

4. Teach your child how to meet people. Children between the ages of three and five should be developing the skill to approach others to join in. Encourage your children to look out for others who might need a friend and encourage them to invite the child to join them in play. Practice ways to invite a new kid into the group or ask others to join a game. Little things like smiling and remembering people’s names are great starting points for young children. Practice these skills at home so your children are better able to use them out in the world.

5. Listen, empathize, and process emotions. When your child shares with you their story of feeling hurt or being excluded it is tempting as parents to want to solve the problem and make the pain go away for our kids. Listening and empathizing are the two best things you can do to help your child learn to do the same for others. Listen respectfully to their story, validate how they are feeling and be there for them to work through their emotions. Your child needs to hear, “That sounds terrible. You must feel so upset right now.” As you help your child process their emotions show them that kindness really does count. They do not need to hear what terrible friends they have.

Kindness leads to greater happiness and more lasting friendships. Kindness is also contagious and spreads quickly to others. While you and your child cannot control how other children act what you can work on is your behavior and the behavior of your own child. It is not enough to teach children what not to do. Teach children what they can do. Show your children how they can make a difference. Empower them to make positive choices and take the lead among their peers to promote kindness, compassion and inclusion for all. Teach your children that kindness is their super power!

Your parenting counts!