The Blog
Our best advice when it’s tough with kids:breathe, laugh, dance, sing, hug, call a friend. Be gentle with yourself, you’re not done growing up yet. This won’t last and you are not alone.
Story Massage to help a child with feelings
Have you ever gotten stuck like this… When the “oatmeal hits the fan” and you’re trying to help your child calm down, and, at the same time, you feel more and more stress rising from the pit of your stomach or a tightness in your chest? Have you found yourself...
How to Help Anxious Kids
We got this email recently asking for ideas about how to help a child with anxiety. Dear Cecilia and Jason, My 7 year old is in 1st grade. Although he was fine in kindergarten and the first half of 1st grade, something abruptly changed and he became very anxious about...
Bossy and defiant kids
We got an email recently from a parent basically asking - How do you ask a young child to do something without a struggle? Hi, Cecilia and Jason, I love the positivity of your parenting advice. I feel at a loss at how to deal with my three year old. I have resorted...
How to listen – in difficult conversations
Sometimes our children zero in on our deepest fears or concerns. Their words or behaviors or choices touch a very vulnerable part of us. Sometimes just the fact that our kids are growing up and bit by bit entering into the world can cause a parent to break out into a...
Morning Stress
We received this email recently as part of our “Ask Us Anything” Series: Dear Cecilia and Jason, My six-year-old girl has been very stressed about getting dressed in the morning. She has a lot of clothes and she choses outfits by herself. She often says she doesn't...
How to work together when there is no choice
As part of our "Ask Us Anything" series - we got this email recently: Dear Cecilia and Jason, I have a 5-year-old child who needs to take medication twice daily. It's serious, life or death medication...and she seriously doesn't want to take it. We have done pill...
5 Strategies to help a child through a big change
This was a recent email we received asking for ideas to help children handle a big move. But even if you are not moving like this family, it is likely that your child has a transition of some sort on the horizon—new school, new sibling, or summer break, etc. Even a...
Taking Care of Negative Emotions
Do you ever find yourself caught up in your emotions? If you’re like me, you feel pretty good during the day but when it’s time for bed–or it’s the middle of the night–your mind becomes a whirlwind of negative thoughts. Something that seemed perfectly acceptable in...
How to end a power struggle with your child
Hello there, In a parenting workshop that we gave last week at a local charter school we were giving our usual talk about the importance of identifying a child’s need (and our own need). A dad raised his hand and asked, “How do you distinguish between needs and wants?...