by Cecilia Hilkey | parenting
I hate cleaning up. However, I do believe cleaning up is a valuable skill for kids to learn—not to perfect, but just participate in … at least a little bit. How do you get kids to clean up? Normal people would offer ice cream or time outs. But if you don’t want to use...read more
by Cecilia Hilkey | conflict, parenting, siblings
Do you ever wish that you could just watch someone else parent (who shares your parenting values)? See how they handle things and learn from it? Get inspired from hearing what they say or at least just know that you aren’t alone in your struggle? Well now you can! I...read more
by Cecilia Hilkey | parenting
Sometimes young children do things that we’ve forgotten how to do–like to play. When we look at what kids do, and really take on their perspective, the courage of children is often staggering. Their wisdom can bring me to tears. And their delight at life, trust...read more
by Cecilia Hilkey | parenting
Usually I don’t get this personal in our blog posts but today if you will indulge me…. Jason and I, of course, are classroom teachers and the end of the year for us is crazy busy. We worked most of our waking hours at school last week. Then hauled our kids to school...read more
by Cecilia Hilkey | parenting
A couple of weeks ago we talked about what to do, in addition to empathy, to create calm and peace in your family, when yelling or fighting is happening, and how to create your own personalized “calming plan”. Jason and I made a downloadable list of all of the things...read more
by Cecilia Hilkey | parenting
Ok, I know that the following formula doesn’t follow the rules of mathematics. (This could really bother Jason who actually has a degree in Math.) However, isn’t the following formula an illustration of what happens in families? Kids upset + parent upset = recipe for...read more
