It’s Sunday. Sunny and mild March foothills weather. Sunday is traditionally family day at our house. Today we are all here but doing our own thing. Mu husband is fixing a squeak on his mountain bike (specifically, rear-disc brakes, he just informed me.) My son is building his Lego MindStorms ping pong catapult for Science class. Before I sat down to write this post I
When I took a Positive Discipline parenting class, we were all given this book. What is Positive Discipline? Can you have both those words together in one experience? To begin, Jane Nelson names three adult-child interactions – strictness, permissiveness, and positive discipline – and then provides helpful concepts for understanding their differences. She writes about how punishment DOES work – it stops the immediate
My mother’s death is still so recent – maybe that’s why it’s easier to talk about Zed’s grief instead of my own. He had one small previous experience with death (unless you count rural Grass Valley road kill). Our dog of many years, Ziggy, died when he was two. Fueled by pictures and our stories, he will sometimes use these memories to access a
In my son’s classroom, the teacher praised a child’s roundly perfect cursive o’s. “Good job, Sienna.” At Little League, the coach told the boy who caught the ball, “Good job, Timothy.” Today, I heard “Good job” at the grocery store when the girl stopped throwing her Cheerios, on the playground when a boy hit the wall with the ball instead of his sister, and
Parents want their children to do well in school. You may already implement early bedtimes, assist with homework, limit sugar in lunches, and discuss on-going updates with their teacher. Here’s a few more ideas for helping your with homework and doing well in school: The Conversation The more I know about my son’s school experience, the more I can help it be a good
In the “old days,” teachers played the piano in the classroom and the students sang on a daily basis. With budget cuts throughout the country, many music programs have been discontinued. Unless your child goes to a specialized school, music is probably not part of their daily classroom experience. My son has music in his school because I teach it. Not all his friends
