The 3R’s of Positive Behavior is an excellent manual for educators. There are a lot of GREAT classroom techniques that can transfer to parenting as well. The 3Rs are Respect, Responsibility, and Reliability. If you like the idea of Thematic Parenting, this is a “Go-To” resource. This manual is written by my father, Gailen Keeling. I grew up with first-hand experience of many of
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
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
If the child cries for what they want, the answer is always “No.” Always? Yep. Consistency is key with this tool. If you’ve ever found yourself giving into a demand made by your child just to stop the crying, this is a good one. We instilled this practice early on in our parenting and we avoided so many of those kinds of struggles with
The Power of Three is a great parenting tool any time you want your child to understand an expectation or new experience. It’s three simple steps involving REPETITION. 1. Tell or show your child the behavior that you expect in a situation the night before or that morning. Use as few words as possible. 2. Tell or show them again a few hours or
Parents, Grandparents, Educators, Friends of Parents, and anyone who interacts with children: Welcome to a site devoted to distilling massive amounts of parenting information into nuggets of gold. All with the intent of helping parents get into and stay in their parenting groove. You can start using what you learn here right away. And parenting will become easier, more enjoyable, and even more of
