Parenting is an extremely important job, yet it does not come with protocols to handle the responsibilities that come along with it. There is no mandatory training course to help prepare for a day in the life of being a parent or for the unavoidable challenges that come with parenting. Parents are simply doing their best to support their children.

How to Mindfully Respond to your Child

It can be difficult to always respond to your child in the most effective way. When you’re in a stressful situation, your body acts without thinking. You may act on your emotions and respond in ways that you later regret. However, you can modify your response before you act on impulse by incorporating mindfulness into your parenting. You have the option to react on emotions or respond mindfully. Let’s explore how you can start to integrate mindfulness into your parenting approach in order to reduce stress and maintain a positive parent-child relationship…

Maintaining Your Self-Respect as a Parent

Parenting as we used to know it (pre-pandemic) has radically changed! We are now being challenged with multi-tasking and problem-solving novel situations with no road map or clear answers. Although positive parenting is possible right now, it certainly is challenging! To feel both effective AND simultaneously good about yourself while navigating this challenging time, use the Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) skill of FAST to maintain your self-respect as a parent. FAST is helps you keep your self-respect in relationships by honoring your own values and beliefs. Let’s explore how it works…

Supporting Kids with Online Learning: When to Step In and When to Step Back

Have you been getting more involved in your kids’ online learning? Many parents are stepping in this school year to support their children with online learning so that they don’t fall behind academically. But have you ever considered the impact of your added involvement on your children’s executive functioning skills? Executive functioning skills are the set of skills that your child doesn’t get graded for; however, they do play a key role in learning and earning high marks. Strong executive functioning skills allow kids to organize, prioritize, and complete tasks effectively. With remote learning, strive to find a balance between stepping in to help and stepping back to let your kid figure things out on their own and develop vital executive functioning skills. Here are some strategies to help you and your children this school year...

How to Transform Mundane Daily Tasks into Mindful Ones

Do you feel like you’re stuck in the same quarantine routine? If you and your family have been following the same cycle since quarantine began, it might be time for a change. Following the same patterns of behavior can make you feel anxious, hopeless, or frustrated. You’re often on autopilot, going through the motions of typical tasks while your mind wanders and worries about other things. Luckily, there is a way to break out of these patterns of behavior and have an improved connection to daily experiences: mindfulness! Mindfulness helps you break the cycle of passive “autopilot” behavior. You build awareness of what’s happening around you without letting your emotions take control. Mindfulness isn’t as complicated as you might think. Here are some simple ways to incorporate mindfulness into your routine and find meaning in mundane experiences…

3 Ways to be a More Effective Parent during COVID-19

As parents, we all have unique ideals and expectations of the experience of raising our kids. We set schedules, we create routines and we teach lessons to instill those ideals in our children as we try to meet our own. So, how do we manage when our children change, when we change, and when life changes? It’s challenging to parent your children the same way that you were months ago, before the pandemic began. Therefore, it is crucial that we adapt to changing circumstances. How can we maintain a flexible stance with our parenting and create a calmer home environment? Here are 3 ways to help you become a more effective parenting during this crisis…

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