Reflections are repetitions of what your child has just said. This can be a verbatim repeating of what they have shared or a summary. Using reflections during dysregulated moments helps your child to slow down their own thoughts and big feelings while also allowing them to feel heard by letting them know that you’re listening to them.

Children’s emotions typically follow a curve. They are calm, until something triggers them and their emotions intensify. If the child is unable to cope with their feelings, they reach a peak emotion, which is typically when we would see them hit, yell, kick, or cry. Sometimes, it feels like you are looking at a child you do not recognize during these peak emotions. During each stage of this curve, parents can react differently in order to minimize the size of the child’s reaction and alleviate emotional stress. In order to find what triggers big reactions in a child, parents need to be detectives.

Power struggles with children can emerge for a variety of reasons. These willful and increasingly autonomous moments are a normal part of development and typically begin around age two. When parents are confronted with navigating a newly willful toddler, they are forced to make tricky split second decisions as to how to manage a behavior, tantrum or big emotion. Fortunately, there are effective strategies to help end power struggles with your child, many of which can be simple changes in the way the parent views the child’s behavior.

Most adults haved learned to successfully integrate their “thinking brain” and “emotion brain” in a way that allows them to continue to problem solve in these moments. Kids typically haven’t yet mastered this regulatory capability. We have to help our kids learn to effectively integrate their “thinking brain” and their “emotion brain” when they’re experiencing big feelings.

You’re seated right near the stage, watching the conductor lead the orchestra with rhythmic motions, pointing to the string instruments, to the woodwinds, to the bass… Just as the conductors so fluidly guides the orchestra to create beautiful compositions of music, so does our Executive Function guide our everyday thoughts and behaviors. Simply put, our executive function skills are imperative to our daily activity and functioning in the world around us.

It’s natural and appropriate for all young children to feel separation anxiety while separating from their caregivers. Children long to be close to their caregivers and separating from them threatens their sense of security, which creates feelings of worry and distress. For some kiddos, the distress of separating from their caregiver becomes more severe, which can interfere with daily life. Often, this leaves caregivers feeling low on options and overwhelmed. Navigating separation anxiety is a balancing act of managing the child’s desire to be close while providing encouragement towards independence.

Positive parenting programs have a large and meaningful evidence-base for helping parents manage problem behaviors. However, positive parenting is not widely understood by parents. Many parents assume that positive parenting means kids can do no wrong and that we reward them anyway. In fact, positive parenting is quite different. Positive parenting actually involves relationship building, using parental attention effectively, giving kids independence, using discipline appropriately, and providing a safe, secure, and consistent environment. Once parents understand what positive parenting really is, skepticism tends to dissipate.

For almost every family out there, screen time has increased over the past year. Some families feel like screen time has gotten out of hand and some just want to know how to make better choices about screens moving forward. So how can you decide what is best for your family?

When we are faced with behavioral challenges, it is easy to see the problem, but it is much harder to see the solution. Because we see a glaring problem, we might yell “stop!” or “don’t!” to get our child to change their behavior. The truth is: we want them to stop, but we really want our kids to show a more positive behavior.

Selective Mutism (SM) is an anxiety disorder characterized by consistent failure to speak in specific social situations. Kids with SM may struggle to speak at school, with adults, or with peers. They may have difficulty sharing personal information or making choices. Unfortunately, SM is not widely understood and neither are the important concepts that guide treatment for SM. Being a good consumer of treatment options will help you to be the best advocate for your child.

Having ADHD does not define a person and there are skills, strategies, and other interventions to help those with ADHD thrive. The way we like to look at it is that ADHD is a disorder of regulation: dysregulation of attention, dysregulation of impulsivity, dysregulation of emotions. Our job is to give these kids the strategies to be able to better regulate so they can do what they need to do each and every day. The first step to helping them regulate is to understand the facts and myths behind ADHD.

Kids are going to have big feelings. Whether they want to admit it or not, they still need so much help. Growing and developing is overwhelming, frustrating, and confusing for kids and parents alike, so how can you get through those tough moments together?

Praise is a powerful tool for parenting. It helps your child to learn, feel accepted, and build confidence. It seems simple to just tell your child you are proud of them, but there are actually ways to make your praise more effective.