Parenting, Helicopters and Ostriches

September 13, 2011

Have you ever heard the expression “helicopter parent”? I’m sure many of you have. But in case you haven’t heard the phrase, it was coined in a book called Parenting with Love and Logic by Foster. W. Cline M.D. and Jim Fay, back in 1990. Helicopter parents are parents who hover continuously around their kids, [...]

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First Day of School and the Happy Snappy Drop off

August 31, 2011

Photo Credit: Sean Lancaster As I write this it is one week until my youngest daughter starts Junior Kindergarten. It will be the first time we drop her off at a “big school”, rather than the preschool that she attended for the last two years. It got me thinking that a lot of parents are [...]

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Learning from a Lemonade Stand

August 30, 2011

Photo Credit: EvinDC / Flickr (Creative Commons) Today my two daughters decided that they were going to setup a lemonade stand at the end of the driveway. The oldest (now 6) made up a very cute sign complete with a sketch of a lemonade pitcher, colored in with her Crayola pencils. The youngest (4) helped [...]

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Beat the Heat: Saving Money on Water Toys

August 6, 2011

Over the years I have purchased a LOT of water guns for my kids. None of them have ever lasted. Then, this week in France, while on vacation, we came up with the indestructible replacement. Enjoy this short video! (And tell me if you’d like to see more video)

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Fun for the Kids: Washable Marker Tattoos

July 22, 2011

I’m still in France with my family and the weather has been absolutely amazing. Sometimes the afternoon heat just makes me want to take a little siesta. This was the case yesterday. My girls wanted to play with their Crayola markers, but were growing a bit bored of drawing on paper. So we came up [...]

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Understanding child motivation (my first vacation post from France)

July 11, 2011

This summer my wife and I took the family to the south of France for an extended vacation. I’ve truly been in vacation mode, so sorry about not posting much to the Talking to Toddlers blog in the last few weeks. We’ve been going to the beach a lot. The other day something happened that [...]

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Do You Ever Find Yourself Stuck in a Negative Parenting Mindset?

May 30, 2011

Hi everyone, This weekend I was walking my daughter to a birthday party down the street. As I was walking her to the party I caught myself in a highly unproductive and negative mindset. I’m not perfect, BTW. I may have great ideas about parenting but we ALL get caught up in negative mindsets sometimes. [...]

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Simple Money Saving – Vampire Appliances

May 26, 2011

Here’s something you can do to save money in your house while also teaching your kids a valuable lesson about conserving, saving, and taking action. For a while now I have been thinking about the energy that all of my various electronic appliances use when they are plugged in. These appliances are called Vampire Appliances [...]

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Good vs. Bad Shows: Choosing TV Shows for Kids

May 25, 2011

Do you worry that your child watches too much TV? Obviously there is such a thing as too much TV, but this article is about something more important. It’s about choosing the right kind of TV shows for your kids. I believe that watching too much TV is less damaging to a child than watching [...]

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The Kitchen, the Ambulance and the Jackhammer (audio lesson)

May 13, 2011

A few days ago I had a fun little experience with my youngest daughter. It took place in the kitchen and it involves one of those OH SO COMMON situations where your kid gets a bump or a bang, and starts crying. Here’s how I dealt with it: (click play) [Audio clip: view full post [...]

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