Parenting Blog
Practical Mindfulness
Learn how to create a mindful household for your child for parenting in unprecedented times. Is mindfulness possible in the chaos? It’s the question that every parent asks. Life comes at us fast when we’re helping our kids navigate the stress of school, socializing, family dynamics, and the world at large while juggling our own professional and personal battles daily. Our ideal of living in a calm, emotionally connected house is often sacrificed to the realities of just how much we have on our plates. There’s a secret that so many parents miss. Mindfulness happens best in small bites. The goal isn’t to create a house that’s so serene it feels [...]
Passion Project
Learn ways to support your children in building upon their passions. Have your children been stuck with their heads in their computers, tablets, and phones for the last 18 months? Children have had limited opportunities to build upon and explore their passions outside of the classroom or virtual walls. I like to use the word passion interchangeably with words like determination, pride, and love. Passion is a strong desire that can enable children to do amazing things. Passion is an emotion that needs to be acted upon. Without action, passion yields no worthwhile results. In turn, passion fuels action. When a person has a passion for something, they love it even [...]
Mindful Merriness
Fun activities to do with your kids for mindful holidays. It’s easy to fall into the trap of rushing around, getting fixated on gifts, and clinging to picture-perfect expectations during the holiday season. There’s nothing wrong with embracing the tinsel and glow of December. However, the busyness of the season can make it tough to maintain balance. Many parents worry that the flurry of activity that occurs is overwhelming for their kids. It is possible to have a mindful holiday season. What’s more, mindfulness can feel fun and merry. Practicing mindfulness is one of the best things to do for the holidays. Take a look at these three mindfulness activities you [...]
Understanding 7 Challenging Child Behaviors
Raising a child is exciting. They are filled with excitement and curiosity as they learn new things and discover the world around them. This is also the stage when they realize that they are separate from their caregivers (like their parents) and feel a sense of independence. As a result, they are more assertive and are able to communicate their likes and dislikes. Some parents find themselves in a conundrum: my child is driving me crazy. Children tend to exhibit a lot of challenging behaviors that all parents struggle with at one time or another. If this is something that you’ve experienced, you have come to the right place. Defining Challenging Behaviors [...]
Mindfulness for Childhood Anxiety
How mindfulness can become a useful part of your child’s mental-health toolkit. Parents shouldn’t be intimidated by conversations about how to manage childhood anxiety. It’s very easy to fall into the trap of thinking that anxiety is a problem that needs to be fixed. In reality, anxiety is an expected, everyday part of the human experience that can be managed. All of us will experience anxiety at some point. While we never want to downplay or dismiss the debilitating impact that anxiety can have when it’s left unchecked, we also want to avoid the extreme of thinking that a child is somehow flawed or damaged just because they experience anxiety. Anxiety [...]
10 Ways to Connect With Your Child Every Day
Have you ever seen your child trip and hurt their knee at the park? What’s the first thing that they do before they start crying? Yep, they search for you – their protector. It is instinctive for a child to connect to their parents for safety and security in moments like this. As a parent, moments like this give you a great learning opportunity on how to connect with your child. Humans are biologically wired to seek connection. A child who is just learning how the world works express fear of abandonment or longing for more of their caregivers by seeking attention and connection. Sadly most parents today tend to dwell on [...]
How to Raise a Resilient Kid
Why is it that some kids flourish even in the face of adversity? It’s resilience. This is an important trait to cultivate in your child at a young age so they are able to overcome major stumbling blocks later on in life. Raising resilient children is something that you need to focus on so that your child can thrive despite facing major hurdles in life. What Does it Take to Be Resilient? Resiliency is when you face a seemingly insurmountable challenge, yet you push on instead of simply giving up. This is one of the traits you need to develop in your child as they grow up. It is also a great [...]
How to Stop Your Toddler from Throwing Things
The next thing toddlers do after learning how to open their fingers and use their hands to pick things up, is to throw anything they can get their hands on. Toddlers throwing things is pretty common; it is actually a crucial part of their fine-motor skills development. For parents however, it can be one of the more frustrating stages to deal with. So how do you exactly stop your toddler from throwing things? Why toddlers throw things Before you can teach your child how NOT to throw things up, you need to understand why they do this behavior in the first place. Most children between 18 months and 3 years old find [...]
Journaling: Secret to Student Success
Learn about all the potential benefits mindful journaling offers to students. Parents looking to make the most of their child’s educational experience may want to encourage the use of the mindfulness tool, journaling. Some of the benefits of journaling include reduction of anxiety, improved grades, students become more invested in studies, and journaling ultimately helps them decide how to attain a career path. Some students may have kept a journal in years past, but mindful journaling is different than what they may be used to as it involves intentional practice and goal-setting to help them achieve desired goals in a structured and mindful way. The Benefits of Journaling for Students Before [...]
Why Punishment is Ineffective and What You Can do Instead
Punishment is one of the oldest forms of discipline known to humans. It’s no surprise that parents turn to it as a form of controlling the behavior of their children and make sure they are not being unruly or disobedient. But does punishing really work? Is this the best approach to instilling discipline in your child? Experts like to think otherwise, especially since they believe there are many disadvantages to punishing a child. The thing is, punishment helps you achieve the desired outcome – temporarily. This gives parents the false idea that it’s the best approach to stop unwanted behavior. Discover why it’s actually ineffective and what you can do instead. Why [...]
Post-Pandemic Mindfulness for Kids
Helping children cope with the effects of living through a pandemic with mindfulness tips and tools. With a phenomenon as wide-reaching as the COVID-19 pandemic, it is nearly impossible to know the full extent to which communities across the globe have been disrupted. The loss of life has been as staggering as it has been far-reaching — but while the pandemic has created holes in many tight-knit adult circles, just as concerning is its mental impact on children. Some children are naturally resilient and resistant to mental health issues caused by large-scale disasters such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Others may feel the effects of anxiety and depression long after the pandemic is [...]
Back to School Mindful Organization
Keep organized with these mindfulness tools during the back-to-school season. Throughout the pandemic, mindfulness has become a key practice for many parents. As lockdowns set in, it became much more important to focus on the small things that brought us joy, instead of grieving for those things we had lost. Now that parts of the world are returning to a state of normalcy, mindfulness is still just as important as before — but the way in which we practice it is going to have to change. Why? Simply put, in-person responsibilities are returning. On top of practicing mindfulness, parents are once again taking kids to and from school, dropping them off [...]