Parents- use your words!
Language: two-year olds don’t have enough of it and can become terribly frustrated when they can’t communicate their needs. I’m sure you have heard parents tell their little ones, “Use your words”. Perhaps you have said it yourself. It makes sense to coach our children to communicate clearly; they’ll get their needs met more easily and we won’t have to play guessing games that make us want to pull our hair out! But… Using words is more important than simply…
Holding Both
No, this is not an article about cuddling twins (that’s a whole other skill!). It is about helping our children manage their emotions by allowing two conflicting emotions to sit side by side unchallenged. I talk to children about their “two feelings.” “Oh, you get so annoyed at your baby brother and you like playing with him!” This skill helps children calm down because they feel understood; they don’t have to choose between two very real feelings (which is confusing…
Finding Nemo and Learning to Keep on Swimming
I saw Finding Nemo when it was first released in 2003. Last night, nine years later, I decided the time was ripe to introduce it to my 5-year-old. This was to be her third full-length movie and I chose it because of my fond memories of Dory and the Turtle Dude Dad. I had forgotten just how traumatic the opening scene is and how the narrative unfolds around one life-threatening scare after the other. Zoitsa wailed with raw grief when…
Does your therapist have children?
Do you care? Do you need to know? Should you know? If you knew, how would knowing affect your therapy? Amongst therapists there is divided opinion on this topic although everyone agrees that the therapy hour is the patient’s time; it is not time to focus on anything that has happened or is happening in the therapist’s life. The relationship between patient and therapist is unique in that it is a one-way relationship. It actually IS all about you. But…
Active Listening. A fundamental building block of healthy parent-child relations.
As I prepared breakfast for my children, my three year old dropped a doozie, “Mummy, I want Daddy to live somewhere else.” Out of the corner of my eye I could see Daddy just about to come into the kitchen. She repeated the statement. Daddy heard. I signaled him to stay quiet and out of sight and let her speak. “Oh?” I prompted. “Daddy needs to live in another house.” she continued. Trying to hide my concern and surprise, I…
Parents: Get creative. Some novel ways to help your older child adjust to his or her new sibling (or siblings!).
Our twins sleep in our bedroom, sometimes in their own cots and other times in our bed. One morning they woke at the ungodly hour of 5:30. As I sat between their cots patting them trying in vain to re-settle them, my three year old shuffled in. Our rule is that if she wakes early she can quietly join us: no talking, let us sleep! Since the babies were born though, she assumes that if they are awake and crying…
Parents: Balancing everyone’s needs. (written for multiple birth parents but applies to all parenting!)
This article was written for www.multiplebirthparents.com “To each child according to their needs and from each parent according to their ability.” (apologies to Karl Marx). This self-improvised maxim has kept me calm during those moments when I am holding one crying baby and feeling guilty that the quiet one is being “ignored”;when both babies are left in their cots for longer than I would like because my three year old really needs me to dress up as a pirate NOW!;…