Mother’s Day, like every other holiday, has been commercialized to turn a profit. In the scrambling for cards, flowers, and chocolate candies, perhaps the most important gifts are forgotten. Flowers are lovely, and cards are nice, but it’s the meaningful, heartfelt gifts that truly mean the most to us. This Mother’s Day, I’m giving this list to my family. I’m pretty sure any mother would be happy to receive something off this list as well, and not just for Mother’s Day, but any day!

While there is no way to 100% bully-proof anyone, there are important skills we can teach our children to minimize the impact a bully has, to turn them away, and to help our children get out of sticky situations.

“Come on! Hurry up! I asked you to get your shoes on!” Sound familiar?

“You don’t take on storms; you weather them.” – Dr. Gordon Neufeld

“Affirmations are like seed planted in soil. Poor soil, poor growth. Rich soil, abundant growth. The more you choose to think thoughts that make you feel good, the quicker the affirmations work.” – Louise Hay

That tiny baby you held in your arms just yesterday is suddenly walking, talking, and full of attitude. She’s got spunk! He’s got style! They’ve got you wrapped around their little fingers, and those fingers are on your buttons. Toddlers are a whirlwind of fun, mess, challenge, and lots of love. This stage is...

Sharing is often a big topic among parents of toddlers and preschoolers. There are two big motivations for wanting our little ones to share. The first is that we naturally want to raise generous, kind people who think about the wants and needs of others. The second, if we’re being completely honest, is that it makes us look good when they share with others, and any opportunity to shine as a parent in a world that’s always telling us what we’re doing wrong is golden to us. The truth is...

My son brought home a math paper with a bad grade on it last week. I was irritated with him because it wasn’t a hard math sheet. He knew how to do it; he just rushed through without working the problems out on paper. I said, “I need you to do better than this.” He replied, “But mom, you said in your book that I am more than a grade.”

I am extremely sensitive to smells. Flowery scents give me a headache. Foul smells make me irritable. Strong smells make me nauseous. Light and pleasant smells elevate my mood, and so I’m always on the search for a great candle or favorite new body lotion. Bright lights make me cringe.

I’m a boy mom raising two sons in an often violent boy culture. I don’t want to toughen them up because I think the world needs tender, compassionate men. I do want them, however, to be strong and resilient. This is a balancing act I’m still figuring out how to perform.

Self-care and self-respect go hand-in-hand. It’s not about putting yourself above all others, but rather it’s simply not neglecting yourself and your needs. In other words, you matter too! We always say you can’t pour from an empty cup, and the same is true for dads.

Relational bullying. It hurts just as much, if not more, than outright physical bullying. Getting shoved into the lockers every day hurts. Getting excluded from a group who were your “friends” the day before, being gossiped about, having rumors started, not being chosen for PE class or allowed to take part in the group you were put in for a project, those are the daggers that really go deep. Those actions say “You’re not good enough. You don’t belong.”

Did you know that if you carve out just 10 extra minutes a day to focus on joy, you’ll collect more than 60 joyful hours per year? Imagine how that could impact your life!

You can’t teach children to behave better by making them feel worse. When children feel better, they behave better.

This is a positive, non-threatening tool for resolving conflict that leads children to think about their actions and the consequences of those actions. It gives them a safe space to use their voice and state their own feelings and strengthens problem-solving and communication skills.

When we think of attachment in regards to parenting, we typically think of babies, but children don’t outgrow the need for secure attachment by toddlerhood. Whether your child is 2 weeks, 2 years, or 12 years old, feeling securely attached to you will help her have a better emotional life and a positive self-concept.

St. Patrick’s Day is just around the corner, and the stores are filled with shamrocks, leprechauns, and “luck o’ the Irish” apparel. It got me thinking, I don’t need the luck of the Irish. My kids make me lucky every day.

There is a reason why I chose Positive Parenting 8 years ago, and a reason why I keep choosing it today. It goes beyond the better behavior, beyond the better relationships, beyond the happier kids, and beyond the connected hearts.

The questions we ask are important because obviously the answers that come to us are a result of what question we asked. So, asking the wrong questions gives us the wrong answers, and when we base our reactions, our relationships, our decisions, and our views on the wrong answers, we miss the mark.

My son has the highly sensitive trait (find out here if yours does, too), and while it has not been without challenges, I have noticed that high sensitivity also comes with these special strengths.

Responsibilities are ever-growing and down time is ever-shrinking, and much threatens to chip away at our self-worth, our joy, and the time we spend with those we hold dear. In light of this, we need to think about guarding our own motherhood so that time is not lost that we cannot get back, so that our confidence doesn’t suffer regular blows, so that our self-worth isn’t measured by the opinions of others, and so that we can find fulfillment and sustaining happiness in our lives.