Parenting with joy and flexibility.
As a parent, you will interact with many professionals in trying to ensure the best for your child – doctors, nurses, teachers, dentists, and perhaps also psychologists, social workers, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, dieticians…. And there’s something you ought to understand. Each of these professions has something useful to contribute but each holds only a piece […]
It is easy, as a parent, to become dazzled and then disappointed by grand plans, to feel guilty about our supposed lack of achievements or depressed about long days in which nothing much seemed to happen. We live in a culture that celebrates the big, the grand, the fancy, the over the top, the larger […]
Many people today are yearning for a greater sense of purpose in their lives and for a ‘spiritual’ path— a way to day by day become wiser, kinder, more patient and more compassionate. For some, this thirst is for a wholly secular spiritual path— a foundation of meaning divorced from religion. For others, this thirst […]
Here’s a little game that I like to play with myself. During those tough parenting moments — the 2am strolls up and down our hallway, the entirely inconvenient and loud tantrums, the discovery of a glorious mess – I reach deep into my own heart and I find the love I feel for my daughter. Now […]
A good sense of humour is a must if you want to be a happy parent. I strongly recommend cultivating an attitude of relaxed amusement. You quickly learn, after bringing your little newborn home that the hilarious scenarios within comic movies and TV shows featuring new parents aren’t overblown but rather are amazingly accurate; especially […]
Most parents have a whole variety of plans for how they will parent, how their family will operate and how their children will behave. But most parents also know that children have plans of their own! It is not unusual as a parent to find yourself in a situation where your ideas about what should […]
Me-time, taking a break from your children and doing something just for yourself, is something I often here parents speaking of wistfully. It is something I’ve been known to speak of wistfully. But in my opinion, me-time can be a dangerous obsession. Let me be clear here, I don’t mean that you shouldn’t have any […]
Parenting is a 24/7 job and you can’t be at your best 24/7. I know that I am capable of providing my toddler with a day filled with a whirlwind of enriching and stimulating activities and outings, while simultaneously keeping my household running, encouraging her emotional development and responding to any challenges along the way […]
It is so easy for us as parents to get side-tracked by the latest short-term goals. We may start feeling that our latest short-term goal, whether it is introducing solid food, independent sleeping or managing temper tantrums, is what we are parenting for. We may even begin to feel that our very worth as parents […]