The new year is a great time to reflect on what is working and make changes to what isn’t. This week I am replaying an episode I did earlier this year with my husband, Nate. In it I will give you several ideas to make 2020 the year you are intentional on what you opt out of as a family, so that you can opt into what actually matters.
The holidays can be a lot of fun, but the lack of structure and increased time together can make everyone start to go a little crazy. This week I will give you three tips to thrive with your kids this holiday break rather than just survive.
1. Minimize- Take some time to go through your kids' toys and donate what they no longer play with. The more toys they have, the more things that will be on their floor (and all over your house). One of the things parents tell me they fight about with their kids is cleaning up.
2. Organize- Create a schedule for the days that you have off together. Have your kids participate in creating it to increase their buy-in.
3. Revitalize- Take time to reflect on your relationship with your child. What is going well? What is an area that is a stumbling block? So much of improving our relationship with our kiddos starts with a shift in mindset. We know the right things to do, but don’t always do them. What is one thing that you can do differently to make the holiday break a better time for you and your kids?
The toddler years are a blessing and a curse at the same time. On the one hand, it’s amazing to see your little one’s personality come to life! Yet there is a reason that the term threenager was coined. In this episode I will give you three things to do to improve your relationship with your kiddo and reduce the number of meltdowns.
As a parent, nothing breaks your heart like when your kiddo gets sick. You want to do everything in your control to help your little one feel better. Sometimes this can get you into to trouble though. When kids are sick parents can inadvertently foster behavior problems that can stick around long after the illness is gone. Our conversation this week is all about giving our kids the extra love they need when they don’t feel well, without creating behavior issues that persist.
As a mom, I often feel like I am juggling- career, marriage, parent, and more. It’s not just me, right? It is easy to feel overwhelmed. This week I am interviewing Lindsay Preston from the Become an Unstoppable Woman podcast about goal setting, work/life BLEND rather than BALANCE, and more. She will even share some of her personal journey about what it was like to suddenly be a single parent in her late twenties, and how she used this challenging experience to get where she is today.
Ever wonder what you can you do to raise grateful little humans?! This week is Thanksgiving, and I think it is the perfect time to contemplate this topic. In this episode I’ll go over three practical ways to do just this. For the fun of it, I’ve also included a short interview with my daughter, Ady.
A lot of times when are kids act out, it’s because they want us to give them something or they want to get out of something they don’t like doing. But what about sensory processing?! Sometimes our kids do something (or don’t do it) because of the sensation it provides. How should we respond when our kids act out because of unique sensory needs? This week I’m interviewing Wendy Bertagnole from the Exceptional Parenting Podcast to discuss this important topic. You will love Wendy’s approach to this topic because she is very child-centric and empathetic.
If there is a more dreaded conversation as a parent, then I am not aware of it... Yep that’s right. I’m talking about the birds and the bees conversation. However, in our world today kids are learning about sex and pornography at surprisingly young ages. What age should we start talking to them about this? How should we do it? This week I am interviewing Emily Gaudreau from the podcast How to Raise a Maverick about this very topic. You do not want to miss this interview! Personally I walked away with so much new information and ideas to use in my own home, and I know you will too.
This episode goes out to all the tired parents out there desperate for answers! In it I interview Samantha Day who is a mom of two, children’s author, and certified child sleep expert. Samantha reveals some tips and strategies to guide parents down the path to a more rested and happy home.
Parents can be so divisive at times, and this is especially true about certain hot topics. One such topic is infant sleep training. If we look at extremes when it comes to this topic, in one camp are parents and professionals that say sleep training is ESSENTIAL for both baby and mother. They even go as far to say that if you don’t sleep train you are causing some sort of harm to your baby. In the other camp are the people who say letting your baby cry AT ALL will cause irreversible damage to them. Here is the deal, most of us parents and professionals fall somewhere in between, and I am not an exception. As a sneak peak into the episode, I am a firm believer that there are several things you can do to help your child learn to self-soothe at a younger age. That being said, I am all about empowering moms and dads; you are the expert in terms of your baby and your family! Listen to this episode and then decide for yourself what is best for your family.
Throughout life, certain events stand as a marker in time that distinctly separate the old from the new. Recently our family experienced one of those events. In a previous episode I mentioned that my son has ADHD and we were contemplating medication. Fast forward to today, my son has been on meds for a little over a month, and it has truly been a game changer for him. In this week’s episode I am going to do something a little different. Rather than ME talking about what the last month has looked like, I’m going to play an interview I did with my son so that HE can tell you with his own words what this experience has been like.
The cultural norm when I was a child was processed food. Fast forward to today, some people have become so obsessed with clean eating that they have developed eating disorders. In response an approach called intuitive eating was born. It’s been very helpful at helping those with disordered eating, but is it an approach you should use with your kids who don’t have an eating disorder? This week I will give you my take as a behavior analyst on using intuitive eating with kids. You can also check out my video blog on this topic: https://www.prismbehavior.com/blog/intuitive_eating_with_kids.
There also a few things that you may want to think twice about. Some specific thoughts I share include:
The other day someone asked me, “Are you enjoying every single minute?" Mind you, my husband and I were leaving a restaurant with our two kiddos, and it had been a pretty typical evening out... complete with a meltdown or two! To that well-meaning lady, I said “Definitely not every movement!” Probably due to my blunt (but friendly) tone, she raised her eyebrows at me a bit before winking. This week on the podcast, I talk about the fact that it's okay not to enjoy every moment. I will walk you through five things you can do to get through particularly challenging moments (and even whole seasons!) of this crazy thing we call parenting.
I grew up in a home with one TV and no cable. I remember getting our first computer and playing DOS games like Commander Keen and Prince of Persia! It wasn’t until I was married that I sent my first text message. All that to say, the world that my kids are growing up in sure is a much different one than I grew up in. As a parent it can be hard to know how to approach things like screen time with our kids. How much is too much? This week I will be tackling this issue head on. Specifically I will walk you through five things you should consider when deciding what screen time will look like in YOUR home.
Truth be told, I’m fundamentally against homework in the elementary years. There’s just a lot of evidence that it’s not helpful. The only exception to this is daily reading. Unfortunately, if your child is in a traditional school setting, most likely there is no escaping homework. More than that, it’s something that parents and kids often fight about. But I have good news for you! It doesn’t have to be this way. This week I will talk about three easy things you can do to improve the homework situation in your home.
No parent ever says to herself or himself, I want to enable my kids and be a helicopter parent. So why is it so hard these days to encourage our kids to be independent? How SHOULD we raise our little humans in order to help them to grow into the independent adults we hope they will become?! This week I will break it down by age and go over effective strategies to encourage independence with toddlers, preschoolers, and elementary age kiddos.
As a parent, sleeping often feels like a luxury. When you first bring your baby home from the hospital, you expect that you won’t sleep. But what do you do about the toddler who stopped sleeping through the night at some point in time? This week I will go over several quick tips for you to use to help your toddler (and you!) sleep through the night.
When my son first started eating baby food, he would eat everything. He wasn’t picky at all. A little after he turned one, all that suddenly changed. We went through a period of time where I had to put his dinner in a blender combined with hummus, to get him to eat. Today he eats just about everything, and I relied on my behavioral training to help get him there. This week I will walk you through four easy (yet proven!) ways to help your picky eater become a less picky. There is no magical answer, but if you follow the steps I’m confident that you WILL see improvement!
Imagine a fork in the road. On one side is the parenting you’ve been doing all along. There are good days and there are bad days. You love your kids! But often you are living in a reactive state. Don’t do this and don’t do that! You often feel like a broken record. On the other side is a different approach. This approach takes more planning... it’s proactive in nature, but it results in less frustration for you and your children. This week’s podcast is all about a shift in mindset. More specifically, I will give you three easy ways to begin to shift your mindset and parenting style from being reactive to proactive.
ADHD is a common disorder impacting kids and adults. For kids it commonly impacts academics, behavior, and relationships with peers. This week I will go over what ADHD is, as well as some of the common medications prescribed to help those with this diagnosis. I will also open up about how this topic is currently impacting our family.
This week we talk about siblings, and more specifically sibling rivalry. I know it’s not just my house! Although my kids get along most of the time, they also fight like all siblings do. Many parents wonder how to keep the peace in their own house, so I will be going over four simple strategies you can use to keep fighting between siblings at bay. As a bonus, I’ve also included a free resource to help you uncover what to do if you find one sibling frequently bullying the other.
Guess what?! No matter how hard you try, you’ll never be the perfect parent… and your kids won’t be perfect either! Though giving your child (and yourself!) room to make mistakes is often the right approach, punishment is sometimes still necessary. Last week I spoke about time-out, a discipline strategy that can make your children less likely to act out in the future. This week, I will go several alternatives to time-out, walking you through the best ways to use them with your own kids.
No matter how positive and proactive you are as a parent, your kids will still act out from time to time. Time-out is a common (and effective!) way to react to your child when they misbehave, but it is often misunderstood. Join in as we discuss what time-out is, how to do it (and how not to do it!), and when to do it.
Crazy busy? This week is for you! I bring on Nate Maguire, my husband and the show’s first ever guest. To make it extra fun, we decided to film the whole thing so you can either listen to it or watch it on my facebook page at facebook.com/prismbehavior. The topic for the week is on being intentional on what you opt out of as a family so that you can opt into what actually matters.
As with all things we do as parents, potty training doesn’t always go as smoothly as we hoped it would. In fact, sometimes this phase can be SUPER stressful for everyone involved. What should you do when potty training has gone terribly wrong? In part two of this series, we cover some things to try when potty training is not going well, how to know when it’s time to put potty training on hold, and what to do for the older kiddo who still wets the bed.
What’s one thing you need to do with each of your kids that is messy, can make you want to pull your hair out, but (eventually) results in a new level of freedom for both parent and child?! That’s right… It’s potty training! In this episode we go over some potty training basics to get you started on the right track with this rite of passage. This is part one of a two-part series on this topic.
It’s hard (and sometimes downright painful!) to watch our kids experience natural consequences when they make mistakes. However, sometimes we need to allow them to walk through life’s challenges. In this episode we go over three things to ask yourself when making the decision to allow your child to experience natural consequences or bail them out.
Executive functioning is a buzz word right now. It involves memory, planning, and organization. Today’s episode outlines three strategies to use to improve your child’s executive functioning skills.
Today I talk all about defiance. All parents deal with defiant children from time to time, but what is the best way to respond? What works best? This episode goes over proactive and reactive strategies to use when dealing with defiance.
In today's episode we look at why behavior occurs. I'll share what behavioral science has to say about behavior, as well as some practical tips for you to use right away with your kiddos.
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