Accepting with grace the sadness that normally comes once you become a parent
I’ll never forget being 8 ½ months pregnant with my first child and a friend imploring me to go see a lot of movies and to go out to dinner as much as possible. “Once the baby arrives it won’t be so easy any more,” she said. Of course, not knowing how my life was about to change in a thousand ways, I barely listened to her advice and moved on, excitedly awaiting my baby’s arrival. I truly had no idea what was awaiting me on the “other side” of childbirth.
How to maintain your bond with your child while satisfying everyone's needs.
Suddenly, your son springs on you that he's made the decision that he'd like to live with his father full-time — the joint custody arrangement you had shared with your ex-husband is no longer meeting his needs (at least in his mind). To your son, this may seem a logical request, but to you, it signals the end of a relationship and the closeness you once shared. You may even be taken aback at the emotions you’re feeling and be unsure of where to turn.
Back to school is a stressful time. Here's how parents can learn and model high emotional I.Q.
Emotional resilience—the ability to bounce back from failure, or perceived failure, and delay gratification—is at the heart of children's emotional and social development. A child going back to school, especially if she's changing schools and taking on more academic and social complexities, can feel as though she's taking the ultimate resliency test. As parents we see, hear and feel the emotional fallout at the end of the school day and desperately want to help our kids make it through these challenging transitions.
A new survey also reveals that 25 percent of moms would choose a different husband if they could!
Ever have a sneaking suspicion that your mom wished you were a boy? You might be right. According to an anonymous survey of more than 26,000 moms conducted by TODAY.com and Parenting.com, ten percent say they wish their child was the opposite sex. And of that ten percent, 60 percent have boys. Sorry, boys!
Beware the pursuit of perfection. You just may miss what really matters.
If perfect parents ever lived, I pity their children. What excuse could the children of perfect parents offer for their later failures? On a more serious note, when parents aim for perfection, the category they are more likely to occupy is "too good," as in "too good to be true," or down right incompetent.
How every relationship we have brings out our best qualities.
In the way that great artists approach their masterpieces, our loving relationships sculpt us into the highest and best form of ourselves. This is their only job and their highest purpose. We entrust our loved ones to mirror and elicit from us the aspirations and values we hold so dear, so that in turn, the commitment to our relationships also becomes a commitment to ourselves.
One woman's defense of modern men: surely they aren't all as derelict as media leads us to believe?
If you were to scan the news headlines over the past few months, the primary message you would glean about men in America would be this: They are failing. Failing to become adults; failing to be financially independent; failing as fathers; failing as husbands. It’s enough to make a girl like myself throw her hands up in the air and vow to be single for the rest of her life. Yet, the more I read, the more I start to wonder: whose standards are we going by here? And what if all these statistics about men in their 20’s and 30’s living lives of self-indulgent abandon, delaying marriage, and being neglectful fathers aren’t nearly as black and white as they seem? What if there’s more going on beneath the surface, and what about all the men who don’t fall into those categories? The ones who are involved fathers, devoted husbands, and successful career men. Isn’t it high time we gave them a little bit of press?
Helping military families to stay connected when they are separated by distance.
When you are in the military, you know you are going to be deployed someday. When you are actually called to military duty and scheduled to be deployed away from your family, a range of emotions are unleashed throughout your family unit: sadness, pride, loneliness, fear, anger, confusion and stress. You manage the feelings by both acknowledging the negative and also preparing emotionally and practically for the separation in a pro-active way.
One of the best feelings in the world is when a child’s eyes light up in recognition and they run at you, throwing their little arms around you for a big hug and cuddle. I remember promising myself when I was about ten years old and dealing with my father’s death that I would never lose that innocence, and wonder and joy for life.
My husband and I seem to parent our children differently based on their genders.
My husband and I seem to parent our children differently based on their genders, a tendency I never expected, being the enlightened and empowered woman I am. (“Roar” and all that.) Once we had both a boy and a girl, though, this tendency became obvious.
Don't let motherhood kill your mojo. Follow these tips to protect your kids as you play the field.
Single parents have it rough trying to balance their personal lives with the demands and responsibility that come with being a parent. Dating can be especially challenging, as there are certain boundaries that should not be crossed because the overall well-being of the child has to come first.
