Parenting Guru

Parenting Guru: Secrets to a happy family

Julie Weingarden Dubin — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 08:00:00 -0800

Want a happy family? Learn to stick together through the rough spots and practice what you preach, says Scott Haltzman, M.D., clinical assistant professor of psychiatry and human behavior at Brown University and author of The Secrets of Happy Families: Eight Keys to Building a Lifetime of Connection and Contentment. Dr. Haltzman gives tips on how to bond.

Parenting Guru: Help your kids feel safe at school

Julie Weingarden Dubin — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 08:00:00 -0800

Our hearts break every time we think about the families in Newtown, Connecticut, and how they’re struggling to cope with the horror of last Friday’s shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. In the midst of our sadness, we’re faced with needing to respond to our own kids’ queries about the attack, often clueless as to how much, or how little to say. My three elementary-aged kids want some details, for example: How many guns did the shooter have? How did he get in if the doors were locked? Did the kids see blood? Deep breath. Thankfully, Nancy Berns, associate professor of sociology at Drake University, an expert in grief, death and violence and author of Closure: The Rush to End Grief and What It Costs Us, stepped in to give us all guidance.

Parenting Guru: Do you parent with authenticity?

Julie Weingarden Dubin — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 08:00:00 -0800

Whether or not your child gets into an Ivy League school shouldn’t be how you measure your parenting skills, says Madeline Levine, Ph.D., author of Teach Your Children Well: Parenting for Authentic Success, and co-founder of Challenge Success, a project launched at Stanford School of Education, which gives parents and schools resources to help raise healthy, motivated and capable kids. Learn why the push for elite-college standing may be at the price of your kid’s childhood.

Parenting Guru: How to parent with simplicity

Julie Weingarden Dubin — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 08:00:00 -0800

Want to banish your kids' stress? Clear the clutter, take away the trinkets and bring on the rituals, says Kim John Payne, M.Ed., consultant, trainer and author of Simplicity Parenting: Using the Extraordinary Power of Less to Raise Calmer, Happier, and More Secure Kids. The founding director of the Center for Social Sustainability and father of two, sheds light on Simplicity Parenting.

Parenting Guru: Grade school mean girls

Julie Weingarden Dubin — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 08:00:00 -0800

If you’ve got girls, you’re likely going to worry about the eventual mean girl experience. But it turns out the social problems and bullying may not be so far away. Mean girl behavior can start as young as kindergarten and it needs to be nipped as early as possible, according to Michelle Anthony, M.A., Ph.D., co-author of Little Girls Can Be Mean, Four Steps to Bully-Proof Girls in the Early Grades, and co-founder of Wide-Eyed Learning, LLC. The Centennial, Colorado-based mom of three, co-wrote Little Girls Can Be Mean to help guide parents through the social challenges of elementary-aged girls.

Parenting Guru: Is ADHD good?

Julie Weingarden Dubin — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 10:30:00 -0700

According to the most recent Centers for Disease and Prevention reports, 9.5 percent of U.S. children have been diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder . This week, October 14-20, marks ADHD Awareness Week, and SheKnows tapped Ben Glenn of Indianapolis, Indiana — an ADHD expert, father of two and author of the upcoming release, Simple Answers to Commonly Asked Questions About ADHD — to offer a new way to look at ADHD.

Parenting Guru: Want to raise a future innovator?

Julie Weingarden Dubin — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 08:00:00 -0700

If you thought getting your kids “college-ready” was the key to a bright future, think again. Though business leaders, educators and policy makers stress loading up on math and science classes and getting good grades, it’s no longer enough, says Tony Wagner, Ed.D., the first Innovation Education fellow at the Technology & Entrepreneurship Center at Harvard, and author of Creating Innovators: The Making of Young People Who Will Change the World. Wagner says kids today need to be “innovation-ready” and strive to create their own jobs for the future.

Parenting Guru: When you stop enabling

Julie Weingarden Dubin — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 08:00:00 -0700

Kay Wills Wyma, author of Cleaning House, earned an MBA and worked at the White House, but her greatest challenge may have been her recent quest to rid her Texas home of youth entitlement through a 12-month experiment that got her five kids cooking, cleaning and helping others, rather than leaning on Mom to do it all.

Parenting Guru: Do your kids get good sleep?

Julie Weingarden Dubin — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 08:00:00 -0700

Sleep doesn’t always come easy. Homework, activities, technology and socializing cut into the night, and even if kids get to bed early, there’s often tossing and turning that many students endure with school in full swing. Dennis Rosen, M.D., associate medical director, Center for Pediatric Sleep Disorders, Boston Children's Hospital and assistant professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, gives tips to help your family settle into the school year well rested. Dr. Rosen, who's also the author of Sleep Tight : Helping Your Child Get a Better Night’s Sleep , reveals what not to do on weekends.

Parenting Guru: Are your kids a healthy weight?

Julie Weingarden Dubin — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 08:00:00 -0700

It’s simple when you think about it. We gain weight when we take in more calories than we burn. “It’s what we call a positive energy balance,” says Monica J. Mitchell, Ph.D., associate professor and pediatric psychologist at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, who has worked with more than 1,500 children and their parents in school-based, after school and summer programs to promote healthy eating, physical activity and water intake. Despite efforts to help kids get healthier, turning around the upward obesity trend is a challenge. September is National Childhood Obesity Awareness Month and SheKnows tackles the psyche aspect of kids tipping the scale.

Parenting Guru: Raising bilingual kids

Julie Weingarden Dubin — Tue, 28 Aug 2012 08:00:00 -0700

Following the success of their parenting blog, SpanglishBaby, co-authors Ana Flores and Roxana Soto molded their ideas into a new book that gives guidance on raising bilingual kids. Their memoir, Bilingual is Better: Two Latina Moms On How The Bilingual Parenting Revolution Is Changing The Face of America, explores the politics of bilingualism and the authors’ opinions of being Latina moms in the U.S. Ana Flores talks to SheKnows about why we should consider raising bilingual babies.

Parenting Guru: Are your kids homework-trapped?

Julie Weingarden Dubin — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 08:00:00 -0700

When does homework become too much? According to clinical psychologist Dr. Kenneth Goldberg, roughly 10 percent to 25 percent of students in school today are homework-trapped — homework dominates their lives. “Kids are homework-trapped when interventions do more harm than good and the end result is not homework-compliance, but acting out and losing interest in school,” he says. Read Dr. Goldberg's advice on relieving homework stress below.

Parenting Guru: Can coaches shape boys into men?

Julie Weingarden Dubin — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 08:00:00 -0700

Esta Soler, an expert on violence against women and children, founded Futures Without Violence 30 years ago and made it into one of the world’s leading violence prevention agencies. Soler talks with SheKnows about how Futures Without Violence is reaching out to boys in innovative ways.

Parenting Guru: What it takes to make friends

Julie Weingarden Dubin — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 08:00:00 -0700

What do parents worry about most when it comes to their children’s friendships? Bullying, peer pressure and being left out, says Eileen Kennedy-Moore, Ph. D., a clinical psychologist in Princeton, New Jersey, and co-author of The Unwritten Rules of Friendship and Smart Parenting for Smart Kids . Though every child has different social strengths and struggles, there are some tips that can help pave the way to new friendships. Dr. Kennedy-Moore, a mother of four kids, ages 19, 17, 13, and 11, shares her advice with SheKnows below.

Parenting Guru: Getting kids to listen

Julie Weingarden Dubin — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 08:00:00 -0700

If you tend to get stuck using the same script with your kids after having the same argument, while getting the same frustrating results, it may be time to switch things up. Meredith Wait, a mom of two boys ages 7 and 4, gives seminars and in-home therapy to families looking for ways to get young kids to listen.

Parenting Guru: How available are you?

Julie Weingarden Dubin — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 08:00:00 -0700

What’s the radical way to parent your tween or teen? Being unconditionally loving and accepting, says Dr. John Duffy, author of The Available Parent: Radical Optimism for Raising Teens and Tweens. That means no lectures, criticizing or getting emotional. Can you do it? Dr. Duffy follows his own advice in raising his 16-year-old son, whom he describes as admirable. It’s all about building a relationship out of optimism rather than fear, he says. Learn more about his approach to raising teens and tweens below.

Parenting Guru: The benefits of emotion coaching

Julie Weingarden Dubin — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 08:00:00 -0700

You can teach your children how to master their frustrations at a very early age, says Kimberley Clayton Blaine, a Los Angeles-based national parenting expert. Blaine, a licensed family and child therapist who specializes in working with young children, says kids who aren’t able to freely express themselves may grow up with issues that can prevent them from having healthy relationships and successful careers. To avoid such issues, she advises parents to foster emotional intelligence through emotion coaching. Blaine practices emotion coaching with her kids, ages 5 and 7, and offers insight to the technique below.

Parenting Guru: The difference between boys’ and girls’ brains

Julie Weingarden Dubin — Tue, 03 Jul 2012 08:00:00 -0700

For every time you hear, “It’s a boy thing,” or “She’s all girl,” and you think, “Yeah, but why?” — we’re here to tell you it’s a brain thing. Scientists can literally see the differences between boys’ and girls’ brains. “It’s important to understand the distinctions but different doesn’t mean good or bad, better or worse; it just means different,” says David Walsh, Ph.D., psychologist and parenting expert who has been studying children and brain science for decades. “You can’t generalize to describe every boy or girl — there are millions of exceptions.” Dr. Walsh, author of Smart Parenting, Smarter Kids: The One Brain Book You Need to Help Your Child Grow Brighter, Healthier, and Happier, talks brain science with SheKnows below.

Parenting Guru: Do you blow off your kids?

Julie Weingarden Dubin — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 08:00:00 -0700

Busy? Parents today are swamped, stressed and overwhelmed. So where does that leave the kids? We turned to Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, dubbed “America’s Rabbi” by Newsweek, and international bestselling author of 23 books, for the answers. His books on the American family, ,em>Parenting with Fire and Ten Conversations You Need to Have with Your Children were both launched on The Oprah Winfrey Show. Rabbi Shmuley shares his insight below.

Parenting Guru: Are you a mean mom?

Julie Weingarden Dubin — Tue, 19 Jun 2012 08:00:00 -0700

Denise Schipani, the mom of two boys, ages 7 and 9, wrote Mean Moms Rule: Why Doing the Hard Stuff Now Creates Good Kids Later , because she had a lot to say about raising kids in a slightly old-school way. “Helicopter parenting, over-involved, mama-as-selfless-saint parenting had been 'in' for some time, and it never appealed to me,” she says. Schipani, who blogs at Mean Moms Rule, shares her advice with SheKnows below.

Parenting Guru: Can girls dodge the drama years?

Julie Weingarden Dubin — Tue, 12 Jun 2012 08:00:00 -0700

Haley Kilpatrick was the new girl in middle school and an easy target for mean girls. She ate lunch alone in the girls’ bathroom to avoid being ostracized in the cafeteria. Things got better when an older girl in high school took her under her wing. Kilpatrick decided at age 15 to start Girl Talk, a program where high school girls mentor middle school girls. Today, the non-profit organization has more than 40,000 participants each year in 43 states and six countries, with a mission to help middle school girls build self-esteem and develop leadership skills. Kilpatrick, author of the new book, The Drama Years: Real Girls Talk About Surviving Middle School – Bullies, Brands, Body Images, and More, shares her secrets with SheKnows on surviving middle school.