Category: Parent On!
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Say It Now So You Don’t Yell It Later
We’ve all seen it—the toe over the line, the look of defiance, the blatant choices that make us crazy.The question is: how do we handle it without losing our minds—or our voice—when it happens? Well… maybe we start way before that moment. Like my sister did one morning with her son. They had both had…
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“Aura-Maxxing”: The Teen Need for Solitude
When toddlers get quiet, we get worried. Something is definitely happening. Something has caught her attention. And more often than not, she reappears covered in makeup, announcing she looks like a mermaid, with a fresh set of uneven bangs she just gave herself using trimming scissors. Silence, with little kids can be more than exciting.…
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Beyond “Nothing”: How to Get Your Teen Talking
We’ve all been there. The kid gets in the car and you ask, “How was your day?”“Good.”“What did you learn?”“Nothing.” That can’t be right. Nothing? You really learned nothing all day? Nobody does nothing all day. And just like that, a small tear forms in the fabric of the relationship. You try to recover by…
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He woke up and chose violence…
Pretty shocking, I know—but how many times have you felt like your adolescent has done the same? Maybe not physical violence. But emotional? Mental? Relational? Honestly, all of the above can be on the table during this age of disruption. Last week, I had a student who did exactly that. We were in a lesson…
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Are You Interruptible?
How often does your teenager ask you questions? And not just the “what’s for dinner?” kind, but the kind that open the door to real, meaningful conversations—the ones where you get a glimpse of their heart? That often, huh? It can be hard to have deeper level converstions with teenagers. They feel like different people…
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The Battle of Technology…
It’s unavoidable; technology is here, and it’s not going away. Neither is the begging for a phone from your tween. But how do you handle it? There are a lot of opinions out there, all the way from the many “options” for safe phone use, to absolute luddite-shunning the ways of the modern era. No…
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Help, I have a teenager!
I should confess something up front: I don’t have a teenager. I don’t have to negotiate curfews, decode cryptic text messages, or coax a sleepy adolescent out of bed on Saturday mornings. But I do spend my days surrounded by teens, and teaching them has become one of the best windows into what it means…
Middle and High School Montessori Education 