September, 2015 | PulseonParenting

When a Loved One Dies: How We Can Help Our Kids

Sep 29 2015

I was in second grade when my grandfather died unexpectedly. It was a horribly difficult time made even harder by the fact that he died a day after my family returned from the funeral of another family member. As a child I recall feeling confused, sad and so scared I couldn’t even go into the living room to see my grieving grandmother. The death of a loved one is difficult to explain to children, especially as we adults are trying to process our own loss, sadness and grief. Funerals are emotional and perplexing. I didn’t go to my grandfather’s. Because…

Sep 22 2015

There is a well-known story about Olympic champion Gabrielle Douglas and the turning point in her gymnastics career. She was living with a host family in Iowa so she could work with Liang Chow, the coach who trained Shawn Johnson. But being terribly homesick for her family and life in Virginia, she told her mother she wanted to quit gymnastics. Upon hearing this Gabby’s mom read her the riot act and, as we all know, the rest is history. I began learning the trumpet at age nine. Shortly thereafter I got braces and could hardly play a note. My instructor…

Sep 16 2015

I don’t remember what I made, but I do remember the process. Or at least, I remember what I disliked about it. The measuring, the tailor’s tacks, the ironing of narrow seams. In short, my mom tried to teach me how to sew and I really, really, didn’t want to learn. I was the teenage daughter of an exquisite seamstress: she made her own wedding dress. She helped sew bridesmaid’s dresses for her sister. She painstakingly pieced together, with her two equally talented sisters, a quilt for their parents. My mom grew up sewing. And thought I should, too.

What Every Parent Needs to Know About Kids and Sleep

Sep 08 2015

It still sticks in my brain: the girls teasing me about the time I went to bed. Why? Because I wasn’t smart enough to not answer when they asked, even though they weren’t my friends and kinda mean. So of course my 8 o’clock bedtime became fodder for calling me a “baby.” Even though I slept like one, this “baby” would have much preferred to stay up later. What kid doesn’t? But my parents were unwavering on when I went to bed, which was good: I went out fast and rarely awakened during the night. So I must have needed…

Sep 01 2015

“SHUT UP!” As a kid I marveled at how two words like shut and up, harmless when they stand separately, could join up to become so hurtful. Like when hydrogen and oxygen come together, these words become something very different from their component parts. And when my son bellowed “SHUT UP!” to an acquaintance, mortification didn’t begin to describe our reaction. It seemed the world stopped spinning. Proverbial crickets chirped so loud that our ears were ringing. The stunning paralytic effect of those two words kept us from swooping in and immediately rectifying what had gone terribly wrong. Our reaction, or…

Archive - September 2015

When a Loved One Dies: How We Can Help Our Kids

Should I Let My Child Quit?

Kids Do Listen, Sometimes Years Later

What Every Parent Needs to Know About Kids and Sleep

Kids Behaving Badly = Bad Parenting?