Children are full of spirit, passion, life force, vitality. It overflows. The world is new! The body amazing. Puddles are endless fun. Strawberries! The fur of a cat. Hard edge of a rock. (Ouch!) Tears. Up. Look. Sunlight through a fall leaf. The ocean waves. Your child can point you to where you’ve grown stiff […]
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Your secret lover
Your partner doesn’t know your secret lover called Plan B. Plan B is softer, more loving, doesn’t smell of onions. It has nicer parents, better health, and always agrees with the values you want to share with your child. Plan B doesn’t age. It is the other life you dream of when this one seems […]
Tending a good fire under any condition
We all have a fire to tend. It burns inside of us. A good fire is welcoming. It draws people in to hear your stories, or enjoy the comfort of your good company. Sometimes your fire burns too strong. On days like that, your family doesn’t know whether to approach you at all. You’re giving […]
Short-cut to an embrace
It’s hard to embrace your screaming child. Often because your child isn’t receptive when he’s enraged. Or maybe because you don’t feel very loving. That’s a hard place for a parent, knowing that right now you don’t feel affection. All you want is to match your kids anger with some of your own. Arguing doesn’t […]
The origin of song
As a young, ambitious man, I sought the origin of song in the brain of an Australian zebra finch. I was training to become a neurologist. My practice was to pick apart the foundations of beauty, wonder, awe to locate the source of music and the grammar of song. Or that was the idea. All […]
Stories for the love of earth
We need children who love the earth unconditionally. Let the stories you tell your small one seed the ecology of her imagination. Go far beyond the arid fields sown with concepts, statistics, theories, information and labels about the natural world. Harness your heart to fairy-tales and myths, fables and anecdotes and journey with your child […]
Releasing expectations so your child can grow
Suddenly your child is not who you think she was. She used to seek your presence then suddenly she is more remote. She was once a calm and content child and suddenly she is unruly, wild and angry. She would fall asleep without a fuss and now she refuses to go to bed at all. […]
Withhold or flow
Family energy stops flowing when you withhold your inner life. You might want to hide your endless worry from your overworked wife. You’re secretly fuming that your husband has left his underwear on the floor again. Or you hesitate to show your joy on a day that your partner is in pain. When you withhold, […]
Validation is a fertilizer
Timely validation helps our child master herself. When we notice that she can now safely handle a knife, we help her integrate this new skill. When we decide our child can now cross the street on his own, he gets to practice his increased capacity for autonomy. Validation is a timely fertilization of emergent growth […]
Everything in nature needs rest
Everything rests if we don’t mess with it. Deer rest under trees, digesting their food. In late summer the blue tits hang out on branches just swaying with the wind, watching the clouds go by. Our cat does nothing but rest–he’s merged with the sofa cushions. Yet so many of us have scheduled rest right […]
Be your child’s compass in times of transitions
The world is new to a child, so many things encountered and sensed for the first time, so many transitions from comfort into the unknown. Being born from the coziness of the womb into the harsh light of day. The slow descent of the sun and the onset of the dark night and dreamland of […]
Are you parenting someone else’s child?
Your hands and heart may already be full parenting your child. You may not have the wherewithall to even contemplate other children. But that’s what I’m asking you to do, if you’re willing to consider it. If like so many of us you yearn for a village, you must take the first step in creating […]
Making room for anger
Our home needs to house our entire child, every part of her, even her anger. Her screams, tantrums, rages need a large room of their own. We create space for this out of our own familiarity with distress. We teach her where to find peace again, by knowing how to find our own peace. One […]
Ask your child for help to find the time to parent
I was supporting a father the other week, and after an intense, surprising and creative session with some out-of-the-box prescriptions for change, he paused and in a slow voice he said, “I just need to find the time for this.” I immediately asked: “Where will you look?” He paused a long time before conceding that […]
When praise blocks your child’s joy
Your child cleans her room, plays a beautiful tune on the saxophone, draws an apple tree by a lake. And you praise her for what she’s accomplished, sharing your excitement, gratitude, amazement, pride. Your intention comes from a loving place, but it may land differently than you expect on your child’s ears. She may hear […]
A child’s identity is forged in community
There’s this cartoon from the New Yorker I saw a long time ago. A man at a cocktail party is kneeling in the corner of the living room. Someone asks, What’s Larry doing? And the response, He’s trying to find himself. I laugh at that one every time, out of recognition surely. Spending our adult […]
Your child is a person too
The word ‘child’ changes how we look at our children. It’s full of connotations, conditioned beliefs, judgements and expectations. When we meet children we see incomplete human beings, someone less than, in need of guidance, even betterment. A child doesn’t experience himself as a role or as someone half-baked. He sees himself as a person. […]