If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!Dealing With Difficult People During Family Gatherings? Do You Enjoy Your Family Gatherings or Endure Them? Kelly dreads big dinners with her extended family; something (more accurately, someone) always manages to spoil the occasion with their negativity.  Great Aunt Sophie is especially critical, saying Kelly lets her three-year old daughter, Jaime, “get away with too much.”  Jaime is a busy little girl and doesn’t always want to stop playing to eat.  As Kelly called everyone to the dinner table, everyone... (Read More ...)

Dealing With Criticism? Immunize Yourself Against Toxic People Most parents will attend a family gathering or visit relatives this Summer. Many will also endure a chronically negative or critical relative. You know who I mean. Every family seems to have at least one. That person we avoid all year long but have to see at  family gatherings because we’re related. If you don’t have a relative like this, count your blessings — then look at your workplace or neighborhood. You probably have someone in your life that fits this bill. However we know this person, we need a plan for keeping our sanity... (Read More ...)

  Praise for Parents “Of all the jobs and professions in the world, parenting is the most important, difficult, and potentially rewarding. It is the only job that never ends; we are parents 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 12 months a year, every year. Even when children are adults, we are still their parent. We don’t make money by having children; we spend it. Our paychecks can’t be measured by material standards; they are hugs, thank-you’s, smiles, and seeing our child grow and mature.” – - Excerpt from The Parent’s Toolshop Parenting advice usually focuses... (Read More ...)

How To Build Teamwork When You And Your Partner Have Different Parenting Styles Many of us have a variety of parenting partners: spouses, ex-spouses, teachers, day care workers, relatives, friends and neighbors. Each partner can have a parenting style that differs from ours. When parenting styles clash, parents may overreact, interfere or try to change the partner. Parents may also try to compensate for the imbalances of the other by being more extreme. This damages parenting partnerships, confuses children and teaches them how to manipulate better. Here are five general parenting “styles,”... (Read More ...)