Posts by: Rita Brhel
My four- and five-year-old daughters go to a wonderful Montessori-style preschool. I had originally planned to homeschool, but my oldest daughter had some significant development delays that I was unable to address. I did not have the knowledge or training to work with her on cognitive processing and motor skill delays. And the preschool has [...]
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With my older children, who are now four and five years old, I wore them in a carrier for a time, but they never really took to it like my son. In the house, I don’t usually babywear. I’m satisfied with him being in arms as much as he likes, but as he’s becoming more [...]
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There’s a lot of talk in the news media about Attachment Parenting lately, especially with celebrity-turned-PhD Mayim Bialik’s new book, Beyond the Sling, in which she describes her brand of parenting, which does include Attachment Parenting (AP). And there are a lot of questions being asked. As a local Resource Leader for Attachment Parenting International, [...]
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I have a lot of friends, but I don’t have a lot of friends who I agree with in parenting approach. It makes me feel very alone sometimes. A couple weeks ago, I attended a mothers group at the local church where many of my nearby friends attend. I didn’t know all of the women [...]
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I believe that children need discipline. They need to know where the limits are; they need to know boundaries. Some parents prefer forms of punishment; those who raise their children in an attachment-minded way tend toward teaching and guidance. I wonder, though, if we truly ever get away from punishing – perhaps we don’t spank [...]
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I lost my temper with my five-year-old today. She had asked if she could wear flip-flops on her bare feet to play outside, and with the weather still a bit cool, I told her that it was too cold to wear flip-flops and that she would need to wear shoes and socks. She smiled, said [...]
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Women like to judge one another. Apparently, it’s how we’re wired because it takes a great deal of conscious effort to learn to suppress this desire. It’s really too bad, because we could offer a lot to one another if we weren’t so busy pushing our agendas at each other and defending our decisions. Women [...]
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I love to wake up to a baby in my bed, or any child for that matter. One of my favorite times of the day is when we take our afternoon nap. I lay down on my queen-size mattress with my son nursing next to me. I’m lying on my side, with a pillow placed [...]
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Sometimes, babies cry. They do. Even when we’re the most attentive, most attuned parents. And all we can do is to hold them and do our best to soothe them as they cry out their frustrations. My son is five months old now. Today, he cried for nearly an hour before he fell asleep. I [...]
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Savor the moment. When your children are younger, every day feels like a year. But as they get older, every year feels like a day. Enjoy these days. You’ll never get them back. Before you know it, they’re out of the house. This is the easiest time to parent – when your children are young [...]
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Toddlers and tantrums are synonymous for many in Western culture, but to add to that, so is timeout – particularly the kind used as a punishment. You know, the one where you have the kid sit in the corner for a minute of his age, such as two minutes for a two year old. Way [...]
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