America's favorite parenting expert
Posts From: August 2009
Dear Annie,
When my son was young, I had this perfect vision of his future teenage self and all his friends making our house the place to "hang out." Now that he’s 12 and quite popular, he only wants to go to other people’s homes. The last time his friends were over, I felt like I was intruding or embarrassing him every time I stuck my head in his room.
Kate
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Dear Annie,
When my three-year-old daughter wakes up in the middle of the night, she always crawls into bed with my husband and me. We want to break this habit, but I don’t look forward to the nightly drama that I’m sure will ensue if we make her stick out the night in her own room. Any suggestions?
Beverly
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The memories I have of watching classic musicals on TV with my kids are some of the sweetest. It wasn’t always easy to entice Maddie and Nick to watch an "old movie," (don’t underestimate the seductive power of freshly popped popcorn), but it was worth the effort because I know those nights are ones they’ll remember with as much fondness as I do. Here are the movies we liked most: Continue reading
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Dear Annie,
I had a really tough time breast-feeding, and after four weeks of pain and frustration, I switched to formula. I could not believe the guilt trip some of my relatives and friends put me on. Do you think I should try again?
Amy
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Give yourself credit for small acts of caring.
My to-do list has amazing regenerative powers. For each "to-do" I slash off, two more magically appear in its place. But whenever I have a day that feels particularly unproductive, I take a second to remember Lego Man’s hair. Yes, you read that right: I’m talking about the tiny piece of plastic that fits on Lego figures’ heads. I call this to mind because of an incident that happened a few years ago on a not-so-wonderful day. Continue reading
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My now almost-grown-up kids have been playing Guess Who? since they were kindergartners. They began by asking questions in a straight-forward, age appropriate way ("Does your person have a mouse-stash?"), and then learned to refine their queries in order to narrow down their choices ("Does your person have facial hair?"). Well into their teens, they still enjoyed our now-faded and probably incomplete set . By now their questions were highly evolved - or devolved, depending on your point of view: "Does your person look like he just got dumped by his girlfriend?" "If your person stuck his head out of a moving car, would he beat himself to death with his lips?" Some of their other favorites fell into the frat-boy humor category, but provided many hours of laughs - and years of "in" jokes they assumed I didn’t understand. Continue reading
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Recent research may make your family’s food woes a littler easier to digest.
One study, from University College London, that looked at identical and fraternal twins, suggested that some children are genetically predisposed to shun new foods. Continue reading
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Putting annoying adolescent behavior in perspective
One of the most useful parenting techniques I ever learned was reframing. The idea is to relabel behavior in order to gain a more constructive perspective, thereby shifting from "I think I may have to kill you" to "I understand that what you did may be out of your control." Continue reading
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Be careful what you say about your party days
It’s no secret that your teenager’s peers can affect his or her decision to drink underage. But what if the influential teen is you-at age 16? As part of a science talent search, 17-year-old Chelsea Jurman, of Roslyn Heights, New York, surveyed 123 of her classmates. Her results suggest that teen attitudes toward drinking and their drinking behavior correlate with their perception of their parents’ teenage alcohol use. Continue reading
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