Parents Supporting Parents

What to Do When Your Family Doesn’t Support Your Parenting Style

For many of us, summer means family gatherings: BBQs, weddings, and family reunions all bring us closer to our families, whether they live around the corner or on the other side of the world. And while seeing great-aunt Mildred and hearing stories from generations past can be a real treat, spending an extended period of time with family can also evoke old emotions. We might love our families and simultaneously feel as though we aren’t entirely accepted by them. We brace ourselves for criti […]

A Dad’s Guide to Mother’s Day

Don't sweat it dads, I've got you covered.

Listen up, dads.Mother’s Day is a big deal to the mother of your children. She probably has a picture in her mind of how she wants the day to go, and she’s going to be disappointed if it doesn’t happen. It’s a lot of pressure, right? Don’t worry, I’ve got you covered.Here’s the thing: what she wants is actually pretty simple. Obviously every mother is unique, and there can be no definitive guide. That said, I think we can make some safe assumptions:She’s tired.She eats food.She t […]

4 Reasons We Don’t Bother With Family Dinners

Most therapists will tell you that family dinners are essential for raising well balanced children. Even “the most important thing you can do with your kids.” The assumption is that we all have hectic lives and various activities which keep us busy. If we don’t reconnect over dinner, we’re missing important opportunities for conversation with our children. The communal dinner has become a ubiquitous family value, one we’re all supposed to observe if we want to be good pa […]

Parenting Without Fear

I hear the concerns so often in my practice: “I don’t want him to grow up to be entitled.” “What if she grows up to be selfish?”“I’m worried he won’t understand how the real world works.” So many of us are weighed down by fears based entirely in the future, some years or even decades from the present. In The Awakened Family, Dr. Shefali points out that, “Our relationship with our children is as rooted in fear as it is in love…when the rati […]

4 Strategies for Surviving Summer

The signs that summer vacation is approaching are all around us. Rules are becoming a bit more lax as the end of the school year slowly draws near. The rushed mornings of frantically packing lunches and looking for missing shoes are numbered, and the structure we established in September has long since been abandoned. There are more field trips, and homework feels like less of a priority to everyone as the  general interest in school wanes.  If we plan to stay home with our kids over t […]