Parenting Blog

"Hey, Mom, Dad, I'm overwhelmed with some big feelings here....I don't know what to do with them...They're bubbling up inside me and I feel so scared and sad and mad...I'll do anything to make these feelings go away, including hit someone...No, don't you come close offering me hugs...that would send me right into tears...I can't bear all that sadness...It must be your fault I'm feeling all these bad feelings....I'll drive you away by any means necessary!"

Don't you wish your child could just TELL you he's feeling this way, instead of screaming "I hate you, you're the worst mother in the world!"?

But when your child is acting out, it's because he CAN'T tell you about those feelings. So he "acts them out."  It's his way of sending you an SOS.   READ POST

"Dr. Laura -- You say that all emotion comes from our thoughts, so that we can change our thoughts and therefore change our emotions.  But you’ve also written that we need to acknowledge our emotions and "feel" them, rather than ignore or stuff them. I’m confused." -- Corinne

The simple answer is that there's a difference between honoring our feelings -- and preventing them.  Once we’re feeling an emotion, we have no choice except to breathe our way through it without taking action.  That's how we release feelings and move beyond them.  READ POST

"More often than not, fear doesn’t emerge as nail-biting, cold-feet terror, but surfaces instead as anger, perfectionism, pessimism, low-level anxiety, depression, and feelings of isolation.  In these many disguises, fear can permeate life, leaving room for little else.  It morphs from one pseudoemotion to another, rarely declaring itself, poisoning each moment it touches." -- Dan Baker, Ph.D.

You may think your moods just come out of nowhere.  But scientists now believe that moods are mostly a response to what we think, usually without even noticing. So those bad moods and cranky days are often created by our own inner critics.  READ POST

"Dr. Laura....When I stop and take a breath, I am amazed at the amount of negative thoughts in my head—typically criticizing my ability as a mom, or a wife, or an employee, or a daughter or a friend. It’s so hard to feel like I’m doing anything well at all.  How do we get out of the negative thought patterns?" -- Amy  READ POST

"Where does resilience come from?....It comes from knowing that you never have to be alone….If you feel connected, you will always be able to deal with adversity.  The skills we need to deal with adversity begin with a feeling of I can handle this.  It is a feeling of No matter what happens, I can find a solution; a feeling of I have dealt with hard times and come out fine before; a feeling of Even when I feel lost, I always have somewhere to turn.” – Dr. Edward Hallowell
 
Life is full of hard knocks.  What makes some people get up the next morning determined to try again, while others give up?  Resilience.  READ POST

"My 7 year old daughter has started wanting to make other people (mainly her brother) hurt when she is emotionally hurt. So something happens that hurts her feelings and immediately she wants to lash out and try to make others feel like she does. She steps on a toy, her foot really hurts, she’s crying and it was my fault or her brother’s fault." - Sheryl  READ POST

"Behind the anger, behind the disrespect, and behind the manipulation is a scared child in desperate need of connection, love, and acceptance. ... If you show up for your child in a different state, he can only be different...When you are in a loving state, you automatically do the right thing...Love never fails." - Heather T. Forbes

What does Valentine’s Day have to do with parenting?  Love. The purpose of Valentines Day is to celebrate love of all kinds. The purpose of parenting, quite obviously, is to raise children. But I believe that parenting has a  secret purpose--to transform us, the parents. Parenting helps us heal ourselves. Live more fully. Learn to love unconditionally.

We all forget that, of course. Everyday life often seems like a series of struggles to get our kids to sleep through the night, use the potty, brush their teeth, eat their dinner, stop teasing their sibling, do their homework. Those struggles can take all the joy out of parenting.

But it doesn't have to be that way.  It's true that we don't actually have control over our kids, who, after all, are fully human and will make their own choices. And it's true that our ideas of what our child "should" do won't always align with our child's ideas. But there are ways to avoid the struggle to begin with, by staying connected, seeing things from your child's perspective and looking for win/win solutions. And even once there are hurt feelings and anger on both sides, even once it feels like you're trapped in resentment, there's a way out.  READ POST