Category: Family & Parenting

Are you looking for local skating rinks to go roller skating? Greenville, SC and Spartanburg, SC are lucky enough to have a couple of rinks! For those of us who were born in a year starting with a “1”, chances are you have some kind of childhood memories involving a skating rink. The art of rolling around on skates is cool again, so go and show the young ‘uns how it’s done. 

When I was in high school I could almost always be found at the skating rink. I was friends with the owner’s son, and the staff consisted mostly of my classmates.

As with everything else lately, TikTok is making the old new again. Some things we wish would stay gone. (Mom jeans? Really? Ok.) Other things we enjoyed and now watch a whole new generation discover, like roller skating. Search #Shuffleskate on any platform and you will see grown folks having fun and zipping around skating rinks across the country!

So dust off the skates, we are going to relive our youth at a local rink!

Roller Skating Rinks Near Greenville, SC

Roller Sports

328 W. Main Street, Taylors |864.268.7397

The Roller Sports Rink has been around longer than most reading this have been alive, and they are still around for new memories to be made. Parents who are only there to watch are allowed in for free with their children. The monthly schedule of sessions can be found on the Roller Sports Rink website. They have Homeschool Skate every third Friday of the month.

Roller Sports has drop-off events on Friday and Saturday nights from 7-11 pm for kids 10 and over.

Golden Lanes & Skate

108 Balcome Boulevard, Simpsonville | 864.967.8851

Both a bowling alley and skating rink. Skating is only open on weekends. Current hours for skating are Friday night 7-11 pm ($12), Saturday 1-4 pm ($6) and 7-11 pm ($10), and Sunday 2-5 pm ($5).

Skateland USA

414 Clemson Boulevard, Anderson | 864.224.8175

For the weekly event and session schedule, call Skateland USA. They update the voicemail message with the week’s info. Most sessions are $5 per person, and they are not open on Wednesdays.

Roller Time Family Skate Easley

719 Ross Avenue, Easley | 864.671.6433

Family Skate Night is every Tuesday from 6:30-8:30 pm and it costs $5/person. Open sessions on other days range from $6-$8/person. Check their Facebook page to see their latest schedule.

Roller Time Family Skate Piedmont

2310 River Road, Piedmont, SC | 864.412.5333

Open Skate ranges from $6-$8/person. Check their Facebook page for the latest schedule of sessions.

Roller Skating Rinks Near Spartanburg, SC

Sk8erz Family Fun Center

415 Sha Lane, Spartanburg | 864.585.1005

Sk8terz has drop-off events on Fridays (6-9 pm) and Saturdays (5-9 pm) for just $15 per child. This includes the $2 rental fee. Event announcements can be found on the Sk8erz Facebook page.

Roebuck Skate Center

989 Old Georgia Road, Moore | 864.576.8550

The Roebuck Skate center offers family skate and open skate events. The hours are as follows:

• Thursday Family Night
  6:30 -8:30 pm | $5 (Includes skate rental)
• Friday 
  6 – 9 pm | $8 admission / $2 skate rental
• Saturday
  2 -5 pm | $6 admission / $2 skate rental
  5-8 pm | $8 admission / $2 skate rental
• Sunday
  2 -5 pm | $6 admission / $2 skate rental

50+ Things to Do This Winter Break: Greenville, SC

It’s no secret that girls are under-diagnosed compared to boys when it comes to ADHD. I didn’t recognize my daughter’s symptoms. My twenty-year old daughter was just given an official diagnosis of ADHD. She says she’s known for a while that she has it, having done her own research.

I’m not wringing my hands with guilt, nor is she condemning me for never having her tested as a child, but I am doing a fair bit of reflection. I want to understand what I missed.

My daughter seemed like a model student at school

My daughter has always bounced through life with an excitement that’s contagious. She’s very funny, and the energy level rises in any room she enters. However, at school she seemed like a “model” student – meaning she paid attention in class and was not disruptive.

In school, she did well. Her report cards generally showed As, Bs, and the occasional C. She took Honors- and AP-level classes in high school, cheered with the Cheer team, and practiced several hours per week with her club gymnastics team.

Maintaining that level of achievement cost her a lot, however. She would work for hours on homework that her classmates finished in twenty minutes. She would get extra help after school, study her color-coded notes for hours, and still do poorly on tests compared to her peers. It was tough on her self-esteem.

My daughter should have been tested for ADHD earlier

In hindsight, these facts seem to make it obvious that she should have been tested. At the time, however, it wasn’t so simple. At no point did a single teacher, in grades Pre-K through 12, suggest to us that she had problems staying focused.

She was like a duck gliding smoothly through the water, but under the surface where no one could see, her feet were paddling a mile a minute. Additionally, there seemed to be alternate explanations for just about all of her symptoms.

For example, her interest in reading waned around the age of twelve – when the books got longer and more complex. However, that’s also around the time she got an iPad, and then an iPhone. We assumed that chatting with friends and developing an interest in social media were natural results of becoming a teenager, and that she would return to reading when she got older.

She spent hours and hours on homework. We thought her school was assigning too much work. Looking back now, I realize that she was struggling with the close reading and comprehension that her coursework demanded. The social media breaks that she took were actually much-needed “breathers” from intensive, frustrating work that her brain wasn’t wired for. In retrospect, I should have compared notes with the parents of her friends, but we had moved to a new town and I didn’t know many other parents.

I assumed her anxiety was similar to mine

She struggled with anxiety; having had my own struggles, perhaps I was too quick to assume that she’d simply inherited my genetics. When she did poorly on tests, we thought that she had test-taking anxiety, which contributed to her not thinking clearly, misinterpreting directions, and so on. We addressed the anxiety, but the attention issues never came to light.

Trying to maintain her grades, she didn’t get enough sleep at night, so she was often tired during the day and would fall asleep on the couch, or in the car as I drove her to practice. She was emotional and impulsive, overreacting to minor setbacks like a spilled drink, a lost inhaler, or a sudden change of plans. You need to get to bed earlier, we’d tell her. When you’re overtired, your emotions get the better of you.

My daughter is doing well now

Because she kept a lot of lists, and kept her room and her things organized, she never seemed disorganized to me. These were anxious coping mechanisms that she developed so she wouldn’t miss deadlines or lose things.

My daughter is a junior in college now, majoring in Graphic Design and Communications and maintaining Dean’s List grades semester after semester. She’s a gifted artist who can draw human hands like no one else I know. She’s found her niche.

I asked her if I could write about her experience. Thinking it might help some other girl whose parents read the article, she said okay.

Parents of daughters, does any of this sound familiar?

• Does your child make impulsive choices, or get more upset about setbacks than seems reasonable?
• Can she maintain solid friendships, or do her relationships tend to be volatile?
• Does she get decent grades, but take longer to complete her work?
• Is she disorganized, frequently losing belongings, missing deadlines, or forgetting important things?“

I wish I’d known,” my daughter says now. “I would have felt better about seeing all my classmates finish their homework during lunch, and do better on tests than me. My teachers would have understood how to help me if I’d been able to tell them I had ADHD.”

More on ADHD In Girls/Women:

ADHD in Women and Girls: Why Female Symptoms Slip Through Diagnostic Cracks

More Reading:

Paving His Own Path: A Mom Reflects on Raising a Son with Inattentive ADHD

A few days ago my youngest turned fifteen. It snuck up on me. Etching a beautiful ache into my heart in a way I didn’t expect.

I look at my oldest- almost seventeen- and feel like he is already a man. I swear, he just turned fifteen yesterday. And I’m left wondering how those years disappeared in the blink of an eye. I see him now- one foot out the door. So busy with the life he is building that I feel like I’m watching these last years with him through a tiny picture window.

When he turned fifteen I had no idea how quickly it would turn into seventeen, and how much would change in the journey along the way- for both of us.

I saw how quickly 15 turned to 17

But now I do. And so I feel this fifteen with so much more gravity with my youngest. Knowing he is no longer a boy, but not quite yet a man. And the realization that this seems to be the last baby step of innocence before the race into adulthood. And it’s something that is pulling my heart to a place it’s never been.

Fifteen is still the infancy of so many things.

Freshman year growing pains. Changing friendships. First loves, and first heartbreaks. Homecoming dances and Friday Night Lights. Suiting up in a newly earned high school uniform for the big game. Hoping to get noticed by the cheering crowd in the stands. Dreaming so big of all the possibilities that lie ahead, with an open heart that still holds the innocence of youth.

Fifteen is pushing the boundaries and testing the waters.

Asking for later curfews, and navigating the no. Finding the courage to make strong and healthy choices, when the weight of peer pressure begins to weigh heavier than ever.

It’s the beginning of paving the path to the road you want to take- even when you don’t really know where it’s going. Trying to find the right people to surround yourself with to get where you think it might be.

Fifteen is still not quite old enough.

For prom. For driving on your own. For going on a date without your parents lurking in the parking lot to take you home. For doing all of the things that you want to believe you’re ready for, but still hold too much youth to be embraced by.

Fifteen is still kind of a kid.

But fifteen is still more than my heart was ready for so quickly. Especially when I know it’s the last fifteen candles on the cake in our home.

I still see the child but also the beginning of the young man

I still catch glimpses of innocence. The way he will lay his head on my shoulder once in a while when we watch a movie. Or, the way he still looks for me in the bleachers to see if I’m watching, even when he’s not in the game. The way I bust him dancing and singing his favorite song, when he thinks no one is around to see. Catching snowflakes on his tongue when he’s walking in the front door after school.

But now my heart knows that fifteen is the swirling that starts the wave of independence.

It’s watching from a distance as he makes mistakes, and also pulling him back close enough to remind him that I’m here to help him learn from them.

It’s walking by the bathroom and seeing him shave. Learning how to knot a necktie. Finding the sweet spot in the perfect amount of deodorant and cologne.

I know that fifteen is all sorts of feels for both of us.

I look at him and see a mirror reflection of what I carried in my own heart at that age. Peaks and valleys of emotion trying to find his place in this world of high school. The winds of change, blowing him in every direction as he tries to find footing socially, emotionally, and physically.

And I had no idea at all that my parents were holding something equally as pivotal. Watching the last years of childhood transform me into adulthood, and trying to hold onto every moment before the final thread of youth was cut, releasing me into the future.

Here we are- fifteen. Both of us knowing how quickly these next years will fly by. Him counting the seconds. And me, wondering how I will ever be ready for that moment of letting go.

More Great Reading:

We Are Forgetting About Our Teenage Boys and It’s Not Okay

“If only I’d known that was the last time I would see them, there’s so much I would have said.” “There was so much left unsaid – I thought we had more time.”

“I hope they know how much they meant to me.”

“If only I’d told them how much I loved them.” “If only I could see them one more time, there is so much I would say.”

Living with regrets is difficult

If only…

Living with regrets, with things unsaid can feel like torture. To have “unfinished business” or “unresolved issues” with someone when they’re gone is not something you can undo. We all are so wrapped up in “to do’s,” the next thing on our list, getting to the next event, the next meeting, getting off the phone or out the door, that sometimes we rush along mindlessly without stopping to acknowledge those closest to us. It’s so easy to take them for granted – certain that we’ll have more time, or the right time, to express how we feel or to apologize for our failings or misunderstandings.  

It’s easy to get caught up in the year-end frenzy, but it’s also the perfect time to stop and really tune in to the people in our lives. I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately and decided to stop thinking and do something about it…

I remember back a few years ago, when as a gift for Christmas, my husband, our two sons and I wrote letters to each other. Heartfelt and genuine – notes of thanks, appreciation, fond memories and funny stories.  

We exchanged them on Christmas morning – best gifts ever!

I have been writing letters to the people closest to me to tell them how I feel

Drawing on that, I’ve been writing letters to the people closest to me and telling them all the things I want them to know, so that when I’m gone, they’ll have something to look back on.  Starting at the beginning of our relationship and including funny memories, telling them what I’ve learned from them and what I admire about them – and how much I love them.  

Writing these letters has been a wonderful trip down memory lane – birth stories, how we met stories, “remember the time” stories, etc.  It’s also made me get really clear and expressive about how I feel about them – not leaving anything unsaid. Reading these letters with them has been brought up all kinds of emotions – really good ones, deep ones – nothing left unsaid.  Because I’ve found, when you really open up to someone and let yourself be vulnerable, people feel safe to do the same.

We all crave connection with the ones we love, and sometimes it’s hard for this to come naturally – especially when you no longer live under the same roof. Finding interesting ways to open up and share how you feel and being open to hearing how your family feels, is deeply gratifying and sometimes life changing.  

7 ways to connect/reconnect, open up and strengthen your bonds

1. Talk about the music you’re all listening to – and play it for each other. A few topics to get things started: “What song/s do you play when you work out,” “What do you play when you’re feeling down,” “What do you listen to when you’re mad, happy, bored, etc,” “Your most played song this year.” Hearing what other people listen to is very insightful and very personal – plus you get exposed to music you might not have normally listened to.
2. Ask some thought-provoking questions and let each person answer – “What is your favorite childhood memory?” “Growing up, what did you think all families did (or had) but learned they didn’t?” “If you could travel anywhere, where would it be and why?” “What was your favorite family tradition and why?” The answers may surprise and delight you – plus, you get to hear about their experience being part of this family from their point of view – not just your memory. And if they have significant others or friends along, it’s fun to learn about other families.
3. Figure out your family’s “common ground” – what you all love to do as a family and memorialize that in some way. It might be watching/playing sports, going to see plays or musicals, watching movies, or trying to new restaurants. Ours is cooking and eating together. So, one year, we made a family cookbook with all our favorite family recipes.
4. Cooking as a family was something we all loved to do so we had tons of recipes from several generations. Many of ours were handwritten or copied from magazines and cookbook or printed internet recipes, with our notes written on them. So, my husband and I made copies of them and put them in a custom notebook we ordered online. Now when our grown kids need a recipe, they have them all in one place.  I love when they call because they’re making something and have a question – it takes me back to when we made that recipe together.  
5. Play a made-up game intended to get each other talking: I made up a game we called My Best Advice (I made sure my husband was on board in case anyone tried to back out or roll their eyes. No need to worry as it turns out, they were all open to the idea and it wound up being really fun). We all wrote down ten pieces of advice on ten scraps of paper that we folded up and put in a pile in the center of the table.  
6. From simple to silly – some were very personal and serious, and some were just hilarious.  We took turns opening them reading them aloud and then trying to guess who wrote it and what we thought about the advice. We laughed a lot, but we also were surprised by how serious some were and that was really special.
7. Exchange handwritten notes with each member of your family – write about you admire about them, what you’ve learned from them, your favorite memory of them or anything else you’ve been meaning to tell them. 

Maybe this year, in addition to gifts and well wishes, we stop and tell people how we really feel about them, write it down and give them something they can hold onto and read and reread.  

How comforting to know that nothing was left unsaid – no regrets or “if only”s, just real, heartfelt feelings that will live on long after we do!

More Great Reading:

It Took My Sons Leaving Home for Me to Realize I’d Lost Sight Of My Dreams

My son, Samuel, applied last month for early decision at Colby College. Colby has been his choice for about a year, even before he saw the campus. When we went for a campus tour in October, his decision was set in stone.

My wife and I were just as enthusiastic. The college has a beautiful campus, is only two hours from home, and offers great financial aid opportunities for lower income families.

I’d guess that he has checked his email 50 times a day since November 15^th, hoping to find an admission letter. I tried to be positive but also realistic, since only 7 percent of applicants were accepted last year. I pointed out the benefits of a few other schools, just in case this didn’t work out.

Colby College sent a counselor to tell my son that he was accepted

Then, last Tuesday, my son’s guidance counselor called my wife to give us the good news: Sam got accepted to Colby! Not only that, but on Friday they were sending two representatives to the high school to deliver the news to him in person.

The bad news? We couldn’t tell him. It was going to be a surprise, meaning we had to keep the good news a secret for three days.

This was more difficult than it sounds. Our son has Asperger’s, and the early years were difficult. For many years we wondered if he would graduate from high school, never mind go to college. It was only during the last few years that he really began to flourish.

So for him to be accepted at what is considered a “Little Ivy” was enough to bring tears to our eyes. We wanted to laugh and yell and cry and eat a lot of pizza!

Instead, my wife went to bed at 6 every night to avoid saying anything. Good thing, too. She has a terrible poker face. I’m better – at least I can keep a straight face – and I somehow made it through the week without giving anything away.

Our son emerged in an outfit that was inappropriate for the day

On Thursday evening we talked about how we hoped our son would dress nicely for the Colby people, but we weren’t too worried. Sam is the best-dressed student in his high school and wears a tie to school at least once or twice a week. No worries, right?

Friday morning comes, and he walks into the living room looking like a three-year-old who’s dressed himself. For one thing, he was wearing Ravenclaw sweatpants that he’s had since 5^th grade. How far back in his drawer did he have to dig to find those? And today, of all days. They were up over his ankles and looked ready to split if he happened to sit down, which he was bound to do over the course of the day.

We never tell our son what to wear, but this was too much. My wife thought quickly and said, “Don’t you have an NHS event tonight? Maybe you should wear those clothes to school today.” He looked at her strangely but went back to his room and came out five minutes later in a tie and sports coat. To his credit, he always listens to his mom.

It was gratifying to see our son who had struggled, achieve his goal

We arrived at the school later, as scheduled, and met the college representatives on the way in. Sam’s guidance counselor took us to a conference room, and when Sam walked in, he was stunned. Our very articulate son was reduced to saying “Ohh!” when told by the Colby people that he had been accepted for early decision. He followed this up a minute later with “I was just expecting an email.”

Once it began to sink in that he had been accepted, he became overcome with emotion. His guidance counselor had tears in his eyes. I spent most of the meeting in some strange hybrid state of smiling and laughing and choking up, while my wife wore a smile that lasted all day. Our son has had his struggles over the years, both socially and academically, and it was wonderful to see all his hard work pay off in a way that he will no doubt remember for the rest of his life.

Colleges don’t normally give acceptance letters in person, but maybe they should start. It meant the world to our family. We had a feeling that this would be the right place for our son to attend college, but now we are certain that it is.

More Great Reading:

My Autistic Son Is a Junior and Finally Thriving In High School

Weeks before Christmas, my family starts bingeing Hallmark movies and any other holiday movie we can find. Last year, we added Your Christmas or Mine and a Boy Called Christmas to our must-watch list that already includes It’s a Wonderful Life, Elf and Arthur Christmas.

But there is one movie we pass over every year.

Eighteen years ago, a new romcom was released, just in time for Christmas. My husband, Matt, was excited to take me to see it. I needed distraction. It had been a rough year. My mother had been diagnosed with cancer just after the previous Christmas, and was gone by mid August. Our kids were 10 and 13.

My mother loved Christmas

My mother loved Christmas and was giddy watching my daughters tear through wrapping paper to reveal her “big” present each year, like the Playmobil castle for Ellie, and an American Girl Doll for Maggie.

My mother was 69 and had organized a family vacation at a New Hampshire resort for her 70^th in October. She had plans and the cancer was getting in her way. In the hospital, after the cancer was in her brain, tears rolled down her face. “I won’t have my birthday party,” she said. I couldn’t look at her. She loved parties.

Matt knew Christmas 2005 was going to be tough. So, he took me to see the new holiday romcom to take my mind off the fact that my mother would be missing at our celebrations.

My husband took me to a holiday romcom to lift my spirits

He had watched the trailers. It had an all-star cast, including Diane Keaton, Sarah Jessica Parker, Rachel Adams and Dermot Mulroney. I was psyched. The movie promised to be funny – a family reunion at Christmas when one of the children introduces his new love into the family melee. Food is thrown, people slip on it and fall, the new love feels disrespected and leaves the house, only to be followed. She returns and everyone becomes friends.

But the trailers for The Family Stone neglected to reveal that the family matriarch not only has cancer, but she dies! I looked at my husband in the dark and very full theater. He looked back with panic in his eyes. “Oh no,” he must have thought. “Crap.”

I started to sob. My eyes didn’t just well up with tears. This was outright guttural sobbing. I shook as I bawled. In a public theater. If people could hear me, I didn’t care. My husband leaned over and reached for my hand. “Do you want to leave,” he whispered.“No,” I choked back. I had to see this through. I’m not a quitter.

After the movie ended I fell apart

When the movie ended, Matt acted as a football blocker as I walked up the aisle with the rest of our town following. I didn’t make it out the door. I collapsed into a corner and wept, like a toddler in a grocery store.

As my daughters got older, our movie line-up evolved. But we always aggressively avoided The Family Stone. It had become legend. This was the movie that made Mummy cry. In a theater. In public. No thanks. 

No one wanted to watch that. They didn’t want to remind me of how sad I was when my mother died. It was time to “get with the program” as my mother would have said.

We knew the Hallmark formula and we were good at predicting within the first five minutes who was going to fall in love with whom, and that life would be peachy. Sick people got well. These were safe, boring, and comfortable like a worn-in sweater.

I was finally able to watch The Family Stone again

Last year when Ellie came home with Covid two weeks before Christmas, our plans for holiday shopping and holiday eating were curtailed. So, we double-downed on Christmas movies. Locked in her room, Ellie synchronized movies with Matt and me from her computer. We texted at funny scenes.

One evening, while searching for another movie to watch, Matt stumbled on The Family Stone. Together we watched the trailers. “See,” he said. “Funny.” He was vindicated. I still said no.

As he watched soccer and football the Sunday before presents, Maggie FaceTimed from L.A. “Guess what I’m watching? The Family Stone. It’s funny.”

“See,” my husband said.

“No, I have sobbed too,” she added.

Now, I was vindicated.

I, finally, watched The Family Stone again, and guess what? I was okay.

The spell has broken, or maybe there wasn’t a spell in the first place. Maybe I’d been afraid for no reason.

The way we celebrate Christmas as a family has changed in some ways

Our family still watches Hallmark movies, fights over who gets to hang the Clara (from the Nutcracker) ornament, drinks eggnog, strings lights on the front and back porches and setting up the creche Matt inherited from his mom. And I still miss having my mother waltz through our front door, shouting, “HO HO HO. Anyone home?”

But Christmas has changed a bit, too. This year, Matt and I are flying across the country for Christmas. There won’t be a Christmas tree in our house. But we’ll still watch our hokey holiday movies in L.A. with Ellie, Maggie, and her husband, Jay, in their new home.

Thanks to my daughter, I am no longer afraid of watching The Family Stone. In fact, we’ve added it to our annual movie line up. And, even if I do cry, it’s okay. 

More Great Reading:

Now I Understand How Much My Mom Did for Christmas, I’m Trying to Do It Too

My son is smart, authentic and unusual, but his deepest feelings have been a mystery to me since he became a teenager. This makes his senior year and the college search and application process difficult for me.

That’s right…difficult for me.

He, on the other hand, is as cool as his bare arms are on a cold day even though I inevitably asked him several times to put on a jacket. On this particular day, his coolness comes in the form of working on his computer to put the finishing touches on a Google Document for his World History Class.

He does this just moments after reading that he didn’t make the cut at his early decision application to Swarthmore College. A not too well known, but very hard to get into, liberal arts college. It wasn’t only the denial, though, he also learned that his close friend since kindergarten was accepted.

Is my son wondering why his friend got in and he did not?

I wonder if he is questioning what about his friend is better than him or if he chooses to believe the college and his mother when we say there were so many applications, too many great applications, to accept everyone. I look at him as he works, with his long hair falling down his back and his serious, dark eyes focused on the blue baroque pattern he chose for the background of his slides.

I tell him that he now has something in common with President Obama as he, too, didn’t make the cut at Swarthmore. I let him know that I’m here if he’d like to talk and tell him I love him and that he should feel proud for having the courage to apply knowing the odds were not in his favor.     

I wish he would let me hug him like he did so easily when he was twelve but this is not about me no matter how much it feels like it is. I know tomorrow we will revisit the list we’ve compiled over the past couple of months and he will have to make the decision on whether or not to apply Early Decision II to a different school or ride the college application process until March through regular decision. I will reluctantly pay for every application he chooses to submit plus more money if he wants to submit his SAT scores or if the school requires a CSS Profile.

I wonder how my son with such strong credentials got rejected

In the meantime, I will question how a child who has scored so well on the SAT, and has a near perfect grade point average in advanced classes, a young man who comes alive with true passion and curiosity when talking about chemistry and literature, will face more denials ahead as he jockeys for a position at another college. If he is successful, he will then have to hope for merit aid or a school accepting him that awards aid on need without loans included, as 65k+ is the average cost a year for tuition at a private school.

He will also be required to write another ten or so essays and be attempting to express his authentic self in 250 words or less to an admission’s counselor who will assign scores based on their perception of what he has written.

Mainly he will get continued lessons in humility, continued to be bombarded by American college marketing, and the selective college system that favors the most educated and wealthy families, but couples this with a call for diversity and low-income access. Either this, or we will have the opportunity to take out $15k a year in loan for four years to try to cover what merit aid won’t cover at one of the state schools he has applied to as “safeties.”

We will need to take out loans for our son’s education

Why will we need loans? Unfortunately, we never had any money until I graduated college as an adult and our three kids were all old enough for me to work full time alongside my husband. This means our yearly income is currently high but our savings is low and having a savings account for college was not even a consideration at our previous income level. We are the misfit middle class.

These are tough lessons that we are lucky enough as a family to face together, all in good health. Gratitude is important, and I know he will figure it out and, in the end, find a place where he belongs. 

As I write this, I can hear him in his room laughing loudly. The sound fills me with instant joy and relief. I can guess he has already moved on from his school work to meet his friend online that just got into Swarthmore, and that they’re already onto another epic adventure together in game.

At the sound of this I tsk tsk myself. This balance of providing freedom while also loving from afar is so difficult. It is at least difficult for me, but I’m still learning too.

More Great Reading:

Pressure Cooker of College Admissions: Grades vs. Personal Growth

Do you remember the elementary school days when it seemed like your kiddo was getting sick every few weeks from a classmate who brought a virus to school? Thank goodness those days are over, right? Wrong. In college, dorm rooms can feel like a petri dish of stuffy, germ-infested air that can bring airborne infections, such as influenza, measles, or COVID-19. However, with the best air purifiers for dorm rooms, allergens, odors, and contaminants can be limited. 

Below, you can check out our list of the best air purifiers for dorm rooms based on technology, noise level, and design. 

1. Best Overall: LEVOIT Core 400S Smart True HEPA Air Purifier – $219.99 at Amazon
2. Best for Allergies: Honeywell HP100 HEPA Air Purifier – $115.09 at Amazon
3. Best Smart Air Purifier: Levoit Core Mini – $49.99 at Amazon
4. Quietest Air Purifier: Blueair Blue 311+ Max – $227.97 at Amazon
5. Smallest Air Purifier: Clorox Tabletop True HEPA Air Purifier – $49.99 at Amazon

One of the highest-rated air purifiers is the LEVOIT Core 400S Smart True HEPA Air Purifier. Although it’s a bit of an investment, it’s been named one of the best air purifiers for dorm rooms thanks to its functionality and great features. It’s a bit on the larger side, but it won’t take up too much space or would fit well in a larger dorm room or small apartment.

It can detect poor air quality in a space as large as 990 square feet in as little as 10 minutes, comes equipped with three different filters, and lasts the long term. There’s even a three-stage filtration process that traps pollen, dust, pet dander, and more, while the impressively quiet motor won’t wake them up in the middle of the night. 

Tech lovers will also appreciate its compatible app, which is simple to set up, gives air quality indicators, and can be set to a schedule. The display is also great for anyone who prefers to use it without an app. 

The Specs:

• Coverage: Up to 990 square feet 
• Filtration system: 3-stage filtration
• Noise level: 24 decibels 
• Dimensions: 10.8 by 10.8 by 20.5 inches 

The Pros:

• Compact
• App is simple to use
• Quiet
• Alerts you when filter needs cleaning
• Energy Star certified

The Cons:

What Others are Saying:

The LEVOIT Core 400S Smart True HEPA Air Purifier has a 4.6-star rating on Amazon. Better Homes & Gardens named it the best purifier overall after testing it in their lab and Popular Mechanics specifically named it the best for dorm rooms. 

Buy the LEVOIT Core 400S Smart True HEPA Air Purifier: 

If your college student struggles with allergies, this model by Honeywell was made for them. It’s part of the company’s Allergen Plus series since it has four air-cleaning levels that capture up to 99.97% of microscopic airborne allergens and particles like dust, pollen, dust mites, and even smoke. With the recent air quality problems we’ve experienced nationwide, it is a great investment. Plus, it can cover up to 750 square feet, so this model will be effective in large spaces when they move on from the dorm room and into an apartment.

The Specs:

• Coverage: Up to 750 square feet 
• Filtration system: HEPA
• Noise level: 35 decibels 
• Dimensions: 13.9 by 13.5 by 8.9 inches 

The Pros:

• Reduces allergens
• Captures 99.97% of airborne particles
• Compact
• Easy to use
• Affordable

The Cons:

• Only uses Honeywell filters

What Others are Saying:

The Honeywell HP100 HEPA Air Purifier has a 4.7-star rating from more than 30,000 reviews on Amazon.

Buy the Honeywell HP100 HEPA Air Purifier:

If you’re looking for something budget-friendly without compromising on technology or performance, consider the Levoit Core Mini. It does a great job of combating allergies and congestion, and a few drops of essential oils dropped into the aromatherapy pad will make the dorm room feel like home. It also has a small footprint, so it won’t crowd a tight dorm space, and its QuietKEEP Technology won’t disturb study or sleep — or their roommate. 

It has voice control that connects to both Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant, so for the price, it’s an incredibly modern budget buy.

The Specs:

• Coverage: Up to 337 square feet 
• Filtration system: 3-stage filtration
• Noise level: 25 decibels 
• Dimensions: 6.5 by 6.5 by 10.4 inches 

The Pros:

• Inexpensive
• Quiet
• Small
• Effective
• Includes an aromatherapy pad

The Cons:

• Not meant for large spaces

What Others are Saying:

The Levoit Core Mini has a 4.6-star rating on Amazon with over 19,000 reviews.

Buy the Levoit Core Mini:

If they want to remove particles from the air without disrupting their roommate, the Blueair Blue 311+ Max is super quiet and only produces 24 decibels of noise. That’s only as loud as someone whispering from three feet away! So, it’s a great device for hyper-focused study and uninterrupted sleep.

Small and quiet but mighty, it has a circular design with a 360-degree air intake to cover enough airspace in a dorm room (up to 465 square feet) without taking up too much real estate. It has two filters that team up against all types of air quality issues. One filter removes at least 99.97% of the tiny airborne particles, such as viruses and bacteria, while the other tackles larger particles, such as dust, pollen, and smoke.

The Specs:

• Coverage: Up to 465 square feet 
• Filtration system: 2-stage filtration
• Noise level: 24 decibels 
• Dimensions: 7.9 by 7.9 by 13.9 inches 

The Pros:

• Quiet
• Small
• Lightweight
• Fast working

The Cons:

• Only good for small spaces
• Controls are hard to see

What Others are Saying:

The Blueair Blue 311+ Max was named the best overall air purifier by NBC and Good Housekeeping. The Spruce also named it best for bedrooms. 

Buy the Blueair Blue 311+ Max:

This model from Clorox claims to reduce viruses and bacteria, capturing up to 99.97% of allergens in its 2-stage filter. The pre-filter catches large dust particles before the main filter covers the rest. It has a whisper-quiet low setting and an adjustable night light so as not to disturb anyone at night. During the day, you can customize its three speeds to your liking. It doesn’t have an accompanying app, but the timer can be set to 2, 4, or 8 hours of runtime. 

All of this is great for a unit with a low price tag, especially since it’s small enough to sit right on a desk or dresser without being in the way. 

The Specs:

• Coverage: Up to 200 square feet 
• Filtration system: 2-stage filter
• Noise level: 55 decibels 
• Dimensions: 7.5 by 7.5 by 9.5 inches 

The Pros:

• Affordable
• Compact
• Effective
• Easy to use

The Cons:

What Others are Saying:

The Clorox Tabletop True HEPA Air Purifier was named the best tabletop air purifier by Wired.

Buy the Clorox Tabletop True HEPA Air Purifier:

Dyson Purifier Cool Purifying Fan

If money were no option, this model would be one of the top picks. It’s one of the best air purifiers on the market and has some incredible features, like its powerful fan, easy-to-use app, quiet performance, and undeniable quality. However, at more than $600, it’s just too expensive to warrant it in a small dorm. The Dyson Purifier Cool Purifying Fan is available at Amazon for $649.

Coway Airmega IconS Air PurifierCoway 200M True HEPA

This model has a 2-stage filtration to get both big and small particles out of the air. It can cover a large area, is easy to use, and has a pollution sensor to show the air quality status. That being said, it’s so clunky and big that it’s probably not a good fit for a dorm room. The Coway Airmega IconS Air PurifierCoway 200M True HEPA is available at Amazon for $197.

Clorox Alexa Smart Large Room True HEPA Air Purifier

Since the Clorox company is such a force in household cleanliness, we thought this air purifier would be a rockstar, but the reviews say differently. It does a good job but lacks smart features and the replacement filters are expensive. For the price, you’re better off getting one of the best-performing air purifiers on this list. The Clorox Alexa Smart Large Room True HEPA Air Purifier is available at Amazon for $169.99.

Hi! I’m Belle, an award-winning digital content creator with a healthy passion for all things lifestyle, including shopping, food, fashion, and French culture. I also own an award-winning content creation agency, plus I teach communications at three colleges and universities. My writing and on-camera work can be seen on Better Homes & Gardens. 

For this roundup, I researched trusted websites and read hundreds of reviews to narrow down the best air purifiers specifically for dorm rooms, considering the size of the room, noise level, design, performance, and overall value. 

What to Consider Before Buying an Air Purifier for Dorm Rooms

Since the days of COVID-19, air purifiers have become a popular addition to many households. We’ve now been conditioned to think about indoor air quality and how to improve it by removing dust, dander, pollen, bacteria, and more. 

If you think an air purifier is necessary for your college student, there are a few things to consider:

Type: Not all air purifiers remove the same impurities from the air. Some are made with HEPA filters, which trap particles as small as 0.3 microns in size. Others may use carbon filters to remove odors and chemicals. You’ll want to choose the type that works best for your individual needs.

Size of the room: Some air purifiers are engineered to filter out large spaces and some are only capable of handling smaller ones. Every model on our list is perfect for a dorm room. But if you want the air purifier to grow with your child’s space, you may decide to invest in one that handles large spaces up front. 

Size of the purifier: Don’t forget that space is limited in a dorm room! If the room is tiny, you might want to buy a mini air purifier so it doesn’t have to take up floor space or get in the way too much. 

Noise levels: If you have a light sleeper or someone who needs dead silence to study, knowing what level of noise your air purifier puts out is important. It’s also respectful to their roommate!

Do You Need an Air Purifier in a Dorm Room?

While it may not be absolutely necessary to equip your college student with an air purifier for their dorm, there are many benefits to investing in one. 

If allergies or asthma are of concern, having an air purifier can significantly improve air quality to help alleviate symptoms. It’s also not a bad idea to pick one up if the room is in an area with poor air quality or if it has poor ventilation. 

The type of dorm room could also sway your decision.

• Jack and Jill: In this style of dorm room, each student typically has their own bedroom with a full bathroom to share. In this smaller space, an air purifier is encouraged. 
• Suite-style: In a suite space, you’re most likely to find one small bathroom shared by six to ten people. An air purifier would be good to put in a shared hallway because so many bodies share one space. 
• Hall-Style: The bathrooms in a hall-style dorm are typically set up in a community style, which means that the entire floor will share a bathroom. But to keep their own room clean, buying an air purifier could be helpful.  

What Are Air Purifiers Good For?

Air purifiers filter out impurities in the air like dust, mold, allergies, bacteria, and odors, so your lungs don’t have to do all the heavy lifting. The result is clean air to inhale, so they’re less likely to get sick and can breathe easier.

For allergy sufferers, this can be a life saver. For a college student with a roommate who has stinky feet, it can also “save lives”!

How Do You Clean an Air Purifier Filter? 

If you have a filter that requires cleaning, check the manufacturer’s guidelines to make sure you are doing it right. This filter should be cleaned and thoroughly dried every 6 to 12 months according to the directions. Some may also need replacements every so often.

Don’t forget to give your child a tutorial so they know how to do it when they’re away from home!

Should an Air Purifier Be on the Floor?

It has been recommended by some specialists to place air purifiers on the floor in high-traffic areas since that’s where most pollutants gather. Others believe that elevating the device allows it to filter airborne particles near the ceiling better.

In the end, it depends on your aim and what your child’s needs are. Someone with daytime allergies may find elevating the device a better idea while someone else more concerned with odors may choose to place their air purifier on the floor next to shoes and dirty laundry. But where it goes might come down to the space of the dorm room and where you can fit the air purifier.

Prices were accurate at time of publication.

By Louise Kinross

Doppelganger: A Trip Into the Mirror World begins with author Naomi Klein talking about what it was like to be constantly confused with Naomi Wolf, author of The Beauty Myth, who has become a prominent anti-vaxxer and Covid conspiracy theorist.

“For centuries, doubles have been understood as warnings or harbingers,” she writes. “When reality starts doubling, refracting off itself, it often means that something important is being ignored or denied—a part of ourselves and our world we do not want to see—and that further danger awaits if the warning is not heeded. That applies to the individual but also to entire societies that are divided, doubled, polarized, or partitioned into various warring, seemingly unknowable camps.”

I picked the book up because I’d read she writes about parenting her autistic son. Indeed, chapter 10 focuses on her experiences with a community of parents “at ‘war’ with the autism in their child,” and “an industry of strange magical cures” that cashes in on their desperation.

Naomi explores how the cultural idea of a child being a parent’s double—or mini-me—is a contributing factor, making it difficult for parents to accept their child’s diagnosis.

“What are children for?” she writes. “Are they their own people, and our job, as parents, is to support and protect them as they find their paths? Or are they our appendages, our extensions, our spin-offs, our doubles, to shape and mold and ultimately benefit from?” And: “If a double that reflects well on them is what many parents are after, then disability arrives as an unwelcome interruption to those best-laid plans.”

Naomi talks about how “well-off liberal parents” have turned childhood into an “achievement arms race, one in which admittance to an elite university is the first of many finish lines…”

Is it any wonder, then, that we’re faced with “all the shame and pathologizing of kids who are different in our culture.

“For some parents, this experience of not fitting, of being extremely and glaringly distinguishable, and not in ways that bestow status, clearly triggers deep fears about falling behind in the perfectibility race in this world of so many little mirrors,” she writes.

There is much to think about for parents of children with disabilities in Naomi’s writing.

I will leave you with this: “Having a child who does not fit conventional definitions of normalcy, who is distinguishable from their peers, can be an extraordinary gift.”

Like this story? Sign up for our monthly BLOOM e-letter. You’ll get family stories and expert advice on raising children with disabilities; interviews with activists, clinicians and researchers; and disability news.

New York City, the Big Apple, is a dream destination for many travelers. From iconic landmarks like Times Square and the Statue of Liberty to its vibrant arts scene and diverse culinary offerings, there’s no shortage of things to see and do in the city that never sleeps.

However, visiting NYC with your family can quickly add up, making it essential to find ways to save money without sacrificing the experience. In this article, we’ll share valuable tips on how to save money when exploring NYC with your loved ones.

Plan Ahead for Sports Entertainment


If you’re a sports-loving family, catching a game at the Barclays Center can be an exciting and memorable experience. Whether you’re rooting for the Brooklyn Nets or attending another event, booking tickets in advance can help you save money. Many venues, including the Barclays Center, offer early bird discounts and special promotions for those who plan ahead. Additionally, booking tickets online often allows you to select the best available seats and avoid the hassle of waiting in long lines at the venue.

Embrace Public Transportation


New York City’s public transportation system is a cost-effective way to get around. The subway and buses can take you to most major attractions, and they are significantly cheaper than taking taxis or rideshares. Consider purchasing MetroCards for your family, which offer unlimited rides for a set number of days, saving you money on transportation costs.

Opt for Free and Low-Cost Attractions


While NYC has its fair share of pricey attractions, there are also plenty of free and low-cost options that can provide a memorable experience for your family. Some examples include:


Central Park: Explore the expansive Central Park, which offers beautiful scenery, playgrounds, and even free concerts and events during the summer months.

Museums: Many museums in NYC have designated free or pay-what-you-wish days, such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the American Museum of Natural History.

Brooklyn Bridge: Take a stroll across the iconic Brooklyn Bridge, offering stunning views of the city skyline and the Statue of Liberty.

Times Square: Experience the dazzling lights and bustling atmosphere of Times Square, which doesn’t cost a dime to visit.

Consider a CityPass


If you plan to visit several popular attractions during your trip, a CityPass can be an excellent way to save money. CityPasses typically offer discounted admission to multiple attractions, allowing you to see more for less. Some of the attractions often included in CityPasses for NYC are the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, and the 9/11 Memorial Museum.

Dine Smart


Eating out in NYC can be expensive, but there are ways to enjoy the city’s culinary delights without breaking the bank. Here are a few tips:

Food trucks: NYC is famous for its food trucks, offering delicious and affordable options for breakfast, lunch, and snacks.

Local delis and bakeries: Opt for local delis and bakeries for budget-friendly meals and treats.

Share meals: Consider sharing larger dishes at restaurants, which can save you money while still allowing you to sample a variety of flavors.

BYOB restaurants: Some restaurants in NYC allow you to bring your own wine or beer, which can significantly reduce your dining bill.

Explore Neighborhoods


While Manhattan is undoubtedly a must-visit borough, don’t forget to explore the other boroughs, such as Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island. Each neighborhood has its unique charm and attractions, and they often offer a more affordable experience than the bustling streets of Manhattan. Explore DUMBO in Brooklyn, visit Flushing in Queens for authentic ethnic cuisine, or enjoy the Bronx’s botanical gardens and the Staten Island Ferry, which offers breathtaking views of the Statue of Liberty.

Shop Wisely


Shopping in NYC is a temptation that many travelers find hard to resist. To save money, set a budget for shopping and stick to it. Look for outlets and discount stores for designer items at lower prices. Additionally, consider purchasing souvenirs and gifts from street vendors or markets like the Union Square Greenmarket for unique and budget-friendly options.

Utilize City Apps and Deals


Before and during your trip, make use of city apps and websites that offer discounts, deals, and coupons for various attractions, restaurants, and services. Apps like Groupon, Yelp, and Time Out New York often feature special offers that can help you save money on dining, entertainment, and activities.

Timing Matters


The timing of your visit can significantly impact your expenses. NYC tends to be more crowded and expensive during peak tourist seasons, such as summer and the winter holidays. Consider visiting during the shoulder seasons, like spring and fall, when the weather is pleasant, and prices for accommodations and attractions are typically lower.

Accommodations

Choosing the right accommodation can make a big difference in your overall expenses. Look for family-friendly hotels that offer complimentary breakfast or kitchen facilities to save on dining costs. Consider staying in neighborhoods like Queens or Brooklyn, where accommodations are often more affordable than in Manhattan.

In conclusion, exploring New York City with your family doesn’t have to break the bank. By planning ahead, embracing public transportation, opting for free and low-cost attractions, and making smart choices when it comes to dining and shopping, you can enjoy all that the city has to offer while staying within your budget. With these money-saving tips in mind, you can make the most of your family trip to the Big Apple without the big expenses.

Two discouraged, desperate families write to Janet for help with 4.5-year-olds who seem perpetually angry. These children are lashing out verbally, screaming and shouting at their parents and siblings, and seem particularly explosive at the end of the day. One parent writes that her child “seems like she is very intentionally trying to be hurtful,” and adds, “It doesn’t seem like she should be able to get away with treating us and her sister this way.” The second family writes that when picking their daughter up from school “and the tiniest thing is not right, the screaming and shouting begins. Everything is catastrophic.” Janet recommends specific adjustments these parents can make in the way they are perceiving their children’s behaviors that she believes will bring relief.

(Learn more about Janet’s “No Bad Kids Master Course” at: NoBadKidsCourse.com)

Transcript of “Angry Outbursts, Screaming, and Mean Words”

Hi, this is Janet Lansbury. Welcome to Unruffled.

Today I’m going to be responding to two questions I’ve received from different parents. There are a lot of similarities in these issues: These are both four-and-a-half to five-year-olds, intense children, those kind of vibrant, strong, intense personalities, and they both seem to be angry, screaming, saying unkind things to their parents and siblings. And these families express that they’re feeling desperate, that they’re doing something wrong, this isn’t getting better. What can they do?

I’ve got to admit, I feel a little humbled in responding to these dynamics expressed in emails, because it’s complicated, right? And how can I really know what’s going on there? I can only do my best based on the many other families I’ve worked with and what I know about child development and behavior, what it means, what we can do to make things better for ourselves and for our children. And so I’m going to do my best. Just having this feeling today like, Wow, this is a lot to try to take on. I’m game, though.

Here’s the first question:

Dear Janet,

I don’t know what I expected motherhood to be, but it’s a million times more challenging than I would’ve dreamed. I have two beautiful daughters. One is turning five tomorrow and one is two-and-a-half. They’re both very spirited, fierce, vibrant souls. I’m writing today in regards to my oldest. I can’t help but cry as I type this because I’m feeling so very lost and confused by this current season we are in—and I hope it’s just a season.

I consider myself a pretty aware and rational person, and I’ve tried to adopt your approach through your book No Bad Kids. Recently, my five-year-old has become extremely mean and angry towards me, my husband, and my youngest. She can also be super sweet, but this recent shift has me at a loss. We do our best to remain calm, but she’s calling us names, a lot of “meanest mama, stupid, I don’t love you,” etc. But the tone and attitude behind it feels deeply angry. She seems like she’s very intentionally trying to be hurtful. I don’t understand where it could be coming from. It seems mostly triggered by her being told no and not getting what she wants.

I listened to a recent podcast you did about being the sun and rising above difficult behavior, but I’m equally struggling because it doesn’t seem like she should be able to get away with treating us and her sister this way. Perhaps that is some of my childhood being triggered by it, as you’ve mentioned. Is there a way to approach and handle this aside from only telling her it’s not okay to talk to people in that way? We don’t discipline her or give her timeouts, but I feel there has to be something I’m missing.

I’m so terrified of parenting the wrong way. I hope I’m not letting too much go. At this stage, I’m also terrified of what she’ll be like at another five to 10 years from now if this type of anger and hurtful behavior is already surfacing at four to five years old. I’m trying my very best not to take it personally, but it does make me feel incredibly depressed. There’s a fair amount of consistent screaming in our house when I feel they should be happier. They have an extremely loving home. Both parents are pretty patient most of the time. Maybe my expectations for their behavior are too high. Her teacher says she’s amazing and we don’t receive any reports from school, so I know she’s only this way with us.

I’m desperate to learn any tips or approaches for this period. Lately I’ve been trying to focus on remaining calm, making light of things, but I’m shocked at the level she’s taking things.

Thank you so much for your time and guidance.

So I did write back to this parent with a couple of questions. My first question to her was, “Do you have a sense of what might have caused this shift? Any thoughts about what’s going on with her and what might’ve changed recently?”

She said:

When reflecting on the past few months, there are a couple of things I’d consider big events. First, she is no longer napping Monday through Friday in her preschool since she’ll start kindergarten next year. She does typically nap at home on Saturday and Sunday. When she moved up to this class in September, we saw an immediate change in her behavior upon pickup. Evenings were, and still often are, very difficult. She tends to immediately break down and go into full-on screaming tantrums over small things like being asked to wash her hands. I attribute this to no nap.

Secondly, I potty-trained her sister the first week of October. That caused her sister to become much more attached to me than she already was. My husband and I used to take turns with bedtime, switching every other night. But I was putting her sister to bed every night until this past week, when we made it a point to reinstate the every-other-night routine. I was concerned my older one would feel I was choosing her sister over her.

They are both very ONLY MAMA. Her sister also has very intense tantrums involving a lot of screaming, which I know can be hard on the older one at times. I find them more forgivable because she is two, versus my older one who will be five in mere hours. Other than these two events, nothing else has changed in her routine.

And then I asked her, “Can you tell me a little more about how you’ve been handling responding to her behavior? Examples?”

She wrote back:

Honestly, until this past week, I would break more. After listening to your podcast about not becoming triggered, making light, etc., it really resonated with me and I’ve made a point to try my very best to use this approach. But again, it’s only been a few days. It’s actually a huge learning and growth opportunity for me personally. I realized this while reflecting upon it in my own therapy session.

Some examples may include yelling once being pushed to a certain point, saying things like, “Why are you acting this way? This is not okay.” If she was fully screaming and becoming physical, one of us may take her to her room and stay with her in it while she screams. I’ve gotten very emotional, cried in front of her. If I have ever yelled at her or behaved in a way I know is not okay, I always apologize, every time. She has also apologized to me as well, so I know she’s hopefully seeing the repair aspect.

My husband and I are so drained by her behavior. I’m praying I’ll be able to continue this steady “rise above” approach and hopefully in time see a shift back to my sweet little girl. I know she’s in there, but lately there are times I feel like I don’t know who she is anymore. Maybe that’s the evolution of children and parenting.

Thanks a million.

Okay, just to respond to this part first. “I know she’s in there.” Yes, she’s absolutely in there, that sweet little girl is in there. And that’s a really important idea to hold onto throughout all of this. In fact, because our perceptions are so important, our perceptions of behavior and our child and what they should be doing now and what’s going on with them and what’s our role in discipline, just responding to their behavior—all of those are dictated by our perceptions. And that’s why I focus so much on that. Because our perceptions of any situation decide how we feel.

I would never ask a parent or expect a parent or expect myself to change how I feel and just decide, I’m not going to feel upset by this behavior. I’m not going to feel worried about this behavior, or angry at my child for acting like this. That’s an impossible thing for us to do. But what we can do, and what I recommend strongly, is working on our perceptions of them. Which means knowing that that sweet child, with all the things we love about them, that sweet little baby that we gave birth to, is in there. That’s who they are. This other stuff that’s going on is a shell that they’re kind of trapped in or they keep falling into being trapped in. All these unpleasant things are not the actual essence of our child.

And something that can really help across the board—this is something that I did for myself that really helped me—is practicing in your mind. So it’s not just in the situation with your child, where it’s so easy to get triggered into taking things personally. But practicing in between times as much as we can, maybe when we’re just alone having a moment or having our own thoughts. I know we don’t get many of those as parents of young children! But when we do, seeing a little movie in our minds of this behavior that we’re seeing, this ugly, unattractive, maybe scary to us behavior, seeing beyond that to that child that’s in there. That vulnerable, immature, probably scared child behaving like this. Because, really, most of the behaviors that they have, the angry behaviors, they boil down to hurt, fear, or some other discomfort.

So practice seeing that behavior that we don’t like and then seeing beyond it. As if we had a special camera that could take away those layers and see what’s inside, like an X-ray. Seeing that sweet heart of our child, all those loving ways that they’ve been with us, that vulnerable child. That’s who’s there, that’s who we need to try to hold in the front of our minds. Because that’s the child that we can respond to in a manner that really does heal their behavior and end it, making our lives easier. That’s the child we can find our way to empathy with when they’re acting horribly. That’s the child that we want to bring forth, obviously. So focus on the person in there that you want to see. Practice that. That’s the key to, if we want to call it being unruffled, a calmer, happier, more capable parent, even when you’re going through these tough spots.

I also want to agree with this parent that she is in a season. This is a season. And there are a lot of reasons here for her child to be dysregulated and off. Switching to a different class where you suddenly don’t have that same routine and you’re not getting your nap. And the fact that this child naps on the weekends, wow, that’s a big sign that she still needs naps. Children need them especially when they’re in challenging situations like a preschool setting or a daycare setting. That drains even more of their energy than being at home on the weekend. So if she’s sleeping on Saturdays and Sundays, imagine how much she actually still needs that sleep during the week.

But I’m not suggesting that this parent change the school situation, just that she understand this incredible tiredness that her child is coming home with. That will help this parent expect what she’s getting, which is an intense child who’s totally exhausted. It’s not going to be a pretty sight, it’s not going to be great behavior. She can barely function.

Therefore, our response is to just try to get her from point A to point B, allow her to explode all the way, and not take it personally, not be offended by it. Not feel like there’s something wrong that we’re doing here or that there’s something bad about our child that is going to show up. As this parent said, “I’m terrified of what she’ll be like in another five to 10 years with this type of anger if it’s already surfacing at four to five years old.” Well, there will be less of it when she’s older because she won’t need the same kind of sleep that she needs at this age. She’ll be a little better able to self-regulate. Especially if her parent keeps in this direction she’s going, which is seeing that little girl that’s inside, still there, totally exhausted, can barely function, and needs her parent to understand that and just try to help get her through as she slowly, gradually adjusts to this sleep schedule.

And it sounds like this family has two intense daughters, so that makes it doubly hard, right? But that is the way that children this age show their tiredness. They blow up, they explode, they say unkind things. And it can seem like, as this parent said, “She seems like she’s very intentionally trying to be hurtful.” So that’s where we are mistaking dysregulation and exhaustion for intentional mean behavior. It may come off like that, but that’s not the intention. The intention isn’t really to hurt others, it’s to share her own discomfort. And maybe she has felt judged for her behavior. That would be normal for us to do, right, as parents? So that just creates more of the sense of, I’m alone, it hurts, it’s scary. I’m being annoying. She’s been paying more attention to my younger sister. My mother’s annoyed with me. But I’m not being annoying because I want to or I want to hurt her. I’m being annoying because I’m overwhelmed.

And this parent is worried. “I’m so terrified I’m parenting the wrong way. I hope I’m not letting too much go.” I don’t think she’s letting too much go, but I know it feels like that when her perceptions are still the way it’s easy to see for us as parents, which is reasonably. Why is she acting like this? She’s intentionally trying to be hurtful. She’s treating her sister this way. She shouldn’t get away with it. She thinks it’s okay to talk to people this way. In truth, she doesn’t believe it’s okay to do any of these things. She needs us to help her stop, which isn’t usually telling her to stop. It’s usually letting it go, commenting on it a little bit like, “Wow, those are hurtful words you’re saying. You’re really upset. Seems like you didn’t want your sister to do that.” And acknowledging separately the sister’s feelings: “She’s saying hurtful things to you, you don’t like that. Yeah.” So we could acknowledge that they’re hurtful words, but not trying to correct impulsive behavior. Because what that does is it tends to put a wedge between us and make it harder. Harder for our child, therefore more of the behavior, and harder for us to connect with them. It creates that distance.

And the interesting thing, both of these notes from parents have exhausted daughters. Exhausted. And I just remember—I mean it seemed like it only just changed a few years ago, and my children are all adults now—that this tiredness thing, it gets away from us so easily. Because children are just so much more prone to exhaustion and dysregulation from that, to the point where they cannot function. I remember about a year ago, I got an interesting note from a parent. I don’t think I was able to respond, but she was saying how appalled she was that it was her daughter’s birthday and I think her daughter was five or six. And they’d had this amazing party, it had all gone really, really well, with all her friends and neighbors. And then the next day she thought, Wow, I’m going to give my kids a treat and take her and her brother over to their favorite place, which was kind of a parkour setting, I think, as I remember. And this parent couldn’t believe it, that they behaved appallingly. And I can’t remember the details, but they were rude to her, they were mean to her. And here she was bending over backwards after she’d thrown this birthday party. Now she’s giving them this other incredible treat. She was so offended by their behavior.

Understandably, right? Because when we’re on the inside, it’s really hard to see. But from my outside view I could say, Well, that makes sense. Because how exhausting was it for these children, especially the child whose birthday it was, to have a birthday party that went really, really well. So it’s not only negatives, like hard changes that kids make, that tire them out. It’s these really positive experiences of excitement, of pleasure, stimulation. They’re down for several days after that usually. And that’s important to know as we’re coming into the holidays. It’s a time for exhaustion and it will get away from us if we don’t keep reminding ourselves of how different children are in this way and their needs, how much more sensitive they are.

So yes, I believe this parent that they have an extremely loving home, that they’re patient most of the time. But the other thing she said is that she does blow up sometimes. And that’s nothing to feel ashamed of, or that we’re doing something wrong. It happens. The thing about it, though, is that children will, if they sense that that’s there, they can keep unconsciously kind of pressing us towards it. Because they can sense something building in us that’s uncomfortable, that’s making them feel uncomfortable and kind of anxious. And oftentimes children with this type of temperament, they can’t help but push us beyond our limit because they know that’s possible. I don’t know, it’s a hard one to explain, but it’s a very common thing that children do.

So what that means is that if we have exploded, then our child will be venting that with their own explosions. Maybe a couple days later, but they absorb it and then they discharge it. So in a sense, every time that we lose it, we’re kind of adding more times that our child’s going to be screaming as well. That’s just something to know. That’s us being reasonable about ourselves and the situation, even though it’s an unreasonable situation from our child’s point of view. They are not in a place of reason. But we can be and we can objectively say to ourselves, Okay, well, I scream sometimes so it makes sense that they’re reflecting that back. They’re getting that out of their bodies. That’s a good thing.

So, getting to this parent’s question: “Is there a way to approach and handle this aside from only telling her it’s not okay to talk to people in that way?” The way to approach is working on practicing our perception, seeing that child inside. And when she does say things, we don’t want to ignore it, that’s not natural, right? But we want to respond to it from a place of understanding that it’s her lashing out, sharing her snarls and her hurts with the people she’s safest with.

Another interesting thing is, in both cases, the children are doing great at school, no problems there. So this is the dynamic that we want. It should relieve us even more that this is okay, this is a season, this will pass. I can help it pass through my perceptions and my perceptions will guide my response. As an example: Yikes, alright, I’m picking her up from school. It could be very rough. There’ll be lots of explosions. That’s okay, I can handle this. I’m not going to take any of it personally because I’m expecting it. She’s going through something. And this will pass, this will get better. It’s not a bad sign about me, my parenting, or about my child and their future.

Not only can we get through this, but we can get through this with a closer connection instead of getting through this and creating more distance between us. And that’s what we all want, right? That closer connection. That’s very, very possible. Even if we make a bunch of errors and yell and do all of that, we can still end up in that place of closer connection if we keep practicing our perceptions. Which means letting go of the fear. Everything’s going to be fine with this family. I believe her that they have this incredibly loving home.

And she says, “Maybe my expectations for their behavior are too high.” It’s not necessarily even too high, but it’s different. We can’t expect reasonable behavior from children dealing with these dysregulating things like development, siblings, changes at school, and, number one, tiredness.

She says, “Lately I’ve been trying to focus on remaining calm, making light of things, but I’m shocked at the level she’s taking things.” So, focusing on remaining calm and making light of things. If that’s what our focus is, we’re not addressing ourselves from the inside out. That’s what we do when we practice the perception and then we actually feel calmer about this behavior, expecting it. For this child, in this situation, this makes sense. So I can remain calm. I’m seeing through to that child inside. I know the rest of this is just shell and things that are happening on the surface. That’s not her. And making light of things. Yes, I can treat things lightly, but honestly, like her words to me or her behaviors or the screaming, if I am expecting this. And maybe my partner and I talk about it, Oh, okay, we got to go pick her up. Are you ready? Okay, we can do this. We high-five and yeah, now we can approach it lightly. And from there we won’t feel like we’re trying to be something. We’ll just be being honest.

That’s what this work is about. Because this parents says, “I’m shocked at the level she’s taking things.” But that’s the thing, she’s not taking things to this level, her shell person is doing that. It’s just all blast on the outside, it’s not deep, intense feelings on the inside. If this were an adult acting this way, yes, maybe this would be an indication of intense anger. But with children at these ages, everything feels more intense and then the situation and the tiredness only heightens it. So when she says angry words, when she says, “meanest mama, stupid,” I wouldn’t say, “It’s not okay to talk to people that way.” I would say, “Ouch. Oh, you don’t love me right now. That hurts. I still love you and I want to know more about that, even. How you’re just not liking me right now.” It’s safe. And then with the screaming, just nod your head. Yeah, wow, whew. Yeah, that’s strong stuff. You’re not making fun of it. We’re not trying to make light of it, but we’re also not just ignoring it like it’s not there. Because then children do feel alone in that way, that they’re in this shell and they can’t be reached and we’re not going to try. So, respond. But just from that place of getting it.

And the names, she’s not trying to hurt. She’s doing this really immature way of sharing her hurt that we can see through. It’s kind of sad and silly, right? And this parent’s saying she and her husband are so drained by the behavior because they’re taking it personally. They’re taking it literally. They’re seeing it as worrisome. It’s that concern and that worry that’s going to drain us, and we don’t want that to happen because we need every bit of energy we have as parents. Perception will prevent us from taking things in in a way that drains us.

Here’s another question:

I write in desperation and heartbreak. I’m lucky enough to be the mother of three perfect children, a four-and-a-half-year-old, a two-year-old, and a nine-month-old. Unsurprisingly, it is the oldest that I’m writing about.

She’s a wonderfully funny and intelligent little girl, but her behavior is becoming hard to bear. Overall, she still seems to be struggling a lot emotionally with the transitions she’s had to face, which manifests as abject screaming and rage coupled with sadness.

After school pickup, the pattern of behavior is the same. As soon as we have left and the tiniest thing is not right, the screaming and shouting begins. Everything is catastrophic. This continues at home and during bedtime. The shouting is either indiscriminate or directed at me or her little sister. It is so loud sometimes that the baby becomes distressed and starts crying and I have to move her out of the room. Mornings are also particularly bad, screaming-wise.

On paper, the problems are obvious. She has two siblings in two years, started school, and we have just moved house. She clearly has a lot of anger and frustration with us she still has to process. But the main reason I’m contacting you is that there has not been any improvement in the last two years, despite all of our efforts. It is now becoming mentally debilitating to be screamed at every day, and I have started to lose my patience. She has also started to say worrying things like, “I’m not going to be your children anymore” through her tears.

This morning, for example, she climbed into her carseat and there was something on her seat, so she screamed as loud as possible. Both myself and my husband shouted and told her to wait and ask for help. “There’s no need for screaming!” I shouted. (This irony is not lost on me.) “Can you wait and ask Daddy for help? Have you ever known Daddy not to help you?” I continued. She stopped immediately and shook her head and then waited for my husband to sort out her carseat. We then proceeded to school in silence and we didn’t say goodbye. She will carry this with her all day now, shouted at by mommy and daddy and no goodbye kiss. Not great prep for a four-year-old to navigate the rest of her day, whatever it may throw at her, without us by her side for reassurance and guidance. I cried all the way home and while feeding our baby. I’m failing as a person and as a mother.

And as I’ve said, the main sticking point is that there’s been no improvement. I’ve read every book and podcast by you and Tina Payne Bryson, in addition to others, such as Siblings Without Rivalry. We have patiently implemented these strategies, such as allowing and acknowledging the feelings, including accepting her when she says that she wants her sister to go away and that she doesn’t like her. We have worked a lot on our authenticity in this area. We reinforce the idea that it’s okay to cry and be angry. We draw the line at screaming full-force in either of her siblings’ faces. In these situations, we move her away and, when she’s calmer, acknowledge her feelings, but explain it’s not okay to be that loud so close to the others. We carve out one-on-one time whenever possible, read stories, and tuck her in every night. Cuddle, tell her how much we love her all the time. As we have lost our patience more frequently, we do always make a point of apologizing unreservedly and repairing.

I’m at a loss as to what to do next. This situation is untenable for everyone and I now worry about our younger children living with frequent screaming. She frequently shouts and says unkind things to her sister, and as much as I try not to see her as a victim, it is hard not to worry about the effect it has on her emerging confidence.

It is also important to note at this point that I think she’s often crippled with tiredness. This has been an ongoing theme for a long time and we’ve tried to tackle it with consistent early bedtimes, insisting on lunchtime sleeps at weekends, quiet times, screen time limited, and reducing extracurricular activities, but it remains a factor. I’m currently on maternity leave and so I’m around for her as much as possible when she’s not at school. My husband is incredibly loving and supportive to all of us and diligently adopts the various strategies suggested by yourself and other experts you have suggested. He also works from home a lot, so is there to help out when needed, including all bedtimes.

We would be so grateful for your take on all of this. I sometimes feel that in our quest for healthy mental wellbeing and emotional intelligence, our desire to make expression of emotions okay has gone too far and she has missed the opportunity to start to learn to control her behavior. If you have any time at all, please would you help us to walk the fine line between emotional expression and age-appropriate self-control?

Okay, so I also reached out to this parent to ask for some examples and here’s what she shared:

Thank you for replying. We’ve been thinking a lot about the most helpful examples to explain. Like I’ve said, tiredness plays a huge part in her behavior and always has, which probably explains why the screaming often, but not exclusively, occurs at the beginning and end of the day. But I don’t believe it is the whole story, and she clearly has things she needs to process.

Example one: On the way home from school in the car the other day, my oldest was holding a toy which she dropped on the floor and therefore couldn’t reach from her carseat. All three children were in the back and she immediately started screaming and then kicked the back of the seats full-force. As we were on a quiet road, I stopped the car briefly, turned around, and said, “Oh, you dropped something. It’s annoying when that happens. We’ll look for it when we get out of the car.” As always, trying to keep my tone even and genuine. She stopped screaming but continued to cry and whine until we were home.

It usually helps her mood after she has had an outburst, especially if I sit there and nod and offer her a cuddle, like she does have things to release. However, the frequency and ferociousness of the outbursts makes me think we need to help her deal with her feelings in a more refined way.

A slightly different reaction she may have is shouting threats, such as when the other night she asked me to help her with a game she was playing, putting pieces into the right holes. I put one piece into the wrong place and this frustrated her endlessly. “Mommy, I’m not your best friend anymore and I’m sending you to jail!” she screamed. This is a frequent threat leveled at myself and her little sister if something is not right. I let this one go and went back to whatever I was doing. She continued her game on her own.

This parent talked about their play together:

She’s always very dominant with her sister as well. When they do play together, I hear, “Do this, do that. No, no, no, not like that. Give me that thing. Go over here,” etc. And her sister will diligently follow or get bored and wander off. Again, I don’t know when to step in. I fear if she gets used to playing this way, her peers will not be as forgiving as her sister.

And then she gives one more example:

The following example demonstrates a slightly different, less favorable approach I have used more and more in the last couple of weeks, probably due to feeling more worn down. In the car on the way home from school yesterday, she again dropped something, which immediately elicited a screaming response. I said in an even tone, “I don’t want to hear any more screaming now.” She did adjust her volume somewhat and continued to moan in a more measured way. On arriving home, she entered the house first and then immediately ran back screaming because she couldn’t find something. While taking my shoes off, I again said, not in an angry voice, but probably stern, “What have I said about screaming? Tell me what you want in your normal voice.” She then did talk normally, and then I then helped her.

A few minutes later in the kitchen, she seemed happily walking around in a circle, singing a tune and playing with a toy. I couldn’t help but wonder on observing her that at this point she didn’t seem too bothered that instead of always acknowledging her frustration, I had simply directed her to a better behavior. She didn’t seem emotionally stifled, just a normal child playing while waiting for dinner.

I’ve also asked my husband to separately give his take on things, and this is his reply: Often when my daughter gets home after school, she can appear very tired. When in the bath she can scream and shout if her sister takes something she is holding or wants to play with. I try not to always take the item away from her sister and return it, but instead acknowledge that it can be frustrating when you’re playing with something and it goes. When time allows, I take her out of the bath and sit and give her a cuddle and try to ask her how she feels. “Were you upset because your sister took your toy? I understand. That can be frustrating.” After a moment, she’s calm. But often the bathtime/bedtime routine for three kids continues in a busy manner, not allowing for any time of prolonged calm.

And then another example, he says:

I often get up and make the kids breakfast, and our oldest can be very demanding and wanting to make breakfast, to the point of if I have gotten a bowl out already, she can complain and, in rare occasions, shout/scream because she wanted to do it. I allow her to make the breakfast when I can and guide her. But if she’s at the point of being too upset to actually complete the activity, I step in and gently but assertively take over while saying something to the effect of, “I can see you’re telling me you’re tired and need some help.” Sometimes this is fine and she sits in her chair and carries on with her breakfast. But other times it may just make her more upset because she didn’t get to complete the activity.

And this parent says at the end:

We have not had any negative reports of behavior from her previous nursery or her new school. And we have inquired often.

Right. So, as you can maybe hear in this note, there’s a lot of similarities to the other situation, but these parents, they seem to have been working at this a lot longer and trying to do the right thing. Which they are doing. Again, though, the answer here, well, it’s twofold.

The answer is in our perceptions, which means understanding the why. That’s part of our perceptions. And it sounds like these parents are not quite a hundred percent there, and I want to encourage them, just as with this other family, to even practice this a bit more and believe in this a bit more. For example, when this parent says, “She comes out of school okay, gets in the car, waits for something to not be right, and then screams.” So it’s just this really subtle little wrinkle in the way this parent is seeing, this idea that her daughter is consciously waiting for something to go wrong. This parent says the screaming eclipses things. Well, it’s this tiredness that’s eclipsing everything. And I would try to understand that tiredness is really the trigger for these other things.

As this parent says, there’s been all these transitions—a new home, two siblings in two years. This is big stuff. So the why is pretty understandable. Tiredness, which makes everything harder. Transitions, which are very, very challenging for young children and often at the source of their dysregulated behavior. Sibling issues, one of the hardest transitions for children to face and very hard for these parents as well, juggling the three children, the new baby. So it’s understandable that they don’t have a lot of bandwidth to try to empathize with their daughter and try, as they say, so hard to be even in their tone and to be authentic. What I want to encourage is they consider this work on perceptions instead of working on their tone and being authentic. Because this is the way to be authentic and have the tone. Maybe not all of the time for sure, especially when you’ve got three little ones and a new baby. But more often than not—and children don’t need it to be all the time, they just need it to be a little more than half the time for them to start to be calmer and know that we are on their side.

The way for them to feel that is for us to be on their side because we’re seeing past this shell, this screaming person that just goes off at the drop of a hat, after school especially and in the morning. Sounds like she’s not a morning person, I can relate to that. Tired in the morning, tired after school, new baby, another sibling that’s two that she probably still feels a lot of rivalry with. It’s all par for the course. And it’s very, very challenging for us to keep holding open that perception of the child behind the shell, the hurting that causes that, the hurting that causes that screaming, the feeling that this child has that she’s a minefield, just so easily touched off. It’s tough, right?

And I find it so interesting, the difference this parent felt with the third example that she gave. I believe the reason that seemed to be more effective and help her child to move through it was that this parent was actually authentic then. Which I’m wondering if she really wasn’t—again, this is not something I can know just from reading these thoughts the parent shared with me—but I have the sense that in these previous examples. Well, there’s the one where the parents were both shouting. And so that goes back to that other message I was giving to the previous parent. That just adds more to what our child has to discharge from us. And again, it’s okay. We forgive ourselves and we just know, Okay, we’ve added a few more screams because we’ve lost it today. Nothing wrong with us for doing that, but that’s going to be the result. So okay, now we understand this is going to happen and we can expect it.

But this way that this parent describes responding to her daughter, she says her daughter was holding a toy that she dropped on the floor and therefore couldn’t reach from her carseat. And that “all three children were in the back and she immediately started screaming and then kicked the back of the seats full-force. As we were on a quiet road, I stopped the car briefly, turned around, and said, ‘Oh, you dropped something. It’s annoying when that happens. We’ll look for it when we can get out of the car.’ As always, trying to keep my tone even and genuine.” So besides this being a lot of work for the parent to try to keep her tone a certain way, I would consider that, from her child’s point of view, there’s a real distancing effect of her parent not saying, “Ouch, that hurts when you kick me like that. Don’t do that. And you want your toy. I get that.” Something that’s, I don’t know the way this parent talks or relates to her, but that sounds real, that sounds authentic.

And we’ll say those things when we really are in that frame of mind, with our perceptions in order, or when we’ve practiced them. That’s the kind of thing that we might say, because we’re not trying to say the right words, we’re not trying to get the right tone. And that’s what my whole podcast is about trying to help parents with: getting to be authentically unruffled with your child, getting to be your authentic self, the freedom of that, the comfort in that. And seeing how that works. When we’re not threatened by her kicking the back of our seat, but we’re annoyed by it. Ouch. That we don’t like that. We understand why you’re doing this, but we’re not going to act as if it didn’t happen.

So when this parent says that she thought it almost worked better when she said, “I don’t want to hear any more screaming now. Tell me what you want in your normal voice, please.” It feels to me, putting myself in that child’s shoes, that now she’s feeling responded to by her parent saying what she actually feels. And that is comforting for a child. And as children get beyond two and three and they’ve absorbed all kinds of language around feelings at that point that we’ve offered each time, asking them questions, “Are you feeling frustrated?” So we’re not assuming, but we’re asking and we’re bringing those words up. We don’t need to keep saying a lot of words to an older child. If we’re really authentically in that relationship with them, we can say, “Oh, oh no, it fell. Oh, you hate when that happens.” We don’t have to go through a whole explanation about what’s going on.

I’m not saying this parent is doing this, but maybe they’re saying more words than they need to. And they’re saying it from a place of trying so hard to do the right thing, which I really appreciate and will take these parents far because that intention is really all that matters to being the best kind of parent. And these parents are both very intentional in this work that they’re doing. I just want to help try to make it easier for them and clearer for them.

The bossy behavior with her sister totally makes sense. And it’s fine, as long as she’s not hurting her sister. Children learn to stick up for themselves or move away, like this two-year-old is doing. And that’s more helpful to them than a parent defending them or getting involved in it. Because what the parent getting involved in it does is tell that younger child, I don’t think you can handle this situation with your sibling. Now, if they’re getting verbally abused or physically abused, obviously we would stop it at that point. Say, “Oh, I’ve got to stop you there. You could say that to me, I get why you need to say those things sometimes. But not to your sister.” But still knowing that it’s going to happen. And we’ve made it clear to the younger sister and the older one that that’s not acceptable and we don’t believe it’s true.

The description of the dad’s responses, it sounds like—and I don’t know, again, I could be imagining this, but I sense that he’s a little more comfortable with the behavior than the mom is. Which makes sense, she’s dealing with three children all day. But that’s where we want to get to. We see through this, we see beyond this. No, we’re not going to jump to get you something when you scream at us. That’s where we have our boundaries. We’re taking care of ourselves in this relationship. But we know that, again, this is a season and this will pass. And what we want to do is keep being connected to each other.

Just to go over some of the tips I want to give both of these parents:

Perceptions. Practice those movies in your mind. Seeing beyond, seeing the child inside the shell, the shell behavior.

The why. Why the shell? In both these cases, there are a lot of reasons. And even if you can’t figure out the reason with your child, know that there is a reason and the reason is not that you’re a terrible parent, that you’re doing something wrong, or that they are a doomed child in some way. And if you’re overwhelmed and you feel like you really need more assistance, talk to a professional, in your area ideally. Someone that can come and be with you in person and help you that way.

Tiredness. Boom, the main reason that children go off and behave in ways that we don’t want them to. Too tired. We often don’t see it coming. These are all under the heading of why. Which our perceptions will help us to focus on and react from. React from their why so that we can empathize.

Transitions. Siblings, getting up in the morning, coming home from school, bathtime, all of those are transitions. And the evening transitions, the after-school transitions tend to be the hardest. That’s why I did a podcast called End of the Day Crazies with Kids. It happens, even without any other element happening in a child’s life.

And then I would say, parents getting touched off. That’s true in both of these situations. Parents getting touched off to worry, to get offended. And it can happen from our own childhood experiences, very common. It also happens because we are more reasonable people as adults, and we are less tired people as adults usually. Well, maybe the one with three kids is more tired than most of us, but compared to a child, we are less sensitive around those things and we have a whole lot more self control. But then when we do get touched off, that adds more discomfort to our child and therefore we’re going to see more of the uncomfortable behavior. That tends to be the cycle that we get caught up in with children when things are going in the way that these parents say that they’re going. We can stop this cycle by, even just some of the time, working on our perceptions and calming ourselves that way. Putting these behaviors in their place in our minds and hearts, seeing them for what they are: immature, overwhelmed expressions of hurt. Yeah, they can look really angry, but they usually boil down to fear and hurt and tiredness. And none of these are things that we can’t handle, if we believe in ourselves.

I believe in you, and we can do this.

Please check out some of the other podcasts on my website, janetlansbury.com. They’re all indexed by subject and category, so you should be able to find whatever topic you might be interested in. And my books, No Bad Kids: Toddler Discipline Without Shame, and Elevating Child Care: A Guide to Respectful Parenting, you can get them in paperback at Amazon and in ebook at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and apple.com.

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