WHITEFORD PARENT SUPPORT BLOG

For a long time, I have wondered what I truly stand for. To people who know me, this will sound odd, as I’m a person

I can’t think of anything I’ve ever done where the stakes feel higher than parenting. There are so many voices and books and classes clamoring

“You’re only as happy as your least happy child.” I don’t know who came up with this, but it has always felt like a truism

We are drowning in parenting advice. There are innumerable schools of thought to choose from. Each claim to be THE path to a happy, well-adjusted child

I was a student for a looooong time. Almost non-stop between the ages of 4 and 29. By the time I was done, I was

The last of my series on the benefit of the doubt may seem silly. I’m going to suggest that we offer the benefit of the doubt

My son doesn’t usually have much homework, but he recently had some makeup work. Right after school (my first mistake), I asked him if he

Do you ever feel like the people you love the most get the absolute worst of you? You’re busy all day long giving your best to whatever is in front of you and by the time you get home, you’ve got precious little left in the tank.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the benefit of the doubt. In times of stress, when we are coming from a sense of scarcity, when life feels like a zero-sum game, or when the odds feel stacked against us, it is so easy to assume that the person who just cut us off and made us miss the light somehow did it TO us.

If there was one skill, I could give the human race (or more realistically, instill in my children), it would be
the ability to hold multiple feelings or beliefs at the same time.

This statement is true in many contexts. In fact, I will probably start several blog posts with this sentence. Today, though, I’m thinking about parenting books and advice. They can be incredibly helpful tools. They can also be a source of personal shame when, again and again, they don’t work for your child.

A new school year is starting which means new people, a new round of settling in, learning new rules and expectations, and building a working relationship with your child’s teacher and school for the coming year.