Archive for the ‘Parenting’ Category

Love and Trying – Part Two

Brave Writer

There’s no tactic that ensures a child will match a parent’s fantasy. There’s only love and trying, over and over—until the child knows they are loved, and the parent knows the child is a unique, wholly separate person.

If you missed Part One, here it is.

The Trying: every tip, trick, and attempt to grow your child into a kind, mature, responsible adult.

The Love: your pleasure and pride in your children.

Children Grow Away from You

Children grow away in fury, in peace, in their own way, at their own pace.

We send them into their futures with our favorite souvenirs:

  • confidence,
  • an education,
  • kindness,
  • diligence,
  • a sense of humor,
  • our beliefs,
  • our hopes and dreams.

They sort through the gifts and purge the ones they don’t want. They keep the ones they value. They grab some you didn’t want for them.

They become their own people. You get to be their witnesses. You will try again and love them again in this new way.

And that’s how it is for everyone.

There’s only love and trying.

Those two are enough to get you (and your kids) all the way there.


This post is originally from Instagram and @juliebravewriter is my account
so come follow along for more conversations like this one!


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When You Feel Like Yelling

Brave Writer

When we raise our voices, we put our children’s nervous systems on high alert. Naturally. Automatically. We are big and powerful, and they are not.

When frazzled, do you resort to shouting?

Research into abusive anger—the kind that stings and lingers and leaves the other person feeling stunned—shows that it takes up to a year to recover. A year—for each incident!

If we stack angry outbursts on top of one another, some kids live in a perpetual state of recovery from anger.

It can be hard to tell when we cross the line into harmful anger. I know for me, it helped when I would start to go down that path and then instead of yelling AT them, I’d yell TO them “Oh no! I’m freaking out over all the shoes in the hallway! I feel like yelling!”

After someone yells, sometimes they feel so much better in the moment that they can hardly remember the content of what they yelled or that they yelled at all. You remind them of the hurtful things they shouted and you get responses like:

  • I didn’t say that.
  • You know what I meant.
  • You’re making a big deal out of nothing.
  • I wasn’t yelling.

Sometimes the yeller will feel badly and they try to quickly reset the relationship by apologizing or explaining. They might say:

  • I’m sorry I got mad.
  • I was just stressed. Sorry I took it out on you.
  • I didn’t mean it.
  • Hey, it’s over now. Everything’s okay!
  • I promise I won’t yell again.

What to do instead.

Honor the child’s interpretation of what they experienced.

Resist trying to “get back to normal” as soon as possible. It can be hard to witness a loved one’s distress but remember, the yeller literally can’t feel as badly as the one yelled at.

Also, the yeller should not expect understanding for having yelled. Don’t seek comfort from the victim!

Apologies alone don’t work. Sitting with the person who was harmed is the place to start.

  • Tell me as much about how it felt to be you when I yelled, as long as you need to.
  • I can’t promise I won’t yell again. I do empower you to walk out of the room and refuse to listen when I do.
  • You didn’t deserve that. I’m going to get help for my anger.

Shouting about LEGO you stepped on or an occasional exasperated outburst can usually be repaired swiftly with an apology. Sustained attacks, routine outbursts, name-calling…nope.

Love to all my yellers and yellees. This is a hard share.


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Start with Facts and Curiosity

Brave Writer

We believe we’re sharing facts, when in fact (ha!) we’re sharing interpretations of facts.

Your child is angry.
You say: “That video game is making you mad. Let’s take a break.”

Your child is squirmy.
You say: “Looks like you need a snack.”

Your child falls and scrapes a knee.
You say: “That must have hurt!”

All of your comments? They are not facts. We move from noticing what is (a child’s volume or scrunched up face) to labeling it (anger) to interpreting what it means (must be video games).

What If?

  • What if video games have nothing to do with the child’s feelings?
  • What if the child isn’t hungry?
  • What if your child’s scraped knee isn’t a big deal to the child?

When we move swiftly to interpretation, we are telling our kids “I know your insides better than you do.”

Interpretation is what we ALL do all the time to everyone, by the way. Not just our kids.

The antidote is curiosity.

Ask: “Are you angry? Is it because of something that happened in your video game or something else?”

Ask: “Do you want a snack?”

Ask: “You’ve got a scraped knee. How are you holding up?”

Less busy body energy and more interest. Less carefully crafted narrations of how our children appear to us and more ordinary conversation about living together.

It’s great when you’re wrong too. I remember a time when one of my sons was instantly furious! I assumed it was due to the video game he was playing. I started to ramp up, and then remembered: I better ask before I assume.

Sure enough, his anger was due to self-criticism. He had missed an important party for a friend. When he realized it, he was devastated.

How reasonable! How wrong I was about to be.

Facts and Curiosity

We interpret our children’s behavior constantly as though we are right. Start with facts and curiosity. This goes for all conversations, really. Get curious, resist the temptation to make meaning for others, learn.


I talk about this in Raising Critical Thinkers, and GUESS WHAT? I took the exercises in the book and added a slew more. I included journal prompts, checklists, ranking bars, and spaces for kids to write directly in the workbook: BECOMING A CRITICAL THINKER (ages 12-18).


Becoming a Critical Thinker

The Loving Thing

The Loving Thing

Perhaps a good question to ask ourselves when working with our kids is, ‘Is this the loving thing or the pushing them to do my agenda thing?

It’s one question.

There may be others. But this is a pretty danged good one to start.

Here’s what happens with me. My kid is not successful yet at something—any old thing from tying shoes to mastering math facts to peeing straight, aimed at the toilet and not the wall!

I come along and suddenly my adrenaline shoots, my mind is awash with urgency, and words start forming in my mouth that are CERTAIN to save my child from the hard reality of being who they are at this moment in time with this particular skill set.

I have the ego and audacity to believe that this one conversation, one idea, one method, one practice will SOLVE it: no more confusion, no more misfirings, no more failed attempts.

So I launch my urgent words at this child and… Oh my gosh, unforeseen BLOWBACK! Won’t listen, gets sassy, goes quiet, tears up… It’s as if this human being is not utterly grateful and impressed with my carefully constructed solution to what I see as a problem! In fact, this little person is not! They are not yet ready to apply my perfect solution. In fact, they resent it!

What I think is a problem may not even have been experienced as problematic by my child or teen! Here I am making them feel deficient somehow.

But what’s a loving thing?

  • Maybe it’s silence.
  • Maybe it’s sidling up and watching.
  • Maybe it’s sending a text message with a link.
  • Maybe it’s checking in to see how this little person is doing (if they are happily failing at tying shoes, who am I to swoop in and fix it yet?).
  • Maybe it’s leaving a bottle of Windex and a rag next to the toilet with a note.
  • Maybe it’s asking if the child wants your input before delivering it.

Bottom Line: Adults aren’t always right. Kids know this. Adults forget this.

Imagine what it might be like to trust a child to grow and develop and learn. Start there. Then, if you have anything to offer, come from spaciousness, kindness, patience, and self-control. And add brownies.

You can do this.


This post is originally from Instagram and @juliebravewriter is my account there so come follow along for more conversations like this one!


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Free Radicals

Brave Writer

Remember, your child is an independent being from you.

When I was a kid, I wanted to grow up to be a mother who’d understand my child as well as I wished to be understood by my parents. Enneagram 4 here, so you understand the depth of that craving.

When I eventually had my own kids, it became inescapably true that I could never know them as well as they might wish to be known. The fact is: these little beings are “free radicals”—a bit like their chemical counterparts.

Here’s the definition of a free radical: “A type of unstable molecule, free radicals can build up in cells and cause damage to other molecules, such as DNA, lipids, and proteins.”

Let me rewrite that for small humans (aka free radicals): “A type of unstable being, free radicals can build up in families and cause damage to the other members, such as siblings, parents, and even pets.”

Yeah, I’d say that is a PERFECT description of the way in which kids are independent beings.

What does this mean?

The good news: they are delightful! Kids repeatedly astonish and entertain us with their antics and self-expression. Thank goodness they aren’t adults in miniature clothes. Their energy is life-giving to a family.

The bad news: you can’t heal your child self by being to your child what you always wished you’d had as a child. That ship has sailed. Your new child deserves to be known as a unique individual whose needs are not obvious to you and whose ideas are not identical with yours.

Chemical free radicals stimulate important physiological processes, like helping the immune system function properly. So when your child catches you off guard, that’s the moment to lean in with curiosity. Who is this free radical in my presence? What new experience am I about to have thanks to this little being who wants to stimulate new psychological processes in the family?

Say to yourself: “I’m here for it!”


This post is originally from Instagram and @juliebravewriter is my account there so come follow along for more conversations like this one!


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