And the win just came through for Dana Nessel for AG too!

So proud of my home state! Although sad to see that we didn’t get majorities in either the state house or senate. I’m guessing those are super gerrymandered as well? How can Gretchen win by a large amount but we don’t get majorities in the state reps? At least we have the governor, attorney gen, sec of state, and…

We should also be terrified that with a 7-9% vote margin, Democrats in the House did slightly worse than Republicans in the House did in 2016 with a 1.1% win margin. It’s not as extreme as the Senate where soon a super majority of US citizens are represented by 1/3 of the Senators, but we’re at a point where every…

You have did great yesterday, Americans, and don’t let anybody tell you otherwise! You’ve sent a clear message to the racist grifter in the White House, and despite all the unhinged tweets he could write today, he IS worried and felt the blow.

Good points. I am not into micromanaging children’s feeling. They’re allowed to feel however they want, but I expect proper behavior. Very young children can grasp that concept. So I tend to give them the space to figure it out on their own. Versus some of the other teachers who constantly talk the child’s through…

The no interaction, though, is the point of difference. That’s the isolating factor. With small children, they usually need some kind of help finding their way through the big feelings. It’s more of what they call a “time in.” But even that’s not usually necessary as a structured thing. If they want to be left alone…

Oh yeah, we all yell from time to time. Some parents go straight to yelling, though, when their kids are being frustrating or having trouble self-regulating. Sometimes raising your voice can be useful, even. And we all get to the ends of our ropes and just can’t do anything but yell. I have nothing but empathy for…

Curious - was your mom the primary parent?  It’s a lot easier to discipline effectively when you’re given a break.

I’m impatient and frustrate easily. It’s amazing how much patience I can muster for my kid. I didn’t have a good model for parenting, but I love my son so fiercely that making him feel that love and giving him every opportunity to be a happy, well-adjusted person have been at the center of how I parent. My kid is 14.…

What you’re talking about is generally referred to as a time in, and it’s fundamentally different from a time out, because time out is about punishment through isolation, and a time in is about, as you have pointed out well, learning to regulate behavior through connection and gentle instruction.

I hope you don’t get flak for this because this is exactly what the research says. I don’t understand why it’s considered revolutionary to suggest that kids should be treated like human beings rather than wayward animals.

I’m with you on the time out thing, though it varies greatly on the child’s age and development. Some children benefit from being removed from the stimulus, but there is no reason the parent can’t sit there with them and explain what is going on, or just sit quietly until the moment has passed. My niece lived with me…

I think people just assume kids won’t understand and then make no effort to adjust their dialog to help kids understand.

Every single person who uses that line may have come out unscathed themselves, but every single one of them also has a story about the kid who drowned because he couldn’t swim/had no life jacket, the teen who died in a car wreck she would have walked away from had she been wearing a seat belt, the boy who got his arm…

The “and I turned out alright” is the same defense for NOT bothering with safety equipment or vaccinations. Sure, you survived. But the reason this shit exists is because A LOT OF CHILDREN DIDN’T AND THEY AREN’T HERE TO TELL YOU THAT.

If you read through Kohn actually gives a lot of suggestions of positive things to say that aren’t praise! It can definitely feel really daunting at first to re-frame how you talk in such a fundamental way.

Please tell me you called child protective services on this woman because that is straight up abuse.

Articles like this always bring to mind my ex’s family. We dated for five years and would every so often visit his family for a day, which included his mom and whomever she was dating at the time, his grandmother, and his sister and her husband and two kids.

It amazes me how many of my childless, liberal friends say, “You should slap him” when I tell them how my teenager is being. How is violence an effective parenting tool? I was hit (including in the face) as a child and it left me with trauma that I only discovered at 40; for every adult that turned out all right I’m…

Alfie Kohn has convinced me that praise and punishments (corporal or not) really are mostly bullshit, which was radical to me when I first started in education and child development but now seems totally intuitive.