Pulling their own hair can be mild and transient in some children. This is often related to self-soothing, and seen as being similar to head banging, thumb sucking, hair twirling or body rocking. When it is this, parents may look for patterns such as pulling when they are bored, lonely, excited or when they are falling … Continue reading What To Do When Your Child Pulls Their Own Hair
Hi Dr. Rene, My six-year-old son has a habit of chewing on his shirts. He frequently comes home from school with his collar and sleeves in tatters. I really think he doesn’t even realize he’s doing it. When he does it at home, I can gently remind him to stop, and he does. But when … Continue reading Child Chewing on Clothes
Calm Parenting is a hot topic these days. My Calm Parenting workshops have quickly become as popular as my Positive Discipline classes. In both sessions, and in many other, unrelated classes parents report losing their cool often. They say they would like to provide a calm household, but find themselves yelling more than they’d like. This week’s posts … Continue reading Calm Parenting – Know Your Triggers
Tattling is a common behavior particularly for children four to seven years old. It is also an unpopular behavior particularly with classmates and older siblings. My Claire was about five years old when she started tattling non-stop on her older sister. It took about a week for Alicen to have enough. Claire was telling on … Continue reading Curb Tattling
Dear Dr. Rene, I am feeling stuck in a difficult situation. I have three children under five years old, and have been fortunate to be friends with our neighbor who has four children, three in the same age range. It was a great situation, we live so close and the kids enjoyed playing together. Unfortunately, one of … Continue reading A Friend’s Child is Aggressive
It’s an all too familiar scenario… Mom is almost ready to leave, children are still coloring in the kitchen. Mom says, “hey, time to get your shoes on, and could you turn off the tv, please?” Mom keeps moving to put the breakfast dishes in the sink. Children ignore mom’s request and keep coloring. Mom … Continue reading Want Kids to Listen? Stop Repeating Yourself!
Self evaluation is another good skill for children to have, and it’s a piece of teaching self control. This is being able to go back and review their own efforts or their own products. The goal is to have children slow down and consider their work. We do this in our Look, Listen and Learn … Continue reading Teach Self-Evaluation and Work Review
Goal setting is identifying the successful endpoint of a plan. We talk about goal setting in our Look, Listen and Learn classes each week and then follow up to help children identify success as they play. Goal setting is easy to incorporate in daily life. Talk with children about the task at hand and what … Continue reading Teach Children Goal Setting
This is a piece of attention span and impulse control that overlaps with the previous posts’ suggestions about listening, planning and organization. Sequencing is more about the follow through of listening and the organization of a plan. We practice this with Sequence Cards* where children are given pictures and asked to arrange them in a story … Continue reading Teach Sequencing
Reducing physical and mental clutter and other distractions can greatly benefit attention span and lessen distractibility. At home, this is getting toys and bedrooms organized. Make a plan with your child about how, when and where to store toys and other belongings. In our house, the toys all have a place they belong as do the … Continue reading Teach Organization and Scheduling
Parenting by Dr. Rene 