What Great Parents Do: 75 Simple Strategies for Raising Kids Who Thrive

Okay, show me where you’re feeling stuck with this; let’s see if we can come up with some other ways of approaching this problem

Although your intentions are good, you are essentially telling him he is wrong about his experience; you are arguing with his reality. Paradoxically, this type of response makes some kids even more likely to hold on to their belief that they cannot do it: “No, I can’t!”

call this principle “separating kids from their behavior”

Children’s brains are wired for discovery and learning. Their prefrontal cortex (the seat of executive functioning, including the ability to plan and focus) is not yet fully developed. This characteristic enables them to have an exploratory and flexible brain that researchers believe is crucial to our evolution as a species.

Even though we may be in the throes of a strong emotion, such as anger, we always have the opportunity to pause and make a choice about how we want to respond to the situation. We don’t have to say what we are thinking or act on our feelings.

Parents say it’s not okay but their behavior tells the opposite story.

Kids’ empathic “feelers” are picking up on our nonverbal cues (body language, tone of voice, etc.), but we are telling them that their intuitive sense is wrong. This incongruity can be profoundly frightening for children, since they may be strongly feeling that something is wrong, but this feeling is being invalidated

doing something for your children that they can do, or can learn to do, for themselves.

Touch is life.