“I can do this” is not a thought a child arrives at because someone told them they could. It is not installed by a motivational poster or produced by a trophy. It is not the outcome of being reassured, or of being protected from the experiences that might produce the opposite belief. It is learned. … Read more
The child who grows into a capable problem-solver doesn’t do so because they were smart, or because they got lucky with a particularly good teacher at exactly the right moment. They do so because they spent years in an environment that treated problems as interesting — as things to be approached, attempted, and learned from … Read more
Confidence in children is one of those things that is most visible in its absence. You recognize it immediately when it isn’t there: the child who won’t try the new thing, who falls apart at the first setback, who needs a round of reassurance before walking into any unfamiliar situation, who abandons anything that doesn’t … Read more
Two children, same age, facing the same difficult homework problem. One sits with it. Tries one approach, then another. Gets frustrated, takes a breath, keeps going. The other looks at it for thirty seconds, declares that they can’t do it, and waits. Not lazily — anxiously. The waiting isn’t relief from the effort. It is … Read more
Confidence is one of those things that every parent wants to build in their child and almost no one knows quite how to build intentionally. It’s easy to recognize when it’s missing — in the child who won’t try the new thing, who dissolves at the first failure, who needs three rounds of reassurance before … Read more
A toddler and a jigsaw puzzle. Or a toddler and a zipper. Or a toddler and the cup that was supposed to be the blue one. Or a toddler and the snack that broke in half, or the block tower that won’t stay up, or the television that turned off when the episode wasn’t finished, … Read more
You are in the meltdown right now. Or you’ve just been in one and you’re trying to understand what happened. Or you’re anticipating the next one — which, statistically, is coming — and you’d like to go into it with something more useful than the combination of patience and improvisation that has been getting you … Read more
The meltdown in the grocery store parking lot. The one over the broken cracker at 10:47am. The one at the end of a birthday party that was, until four minutes ago, going beautifully. The one at bedtime that turns a twenty-minute routine into a fifty-minute ordeal. Most parents spend a significant amount of their emotional … Read more
The pressure most parents put on their children is not intended as pressure. It arrives as interest — in grades, in activities, in effort, in what comes next. It arrives as the particular energy that enters a household during report card season, or during tryouts, or in the weeks before a performance. It arrives in … Read more
It is 11:23 on a Tuesday morning and your two-year-old is on the kitchen floor. The immediate cause — as best as you can reconstruct it — is that you cut the toast into rectangles instead of triangles. Or gave the blue cup instead of the red one. Or said it was time to leave … Read more
