Here on the eve of your 18th birthday... there are no words for how important you are to me, for how you coming into the world expanded and enriched my life.

What I want for you is that you feel the freedom to move forward in your life... follow your curiosity, follow threads of relationships and interests that infuse your life with meaning, with love, with depth.

What I want for you is that you feel you are touching life and when you encounter hard feelings, walls, grief, distrust... that you reach out for support, someone to listen to your worries and tribulations.

How to Ensure Your Parenting Style Doesn’t Negatively Impact Your Child’s Self-Esteem
I received an email from Eric, a dad in my parenting class. 

There have been so many changes for the better that have come up over the last 8 weeks since we started taking your class. The screaming and yelling in our house is now filled with laughter and smiles. Everyday I tell my wife how proud I am of the way she handled a specific situation and I compare it to how we would have handled it before attending your class.

Mom is ready for bed after a long day with the kids

If you’ve ever loved a child suffering with addiction (or mental health issues, learning differences, social challenges or any of the other tough situations that young people face), you know how hard and painful it is to let go while also being present and not giving up. Parenting calls upon the limits of human endurance.*

loving our child despite the hard times is what builds trust. This call for our endless thereness is one reason parenting is so challenging, but it is also why it has the potential to radically change us. Kids give us the opportunity to love another person not because they are always lovable, but because we’ve made the commitment to love them.

Our family had an unspoken mantra: Even if you’re good at something, don’t show it. It was a self preservation of sorts. Make yourself small so no one can cut you down.

Decades later, when I picked my daughter up from pre-school, I asked her teacher, “How’d it go today?”

Our beloved Gay Gay replied,

“It was great! Your daughter is so full of herself!”

It was a moment of awakening words and positivity knocked be upside my head.

Here was my daughter: a self-possessed three year old, full of her interests, her curiosity, her body, her life… full of herself!

It all began when I knit her my 14 year old daughter a sweater. She’d accompanied me to the store to choose a soft, washable yarn in a neutral color she’d actually wear. During Covid I’ve picked up knitting again and found a healthy distraction in searching for patterns and scrumptious yarns. Because my grandmother taught me to knit when I was young, knitting sent a gentle signal to my brain, “Everything’s okay.”

A few nights ago I was on a Zoom for parents of middle schoolers and an impromptu theme emerged – waving the white flag. One mom shared, that’s it, I’m waving the white flag when it comes to getting the kids to sleep at a decent time. What followed was a cascade of white flag waving.

I’ve been thinking about you. This is a tough time for everyone, including parents.It’s extraordinarily important that we’re compassionate with ourselves right now.My hope for you is that in between the chaos and overwhelm of juggling it all, you have moments of sweet connection with your children and even some clarity for yourself.

My heart ached because of the obvious social injustice that permeates every aspect of our society but there was more. I realized that the story drew me in because -- if I’m being honest with myself -- I could genuinely relate to the motivation of those parents.

It’s summer and my daughter and her friend want to go to the pool to play. I fantasize that the girls will occupy each other and I’ll be able to read or at the very least get some knitting done.  Turns out, they want me to join in their amusement. They plead, watch us, watch us as they scheme to perform synchronized, dramatic water jumps and dances.Quickly it’s apparent that I’ve got three options in how to respond to their pleas:

Here I describe an everyday interaction with my 6 yo, one from BEFORE understanding the Positive Discipline perspective and one, AFTER. I hope this illustration helps you see how simple shifts can deepen your genuine connection with your child.