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Alison Smith Parent Coaching
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attachment parenting

My Kids Lose It After School! Letters from the parenting coach

Dear Alison, I know you’ll have effective ideas for me because I remember how good your workshop ones were. You helped me see how important the connection with my son is. I would like to move a step forward by asking specifically – How do we as parents and caregivers adjust to and cope with children who are new to the school system? Those children who come home utterly exhausted, showing new behaviors or emotions that have never been present before. How can we guide them and be completely available to their needs when we only see them just in the evening? The needs we aren’t available to fulfill during the day. It can be hard to accept the changes in personality and behaviors in our children when we have laid a strong foundation already. I’ve worked really hard at it. He has a fantastic teacher and there is great communication…

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How Do I Get My Kids to do Chores? Letters from a Parent Coach

Family Chores

My ten-year-old doesn’t want to do his part. Dear Alison, We’ve got a debate in my house…kids and chores. What are your views? I understand and agree with both sides. 1. Let kids be kids while they can.  2. They should be doing chores to learn responsibility. Is there a happy balance? Our kids are between 2 and 10. The two-year old loves to help. Not the most productive but I never discourage her. I want my kids to view chores as something that just gets done because they are a member of this family. I don’t want chores to be a battle. How do I engage my oldest son in work around the house? Thanks, Jesse McTaskmaster Teaching Life Skills Dear Jesse McTaskmaster, Great questions we’ve debated in our home, as well. I’m glad to see this topic of chores being highlighted online in recent years, as important to…

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Blink, And They’re All Grown Up

Blink, And They’re All Grown Up

Have you ever gazed at your sleeping child, and wondered how she got so big, so fast? As a parent, do you find that certain days drag on, but the years pass too quickly? If only we could press pause on the perfect moments. Remember those long, lazy days when we were kids? When we did so much, yet accomplished little? We ended the day feeling tired and fulfilled. We played hard; simply living in the moment. Here’s how to capture that joyful feeling, while slowing time. This may sound too simple, but this one action will make each day feel gratifyingly full, and life will seem less hurried. Choose any random time in your day. Stop. Notice the sights, sounds, smells, as well as sensations. Once you focus exclusively on the wonder of that particular moment, time appears to slow a little. But that’s not all. Create several of…

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What would it feel like to have time for important tasks, whenever you need it?

parenting coach

Before we get to the ways you can create this for yourself, I’ve got a few questions. Do you think most people have a bit of ‘geek’ in them? Do you? (Would you ever admit it? Lol.) Me? I am a ‘parenting-geek’, if there IS such a thing! I talk parenting, I think parenting, I listen to parenting. I’m in multiple online parent forums. And as you may know, I connect regularly with other positive parenting specialists–I even call some friends. As you might expect from parenting educators, they’re a pretty nice bunch. While other moms are researching their next resort trip or pinning tasty-looking Paleo recipes; I’m over here chatting with people in Facebook groups, reading parenting-related blogs, and generally keeping my pulse on the topic. It just so happens that I’m an active member of a number of coaching and entrepreneur groups, too. In fact, we’ve even talked kid…

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Managing Sass: A Personal Story

parenting coach

My daughter started acting out of character. After several hours of grumpiness, and what my dad would have called “sass,” I had had enough of feeling like a punching bag. Repeatedly, I fought the urge to take her behaviour personally. (Because feeling walked on is about me. Her mood is about her.) Yet, I was so close to asking, “What’s your problem anyway?!” simply out of frustration. Granted, I really DID want to know what the problem was–so I could help her find a solution–but my snarky tone would not have invited a loving exchange. Instead, I took a slow breath in, and a slower breath out; to give my nervous system the message that all was well. “There’s no emergency here. Her behaviour is only what I see on the surface,” I reminded myself. “What need might she be communicating?” “Observe. Listen.” Breathe some more. Okay, so now I…

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Stop the Whining with One Simple Trick

parenting

When The Whining Starts It’s close to bedtime here. My kindergartner comes partway down the stairs to tell me about how he hurt himself. He used that whiny voice that grates on a parent’s nerves so easily. “Why is he telling me this?? It’s only a little bump!” I found myself starting to say in my head. Flashback to when I first started parenting–and even way back to when I was teaching public school–the typical recommended response was to discourage the “whining” and “attention seeking” by reassuring the child he’s fine or even ignoring it all together. The idea was that if they got no attention (i.e. reinforcement) of that behaviour, then eventually the behaviour would be extinguished. Kinda makes sense, right? Uh, yeah. Maybe for dogs. Guess what? It never extinguished the behaviour in students nor my kids. If anything, it became more frequent! And I’ll tell you why.…

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