EDITOR’S NOTE: Being a good parent at times takes superhero skills. To help you develop your own, “The Relational Book for Parenting” authors Saliha Bava and Mark Greene offer suggestions from their book. Go here to read more in this exclusive periodic series for City Dads Group. We previously wrote about the power of listening with curiosity. As we get into additional relationship super powers, we'll refer back to previous ones and show how all interconnect and interrelate. Growing these relationship super powers, what we sometimes call our “relational intelligence,” provides us with a web … [Read more...]
Teaching Kindness to our Children a Modern Must
“They said they wouldn’t be mean to me anymore,” he said. “They said they’d try to be nicer, unless I did something they didn’t like.” “You don’t put stipulations on friendship,” I told my oldest son. “I know,” he said. “They’re being nicer now.” There was a time such an exchange would have broken my heart. We’ve lived through those times. Lots of them. My heart has broken more than I care to count. Now it only bends as I bite my tongue in frustration, willing the jerks of the playground to get theirs on the nose and nodding carefully at the boy in front of me. “Perhaps you should … [Read more...]
Be An Emotionally Prepared Parent
When we see our children experiencing something other than joy, we almost immediately want to change their dial to sunshine and smiles. However, it is important to let kids ride it out.
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Emotions are a complicated thing. We all have them, we recognize them in each other, and yet they remain relative and subjective. No matter our basis of empathy or the pulls of sympathy, we can never truly know exactly what it is that another person is feeling. We can only relate to the labels that we have all agreed on. Considering that, when discussing emotions … [Read more...]