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 advice. 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 of capacities we … [Read more...]
Help Children in the Search for Kindness
It isn’t that I’m trying to teach my children empathy and kindness, rather, I’m trying to make sure they don’t lose the lot they have. It isn’t easy ... but I am trying. And they are watching. They hold me accountable by just being.
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“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 … [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...]