Here are five things you can do to encourage helpful, motivated behaviors from your own young humans:
When your kid asks a question, answer it! If you don’t know the answer, speculate with them. Don’t just let them be the ones asking “why,” ask them your own questions back.
Keeping a dialogue open with your kid on the most earnest and playful questions they have will lead to a willingness to tackle more difficult conversations later on.
Your kid feeling heard means your kid will let you know when they feel unheard or misunderstood.
Two-way communication isn’t important to every parent; it’s important to me, though, because I believe that saying, “because I said so,” as a response to a kid is insulting. It’s not helpful to only talk and not listen. Model that.
#GenderNeutral largely maintains the status quo in the binary by defining a “neutral” place between the parties, affirming that pink is, in fact for girls and blue is, in fact for boys. It suggests, usually, that the garments are going to be gray. Gray, not just the color, but gray, the symbolic fuzzy space not quite defined yet by capitalists.
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We go to the library to restock every couple of weeks, and we have an agreement to read any book that is enjoyed as many times as she likes. We have had a solid six months of this, and there are few books that make it on the “repeat” list. Since summer, we’ve read a couple hundred picture books.
Read MoreIt's eleven at night, a time that has shifted in purpose over the last few years. Right this moment, I'm claiming it to write about the cache of topics on my brain. I hear that the brain can only prioritize four things, so here are the four that spark the brightest:
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