If you pay attention, kids will teach you how to laugh loudly, how to love deeply and how to live fully. They will also ruin all your stuff.
Children need challenges and increased expectations as they age, but change can be scary, and offering rewards -- coupled with choice and a sense of autonomy -- helps make their introduction smoother.
In one of those curveballs that life likes to throw, I've heard some of the things that have come out of my mouth lately. I've realized that I'm saying things I never even anticipated having to have to say to my children.
I imagine that it must be hard to watch a friend get swallowed whole by a completely foreign set of experiences. Since I'm the one getting swallowed, I can't know what that's like -- but I can offer a few (entirely unsolicited) dos and don'ts to those who have not, as yet, procreated.
The English are truly great at bringing up resilient, well-mannered, brave, and kind children. Too many parents -- in our own country and across the Western world -- have lost sight of what we've always done right.
I just got back from spending Thanksgiving in Paris with my eldest child, and it got me thinking about the point of parenthood.
We can create a habit for ourselves and our children: Pause and reflect. Even alone in the woods, with no technology in sight, recall the teaching of the Internet. What's the intention behind this next action of mine? Would the world reprove if this particular moment goes viral?
We can speak up when doctors betray our trust with their lack of professionalism. And we should seek out physicians who model healthy behaviors and promote wellbeing with competence and caring.
When the kids were little, the phrase "don't bite the hand that feeds you" was in fact quite literal. I know you really want the Cheerios and you want to show off your choppers, but don't bite my arm as I put them on your plate.
Why is it that the benchmark we set for our happiness when we have children is to ensure that our lives don't change?
I remember noticing my son's shoelace -- a little too long -- and telling myself that I needed to retie it so he didn't trip. Then I blinked. That little boy just took his last college exam.
Is there a natural shift that occurs when we realize we're responsible for more than just ourselves?
Children have such a short time to be kids and we, as parents, have even less until they don't need us anymore.
Reading Anne's books feels like talking to her. Talking to her, it turns out, feels a lot like reading her books -- which are about parenting, faith, writing, love and loss. It isn't happenstance that these all intertwine in her writing, she told us, because they are all braided up in her life as well.
