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Showing posts with the label tantrum

Apparently, I Went Back to School Too.

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Why Does Back-to-School Feel Like a Second Full-Time Job? My Kid Started School, and Apparently I Did Too Somewhere along the way, back-to-school stopped being just about new sneakers, a backpack, and showing up on the first day. Now it comes with emails, school apps, calendars, forms, lunch accounts, classroom updates, aftercare messages, sports schedules, and group chats that somehow become active the second you put your phone down. And somewhere, buried inside one of those apps, is probably a message saying my kid needs to bring in 14 empty toilet paper rolls tomorrow. I will discover this at 8:47 tonight. Welcome back to school. When Did School Become a Full-Time Administrative Job? As a kid, I remember the whole thing feeling pretty simple. You got your school supplies, maybe some new clothes, and then you went. I'm sure our parents were doing plenty behind the scenes, but I don't remember them logging into six different systems before breakfas...
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Is My Child Too Sensitive, Or Was I Not Sensitive Enough?

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When Your Child's Tears Trigger Your Own Trauma A blue bandaid meltdown made me question everything about how I handle my child's emotions. This morning, my kid fell off their scooter on the way to camp. A small scrape, no big deal. We headed home so I could clean it up and apply a bandaid. Cue the meltdown.  Not over the fall... over the fact that the bandaid was blue instead of dinosaur-themed. Standing in my living room listening to those tears, I felt that familiar tightness in my chest. And honestly? My first thought was:     "Come on, really? Over a bandaid color?" First and foremost , my eldest turned 4 today. Four years of watching this little human develop their own personality, their own preferences, their own big feelings about the world. Four years of me trying to figure out how to parent someone who expresses emotions so freely—something I never learned to do. On their birthday morning, of all days, here I was getting frustrated with...
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The Non-Preferred Parent

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The Parent Who Gets All the "NO"s: When Love Feels Like Rejection Every Single Day Sometimes the hardest battles in parenting happen right in our own homes, with the little people we love most. We're on vacation. I'm at the club pool, and I ask my son to come out of the water for dinner. "NO! NO! NO!" he screams at the top of his lungs, throwing himself backward into the pool. Every parent around the pool stops and stares as my child has a full meltdown... hitting the water, yelling at me, completely out of control. This was supposed to be our relaxing family time. Instead, I'm the parent with the "problem child" ruining everyone's peaceful evening. If you're the parent who gets the automatic rejection, the public meltdowns, and those soul-crushing "you're not my friend anymore" words, read on (or if you just want to hear the other side's POV)   The Sting That Nobody Talks About Here's what nobody tel...
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