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You're Wrong, The World is Safe

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You're Wrong, The World is Safe

I have something radical to say and I wish you could hear me because if you were in front of me I would be screaming it: the world is safe.  The world has always been safe.  Yes, children die, famine exists, natural disasters kill thousands, and we murder one another through war, domestic violence, and hate.  But the world is safe.  For those of you who don’t believe the world is safe, why are you lying to your children?  I know that a deep part of you knows that  the world is safe, but your life experience has fooled you into believing that it is not.  So how do we get back to the purity of the early years before your mother may or may not have responded to you in a way that brought the first doubt of your safety?

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Two Key Points in Handling Sibling Rivalry

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Two Key Points in Handling Sibling Rivalry

As a parenting and child development expert, I generally know how to handle these moments of rivalry, but as a parent I understand how excruciating and off putting they can feel.  Here are some things to keep in mind the next time your siblings fight.

 The most important point:  if no one is bleeding,

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Adventures of a Parenting Expert at Disney (Part 2)

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Adventures of a Parenting Expert at Disney (Part 2)

The waiting and lines at Disney cause all to have to go through this process time and again.  However, at Disney, unlike the marshmallow test, after the wait you get much more than just two marshmallows. Everyone gets their imagination expanded and their hearts filled with joy.  It was interesting for me to witness this constant restraint, sometimes in failure and sometimes in success, of the many children and adults at the parks.   In the spirit of writing about the solution rather than the problem, here is how I think parents can handle this Disney test of patience and impulse control.

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Adventures of a Parenting Expert at Disney (Part 1)

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Adventures of a Parenting Expert at Disney (Part 1)

I waited until my children were six and nine to take a trip to Disney.  The older one had been able to go to Magic Kingdom on a school trip, but the youngest had never been. If I'm perfectly honest, thinking of going to a Disney park was both terrifying and exciting. I found it terrifying because I imagined seeing all sorts of parenting practices that would upset my trip; exciting because for school age children the Disney parks are absolutely magical.  Both of these reasons kept me away and pushed me toward the parks simultaneously. 

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What Spanking May Be Teaching Your Children

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What Spanking May Be Teaching Your Children

The statistics and multiple negative outcomes of children that are disciplined with corporal punishment are well known to those who work with children.  Children’s Trends, a research group, found that corporal punishment increases negative outcomes in adolescence like low academic achievement, alcohol and drug use, antisocial behavior.  They also found that the older the age of the child, the greater the negative outcomes.  So why do 70% of parents in the United States believe in spanking?

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Finding Motherhood at the LAX Underpass

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Finding Motherhood at the LAX Underpass

There’s an underpass at LAX going north on Sepulveda Blvd, and  it’s pretty amazing since sometimes a plane is taxiing right on top of you.  I was born a mother traveling through that underpass sometime in 2005.  My daughter had been born maybe 3 months before; the timing is now vague.  However, I remember crying as I drove to yet another audition (yes I used to be an actor) worried that I had left my preemie alone with a baby sitter I barely knew.

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When Divorce Happens to Young Children

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When Divorce Happens to Young Children

Little ones under five years of age have a way of expressing their emotional worlds that is paradoxically simple and intricate.  When it comes to their experience of divorce and their parents’ separation, they express their internal worlds in ways that all parents separating or divorcing need to keep in mind.