#littleones

My 4yo is having a really hard time with feeling rejection. How can I help them?

I have noticed that my 4yo daughter has a VERY hard time with the feeling of rejection. The times she has broken down the biggest is because of rejection, times where her fellow friends have said - “I don’t want to be your friend anymore” “I don’t want to play” “i don’t want to sit next to you”….it has happened at playdates and that's when I notice the breakdown and very hard recovery. Help! I’ve bought books and stuff, but nothing seems to work. What do you suggest?

My 5yo son doesn't want to go to martial arts class anymore. What is the right way to handle this?

My 5yo son participates 3 times a week in after school activities such as sports and martial arts . The rest of the week and weekend he does not have anything because I want him to have free time and be with us. When I first enrolled him in soccer he hated it and never wanted to go but I took him anyway and encouraged him to play and now he likes it very much. With martial arts, at the beginning he loved it but now he does not because he said he gets hurt.

My 5yo is repeating bad words. Help!

My 5yo has learned some bad words from older kids but the other day my husband got frustrated with a project he was doing and he said some bad words and my son and I who were downstairs were able to hear them all.
My son was laughing so I told him that his daddy was frustrated and was using words that are not proper to use because he forgot how to breath and calm himself ( I did not know what else to say). How do I handle this?

My 5yo sons coach yells at him and I am not comfortable with that. Should I say something?

I am concerned about my son's experience in his martial arts class. He is 5 years old and just recently joined the class but one of the teachers often yells at him which has caused my son to lose motivation. I do not want to sound like an overprotective mom but I do not feel comfortable with that teacher even if they tell me that all sports require teachers like that.

 Is there a challenging developmental transition that some kids go through around 3-4? 

s there a challenging developmental transition that some kids go through around 3-4?  My son, who is 4, has been a relatively easy child, but it seems that tantrums have picked up over the last few months.  I think by this age many kids are starting to move on from toddler tantrums, but it feels harder for us now. Interested in your thoughts and any pointers on how to navigate this period. 

My 21mo has trouble eating in one place. How can I guide her into healthy meal habits?

We've noticed that our 21mo has trouble staying in the same place for the duration of her meal. I know it's developmentally appropriate for her to want to get up and move around every few minutes. We've also really struggled with solids (she just started eating more than a couple of spoonfuls).
Should we let her eat her meals in different places?

My 5yo has zero impulse control and can be aggressive. How can I help them?

I would love to get your input regarding some behavior of my almost 5 year old boy. He can be very physically aggressive when playing and is showing no impulse control at all. The tantrums can be a lot. I need guidence.

How can I help my 5yo son make new friends?

I want to know how I can help my 5yo son make new friends without my help.
He is very social but he is very attached to his current friends so if he is in the park and there is no one he knows then he sits next to me and does not want to play at all.
How can I help him be more out going?

Our almost 6yo is lying, breaking things and running away. I am terrified. What do I do?

Our almost 6yo is incredibly vivacious, social, happy, energetic, independent, constantly moving, demands attention and wants to be first for everything. He runs away in beaches, malls, parks, leaving me screaming at him to stop (he won’t) and then I have to run after him leaving his brother running behind me saying 'I abandoned him'. It’s nuts. I’d rather stay home. Why is this happening and how can we help him trust us and say the truth, listen and not run away?

How can I teach my almost 5yo to tolerate frustration?

My almost 5 year-old boy got upset during dinner because I tried his food to see if it was hot and he was hungry and moody so he pushed the plate away and the plate fell on the ground and broke and I had food all around.
I did not know how to respond. What could have I done in that situation?

My 3.5yo's anger is big and she's hitting. How do I handle this?

My 3.5 yo daughter is a very determined, assertive leader. Very different from my son. Slowly I’m learning to channel that big girl energy. However, I get really annoyed (maybe even triggered) with her anger. She feels it in her whole body, makes faces, her body gets stiff, etc. Lately she has been hitting us with whatever object or her hand…hard.

My 4yo is picking up negative behavior from friends. How can I shift this?

It seems that my 4yo son and other friends of the summer camp are getting a kick out of making a little boy upset and keep bothering him because they noticed he easily cries.
I already told my son that it is not okay to bother our friends if they do not want to be bothered.
What do you recommend?

How do we speak to our child about touching private parts so that they feel safe and open with us enough to share?

Our child has had two incidents at school in the past two weeks that we are very concerned about. The first time they exposed themself at dismissal to their classmates after being dared by others. The second time they were sitting in a circle with their peers and reached a hand up another child’s shorts. The child was very alarmed and upset of course.
There is no open access to the internet. We are starting to look at the time that has spent on FaceTime with the best friend that moved away.
Could this other child have been exposed and shared this with our child?
How do we speak to our child about this so that they feel safe and open with us enough to share?

My almost 4yo had an epic tantrum. What could I have done better?

Today my almost 4-year-old had an epic tantrum at a store and although I was able to be calm and did not care about the looks I got from everyone around me, I was exhausted after his tantrum.
At the end he fell asleep at home exhausted from his tantrum and I am thinking ..
What could I have done better?
Should I have bought the toy?

I am struggling with my children's sleep and letting them know the nanny is leaving. Helpo!

I would love some sleeping advice. My oldest child 5.5yo and my youngest 2.5yo share a room at night. They each have their own bed. They fall asleep fairly normally… book, tucked in, rub back, fall asleep, I sneak out.
Somewhere around 11:45pm-2am my youngest will call me in to put the blanket on her, or my oldest will come and get me to rub her back or snuggle. This will continue through the night.
We are also in search of a new nanny. How do we tell our children?

My 4yo says she has stomach pain when she is scared of something or someone. How can we help her?

My 4 year old would say she has stomach pain from time to time, and recently, she verbalized that when she is scared of something/someone (unfamiliar adults in general) or excited about something, she would have a stomachache.
We wonder how we can help her manage this?
What are some skills/techniques we can equip her with to manage this feeling?

How do I know if I am being too harsh or too lenient?

Yesterday, I took the three kids to the movies and to a park.  Before we left, my daughter grabbed her socks and I told her, she didn’t need socks because I was going to have them wear water shoes in case the sprinklers were on at the park and she wanted to get wet. She said she wanted to wear her regular shoes because she didn’t want to get wet.  I asked if she was sure and she told me yes. Once at the park, she eventually began leaping through the sprinklers, telling me she wasn’t getting her shoes wet, only her clothes, which was not the case.  Her shoes were getting wet. 

My daughter creates alters with her toys. Should I be worried?

My daughter has a few toys that she has on her bedside table as a permanent fixture and refuses to have them moved. She also doesn't play with them but she likes to look at them, occasionally touch them, keep them in the same place always and no one can touch or move them. I find it freaky but I try to respect and not touch it. I worry that she may develop (more of) OCD if we do not show her that it's ok to move things and that toys are meant to be played with.

My daughters are clashing. How can I handle it better?

Both girls play better together at ages 6 and 8 but my 8yo tends to always talk over and correct her sister constantly. My 6yo gets offended whenever her big sister corrects her.
This is where they are both clashing now as one likes to fact check everything and say "you are wrong" and the other one just falls to pieces. How can I better handle this situation with both of them?