HI EVERYONE. Melissa here, CloudMom.com. Doing a two part series on temper tantrums this week. First we covered how to handle temper tantrums at home. Today, we’re talking how to stop temper tantrums in public. Let’s face it, dealing with temper tantrums in public is especially tough. You feel like everyone is looking at you [...]
Crazy Kids
How To Deal With Tantrums at Home
HI everyone, Melissa here from CloudMom.com. There are a lot of beautiful things about being a parent, but there are some really annoying ones too – let’s be honest. And one of the most annoying frustrating things is tantrums in children! Adult tantrums, annoying too but at least you don’t feel as if it’s your [...]
Why Germs are Good for Kids
Listen up, Germaphobes! Yes, you! You with your hand sanitizer and your anti-bacterial soap, and all of your strict rules about not sharing bottles or –gasp!– cleaning your kid’s pacifier by sucking on it. That’s gross, right? Turns out that sucking on your child’s pacifier might NOT in fact be so gross. In fact, this [...]
Are Playdates Necessary?
As time goes on and kids get busier and busier, playdates can be a hard thing to coordinate. Over the past eight years since my first was born, I haven’t done a lot of playdates and I didn’t look for playdates as a way to entertain the kids. Rather, I sort of figured my kids [...]
It’s Ok To Yell At Your Kid, Really?
I’m one of those people who feels such profound guilt that it can keep me up nearly all night. The night before last, that kind of guilt invaded me. And the night was L-O-N-G. I lost my temper while one of my kids was playing his piano, or actually not playing his piano. After asking him nicely [...]
I Hope She Looks Just Like Me, Or Not?
Who doesn’t wonder when they’re expecting a baby whether that baby will look like them and in what respects? If this is not top of mind, usually family members and friends will pipe in with a few predictions, saying things like: ”he’ll sure be tall” or “your baby will definitely have blue eyes.” Think also [...]
Little Kids Fighting in Public: What To Do?
My kids fight in public, it just happens. I always hope it won’t, but it does. It’s humiliating and embarrassing and mortifying and I hate it. But it does happen. I spend so much time talking to them about respecting others and behaving well in public that I think I almost take it as a [...]
Arms and Armor — What’s a Mom to Say?
In my house, we pretty much eshew weapons of all sorts. Water guns, toys guns, toy swords, these are never bought and if given, they soon mysteriously disappear. Yet I find that despite my efforts, my boys find their own creative ways of making and playing with weapons: the carve swords and make guns out [...]
Frank Bruni’s Right About Us Parents, BUT …
Frank Bruni’s column in this past weekend’s New York Times entitled “A Childless Bystander’s Baffled Hymn” has caused quite a stir. Over 400 commenters have already weighed in, some praising Bruni and other scolding him for criticizing parents when he himself is not one. I’m somewhere in the middle. On certain points, I think Bruni [...]
Saying No To Children
Somedays there is no word more frequently out of my mouth than NO. NO, you can’t have ice cream for breakfast. NO, you can’t watch TV before school. NO, you can’t stay up late. The list goes on and on and on. Sometimes, I say NO so much that I don’t even feel as if [...]
