Positive Discipline Parenting Blog
Sproutable's Positive Discipline blog.
Real tips. Real talk. Read & grow.
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Empowering Teens: The path from enabling to positive parenting
Parenting is a journey filled with ups and downs, and navigating the teenage years can be particularly challenging. Many parents strive to raise responsible, confident, and accountable young adults. However, one common pitfall in parenting[...]By Casey O'Roarty
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Empowering Teens: The path from enabling to positive parenting
Parenting is a journey filled with ups and downs, and navigating the teenage years can be particularly challenging. Many parents strive to raise responsible, confident, and accountable young adults. However, one common pitfall in parenting is falling into the trap of enabling rather than empowering our teens. In this blog post, we'll explore the transition from enabling to positive parenting and how it can benefit both you and your teenagers.By Casey O'Roarty
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Why I teach my nanny kids how to do things for themselves
If we want our nanny charges to learn life skills, we start by explicitly teaching those skills. Nobody just knows how to do laundry or scramble an egg - even basic life skills need to be taught clearly and explicitly with step-by-step training. Typically, the best way to do this is to model and narrate, then move into doing the task together, then the child does it while you supervise, and eventually the child is ready to do that task on their own. Think about making your bed, it seems pretty simple, right? Well, maybe notBy Danielle Taylor
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5 summer ideas for nanny kiddos
Summer is fun, exciting, and a wonderful change of pace (especially here in rainy Seattle!), but it also means that the routines we’ve counted on and been polishing all school-year are about to change. For many families, nannies, and kiddos, summer means travel, playdates, and sunshine. How can we as nannies set ourselves, our charges, and our families up for a great summer?By Danielle Taylor
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Building the Culture of Teamwork through Chores
When I was growing up we did not have a chore chart. There were no stickers, or popsicle sticks or magnets on a whiteboard. There was just an understanding that we pitched in…all hands on deck. My father was in the military until I was about 7, and prior to that, my mother was […]By Julietta Skoog
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The 5 Parenting Lessons I Learned from 80’s Movie Quotes
For those of us children of the 80's, we have grown up to be parents in a new millennium. It blows my mind to live in a world with Internet, Apple Pay, scanners, and Netflix, not to mention having the intel ahead of time to predict the name of your driver and exact time of your taxi... er... Lyft, pick up. The fact that you can Jetsons style talk to grandparents ON YOUR PHONEBy Julietta Skoog
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Wired for Independence: How skills boost self-esteem
“Your preschooler will never learn to make decisions, learn new skills, or trust his own abilities if you don’t make room for him to practice. Parenting in the preschool years involves a great deal of letting go…True self-esteem does not come from being loved, praised or showered with goodies—it comes from having skills…Working together to […]By Julietta Skoog
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5 Ways to Use the Wheel of Choice
The Positive Discipline tool Wheel of Choice not only sounds like a carnival game, it is also a way to find the fun, teach independence, and increase intrinsic motivation through choice. We can all use a little bridge to support us through transitions, and this is especially true for kids.By Julietta Skoog
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My Top 5 Toddler Parenting Tools
My little baby is now a full-blown toddler. Every stage of development has been such an exciting leap, but it’s at this stage that I’m getting a glimpse into the inner dialogue of my little one’s brain. He is learning to talk and along with language comes a newfound sense of independence and autonomy. This is great when I need to clean up after meals or shoot off a couple of emails, because he can now play by himself for longer periods of time, or even better, help me around the house. It’s a challenge when I have an agenda of what needs to happen now and it doesn’t align with HIS plan. I now understand why virtually every parent of a toddler says their child is “strong-willed”. There’s a parenting myth about the terrible two’s, but what I’ve found is that it doesn’t have to be so terrible if you have some solid Positive Discipline parenting tools in your back pocket.By Alanna Beebe
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Growing Big Sisters
I was preparing for three babies, really. Not triplets, although many people asked, but one baby and two big sisters (who will always be my babies). I took the big sister preparation this time with somewhat of a strategy - before baby and right after.By Julietta Skoog
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Military Families
It is humbling to think about the thousands of families who are not only struggling with the day-to-day challenges of parenting, but also the added layers and burden of having a partner gone (and an uncertainty of return); plus being uprooted and transferred every few years. I am in awe. Recently, I had a conversation with a new mom whose husband is active in the military. They have a 17 month old and she was sharing how hard it is to maintain the “memory” of his dad when their child is so young.By Julietta Skoog
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