Positive Discipline Parenting Blog
Sproutable's Positive Discipline blog.
Real tips. Real talk. Read & grow.
Latest post
Teach Turn Taking in Conversations
When It Gets Hectic... We’ve all been there. Mealtimes can spiral into chaos or power struggles, and your first impulse might be to correct or redirect behavior: “Stop interrupting,” “Sit down,” “Just eat your food!”[...]By Julietta Skoog
Views
Teach Turn Taking in Conversations
When It Gets Hectic… We’ve all been there. Mealtimes can spiral into chaos or power struggles, and your first impulse might be to correct or redirect behavior: “Stop interrupting,” “Sit down,” “Just eat your food!” Instead, try using conversation as the redirection. Bring them back into the moment with a question, a story, or a […]By Julietta Skoog
Views 
Positive Discipline for Teenagers: Chapters 7-9
Welcome back to our Positive Discipline for Teenagers series! If you’ve been following along, you know we’re working through the book Positive Discipline for Teenagers by Jane Nelsen and Lynn Lott, alongside the Joyful Courage podcast. This week we’re digging into Chapters 7, 8, and 9 — all about family meetings, special time, and the […]By Casey O'Roarty
Views 
Positive Discipline for Teenagers: Mistakes & Motivation
Welcome back to our Positive Discipline for Teenagers series! I’m continuing this deep dive into the book Positive Discipline for Teenagers by Jane Nelsen and Lynn Lott, in tandem with the Joyful Courage podcast. This week, we’re diving into chapters 4, 5, and 6 — these pack a powerful mindset shift. We’re talking about mistakes […]By Casey O'Roarty
Views 
School Break Survival Guide: Routines, Connection & Sanity-Saving Tips for Parents of K-5 Kids
I worked in schools as a school psychologist and school counselor, my husband is a teacher, and we have three children in elementary, middle and high school. So, as a family, our rhythm and calendars revolve around the school year cycle and we LIVE for the breaks! While they of course can be fun and […]By Julietta Skoog
Views 
Why Teens Lie and What Parents Can Do About It
Parenting teens is a journey of growth—both for them and for us as parents. It’s often said that raising teenagers is like signing up for a personal growth workshop you didn’t realize you’d need, and it’s true. The challenges teens present push us to examine ourselves, our beliefs, and our responses. One of the trickiest and most triggering issues for parents is when their teens lie. But here’s the thing: lying, while frustrating, is not necessarily a reflection of a bad kid or poor parenting. It’s part of the messy terrain of adolescence.By Casey O'Roarty
Views 
How to Help Your Teen Quit Vaping: A Compassionate Approach
When talking about vaping or nicotine use, it’s important to recognize that addiction isn’t just physical — it’s mental, too. The brain becomes accustomed to the release of dopamine when using nicotine, and soon, it craves that reward. This "mental brainwashing" can make it incredibly difficult for your teen to quit, even if they know the health risks and the consequences. So, how do we help our kids break free from this cycle?By Casey O'Roarty
Views 
Opening Up to Your Resistance
When I work with parents, lots of families resonate with the idea of letting go and being open & present with their children. But in reality, we spend so much of our time resisting in parenting. We hold onto a vision that we’ve created for our children - a narrative, an expectation, an attitude about how things should play out. This isn’t even in our consciousness; we often don’t even realize we’re holding onto these ideas.By Casey O'Roarty
Views 
Liar, Liar: Why I Don’t Stress When my Nanny Kids Fib
Something I see pop up occasionally in online nannying groups is concern & frustration over nanny kiddos telling lies. I totally get it; nobody likes being lied to! I see suggestions of taking things away, lecturing & punishing, forced apologies, and even trying to scare kids out of lying. In fact, I remember being told “you’ll go to hell if you tell a lie” when I was a young child, and it was terrifying! I’ll offer you a different solution: let it go.By Danielle Taylor
Views 
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
Views 
How to motivate teens and tweens
How do we motivate adolescents? Sometimes it feels like nobody wants to help around the house, nobody wants to clean their room. I know, I’ve been there! We work and work on our relationship with our kids- it’s ongoing. It’s a practice of connecting, creating and tweaking agreements, problem solving, checking in, and finding solutions. […]By Casey O'Roarty
Views