Last week LuLu damaged some of Kay’s toiletries in a move of pure jealousy. It was not the first time. LuLu, in the height of her puberty, has decided that Kay is the target of her frustration. It is sibling rivalry in which the sides are definitely uneven. Kay does nothing to provoke these incidents, but her response is so dramatic that LuLu gets a “thrill” out of upsetting Kay.

No amount of explaining the logic of staying calm to Kay seems to be working. Kay’s logic is that she’s not “doing anything” to LuLu, so why should she have to put up with LuLu “doing things”... more

Happy Valentines Day! How appropriate that this day of love should fall on a “Love Thursday" for all the bloggers here!

Love is quite a concept to contemplate, especially when parenting children with challenges. It is more than the flowers, candy, cards and red hearts that adorn this holiday. It is more than the noun or adjective that it is often used as.

Love is most assuredly a VERB. And as LuLu would tell you from her recent grammar lesson: Love is an ACTION VERB, not a state of being. We refer to it as “being in love”. But that “being”... more

I’ve been following a discussion about praising our special children on an internet support group. The topic has been about whether praise is healthy or harmful to children and about why children react negatively to our attempts to praise them. I blogged on this early this month, but there's so much to consider.

Praising a child may truly not be the best thing for them, especially if it's "overdone" in their eyes. I say this knowing that our society is “praise happy”... more

Julia’s blog from yesterday got me thinking about what I would do with a daughter who chronically steals and whether or not this behavior is attention-getting and done “purposefully”. Rachel, one of our precious readers, commented that her daughter doesn’t have the cause and effect thinking to be purposefully trying to be more difficult and grab more attention. I think this is true for LuLu as well. The difficult behaviors stem mostly from a lack of impulse control and... more

I’m watching the comments over on the Christian Adoption blog to my friend Julia’s post about her daughter sneaking food that she would receive freely if she just asked for it. Many of the commenters are concerned that Julia is failing to recognize a “bigger” problem or that she’s cold-hearted in imagining that her child may be headed for jail if these behaviors continue.

I can see where she’s coming from…and I feel her frustration. LuLu doesn’t steal... more

HealthDay News recently reported on new research, which confirms that women who are involved in a good marriage are able to shake off the day’s stress when they come home. Researchers from the University of California in Los Angeles followed thirty couples, who were married, parenting children, and employed in full-time jobs. Researchers performed saliva test on each of the sixty spouses four times a day (early morning, late morning, afternoon and evening) for a three-day period to test for cortisol,... more

I read about some interesting research on praise today. I found this information in the blog written by the founder and Chief Learning Officer of K12, Bror Saxberg. K12 is the curriculum provider and administrator of the Georgia Virtual Academy. This blog talks about a study done by Dr. Carol Dweck of Stanford on praise of 5th graders.

The experiment went like this. They gave 400 5th graders a simple puzzle quiz in which everyone did well, and got praised. Half the group was praised with “you’re so smart”... more

I don’t know if it’s because I’m getting older or because I’m lost in disability world, but 2007 just flew past me, and I have little memory of the whole blurry 12 months. In fact, reading the year-end reflections in the newspaper remind me just how “out of it” I am.

My younger sister had severe asthma and allergies as a child. I can remember my mother commenting that she had a “missing decade” from her life (mid-1960s to mid-1970s) when she had no idea what the current events were. I thought that was such an odd thing; to be so “out of it” that you didn’t... more

At times, I have found it difficult to transition my parenting tactics when a child's behavior has significantly improved. Think about how you parent each child in your home. A toddler needs constant supervision and so do some older children. For example, a child who has perpetrated another child, self-mutilated, or extremely destructive may require vigilant parenting. You may need to either remain in the same room as the child or strategically place monitors in rooms so you can hear everything going on. You remain on high alert, ready to intervene within seconds.

Think... more

I am not a liar and I do not appreciate being made to look like one. I based my decision to allow my daughter to attend an after Christmas party on lies. However, at the time I made the decision I did not know they were lies. I found out the night before the party that she had lied and it was too late for her to call them. Therefore, I decided to take her to the party and let her explain in person why she was unable to stay. I asked her to preplan what she was going to say and then I let her practice on me. I told her not to worry about messing up because I would be... more