ONLINE PARENTING COACH

The following suggestions can make the process of divorce less painful for children, teenagers, and families. Honesty, sensitivity, self-control, and time itself will help the healing process. Be patient! Not everyone's timetable is the same. 1. Encourage children to openly discuss their feelings — positive or negative — about what's happening. It's important for divorcing — and already divorced — parents to sit down with their children and encourage them to say what they're thinking and feeling. But you'll need to keep this separate from your own feelings. Most often, kids experience a sense of loss of family and may blame you or the other parent — or both — for what is going on in their lives. So, you'll really need to be prepared to answer questions your children might raise or to address their concerns. Make talking about the divorce and how it's affecting your children an ongoing process. As children get older and become more mature, they...

Moms and dads expect temper tantrums from a 2-year-old, but angry outbursts don't necessarily stop after the toddler years. Older children sometimes have trouble handling anger and frustration, too. Some children only lose their cool on occasion, but others seem to have a harder time when things don't go their way. Children who tend to have strong reactions by nature will need more help from moms and dads to manage their tempers. Here are 20 "temper-taming tips” for the "strong-willed" child: 1. By the time you arrive at the scene of the fight, you may be at the end of your own rope. After all, the sound of screaming is upsetting, and you may be frustrated that your children aren't sharing or trying to get along. (And you know that this toy they're fighting over is going to be lost, broken, or ignored before long anyway!). In these situations, the best thing to do is for you to maintain your own self-control intact. Teaching by example is your...

Parents are naturally a bit anxious when first leaving children without supervision, but you can feel prepared and confident with some planning and a couple of trial runs. Handled well, staying home alone can be a positive experience for children, helping them gain a sense of independence and confidence. It's obvious that a 4-year-old can't go it alone, but that a 15-year-old probably can. But what should you do about those school-aged children in between? It can be difficult to know when children are ready to handle being home alone. Ultimately, it comes down to your judgment about what your youngster is ready for. You'll want to know how your youngster feels about the idea, of course. But children often insist that they'll be fine long before moms and dads feel comfortable with it. And then there are older children who seem afraid even when you're pretty confident that they'd be just fine. So how do you know? In general, it's not a good i...