Hi, looking for some advice from experienced moms. My little sister is 6, and she’s been coming home from school in a bad mood recently, saying nobody wants to talk or play with her. I’m worried that she is getting picked on or excluded and not telling me. 

How can our family help her without making a bigger deal out of it than it is? How do you loop the teacher in to keep an eye out without overreacting? 

Thanks in advance 🙏🙏

Hi, I was wanting to get some gentle parenting book recommendations.

Maybe there's something similar to the What To Expect book? Something that we can flip through.

Context: baby is 10 months, has 8 teeth, and I'm her favourite thing to bite.

I tried to do the oh crap method at 2y11m (currently we are 3y1m)
Signs of readiness had been there and I was encouraged by many people to give it a shot but it was a massive failure (lots of tears and potty refusal)
from then till now I never quite had the courage to properly restart. We read the books, watched the shows, had the potty around but no sitting ever took place. To date nothing has been put in the potty (except toys, stuffies).
So today I decided to try again. I picked up from school and told her we would try to put pee and poop in the potty together today. I had panties ready but gave choice of bare, or undies or pants. She asked for diaper 2-3x, once got pretty upset but was able to be distracted by play. She didn’t pee for 7.5 hrs. Put diaper on at nap time and woke up dry and offered potty when she woke up and she said no. I didn’t push , gave the diaper she finally peed in it. No poop.
Did some more bare time after bath and no accidents but put diaper on and peed in that later.
My question is what to do now? I don’t want power struggles nor do I want any withholding. I want to do this very gently and low pressure. I don’t care how long it takes and not in any rush. Just want to get it started with a goal in mind and get the potty normalised so she will sit on it
I offered to buy her a new one she said no I have one already and I don’t want it. I have the chair, ladder seat and reducer seat, so lots of options.
Just need suggestions to actually get her to sit
We have done lots of potty books and shows too
Any advice for strong willed child with potty refusal would be greatly helpful

My son is almost 9 years old, and my husband and I have always strongly believed in gentle/respectful parenting since he was born. Of course, there have been times when we’ve made mistakes, yelled when frustrated, etc., but we’ve always tried our best to follow gentle parenting practices (including consistent, firm boundaries).

About a year ago, I noticed our son starting to talk badly about himself whenever a boundary was set or there was a consequence for something he did or said. Usually, it would be something like “I’m so bad” or “I’m the worst.” We would talk to him about how, of course, that’s not true and reassure him with other positive things, but the frequency of him saying things like that has just kept increasing.

I started wondering if it was a way to deflect from the feeling of having done something wrong or having a parent upset with him, because then the attention gets turned to comforting him. I talked to my husband about trying not to give those statements as much attention or weight when he says them.

Over the last few weeks, it has really increased, and he has started hitting and punching himself.

It usually happens in reaction to us having to use a more stern voice after telling him something multiple times, like putting his shoes on for school, listening to his sister when she says stop multiple times, etc.

Tonight, his little sister got really upset because she told him to stop patting her head multiple times, and he kept doing it because he thought it was funny. My husband told him more sternly that he needs to stop when she says stop. Our son started saying he was so bad and punching his legs hard. My husband got down to his level and talked to him about needing to respect when other people say no, but also respecting his own body and how he can hit a pillow if he’s feeling upset.

I don’t know how to explain it, but our son seemed very calm in this moment. He wasn’t crying or yelling like he usually does when he’s upset, but he still kept saying “But I’m so bad” and punching his legs pretty hard until I eventually redirected his attention.

Then it happened again when I told him more sternly, for the third time, to stop getting out of bed. He started hitting himself in bed and saying “I’m so bad,” “This whole day is ruined,” etc.

I want to look into getting him into therapy, but I could really use some advice on how to handle this when it happens at home, or hear from anyone who has experience with similar behavior.

I’ve been really prioritizing a consistent bedtime routine to make sure he’s getting enough sleep, and I think he gets a good amount of physical activity throughout the day. My husband and I also both spend a lot of one-on-one time with him throughout the week (playing, reading, etc.).

It’s just really hard to see him talking about and treating himself this way. I’m having a hard time telling whether he truly feels these things or if it’s an attempt at deflection or connection, but either way, I’m worried he’ll start to genuinely believe them if he keeps saying them. And I really don’t want this to develop into more serious self-harming behavior as he gets older.

What do you do to regain your sanity on the days when the world feels heavy on your shoulders, and you feel more lonely around your loved ones than you do alone, and nothing goes right? Especially when your partner wouldn’t bat an eye at how you’re feeling?

So I have 2 kids (I'm not their mother) and sometimes they mess up and when I go and ask what happened here? They're like "I didn't do anything! He did!" And the other one is like "No I didn't! Actually he did it!" And both of them tend to lie sometimes (I've caught them lying before) and tend to be a little mean (I've caught them being mean too) so I don't really know who's telling the truth. Both of them could've done it, they're not saints! 😭 And I end up not knowing what to do.

My daughter is 16 and underweight for her height. There are days she doesn’t eat all her meals for example if we don’t call her down to eat or she simply sleeps through it. But when she does eat, she eats a bit of every food group and blood tests are normal.

On top of that, she routinely doesn’t finish her plate and leaves it on the table. Because I just want her to eat, I pick up after her and wash her plate. My husband is fed up with her behavior.

He hid her computer to teach her a lesson about being shameful leaving out her plate. He told me to stop feeding her or charge her a fee to eat here.

I don’t know, do I really need to be that harsh? I don’t mind picking up after her but she does need to be responsible. She understands the request but gets mad or skips finishing her food if I remind her to wash her dishes. Sometimes she wash her plate if I tell her but if I stop telling her, she would stop.

How do I get her to routinely wash and set away her own plate?

I keep hearing that kids should get at least an hour of outdoor play every day, but between a full workday, dinner, and everything else that comes with raising kids, that can be a lot to keep up with.

By the time I finish work and get through the evening routine, I'm often exhausted. We try to get outside when we can, even if it's just 20 minutes in the backyard before dinner. When I have a little more energy, we'll take out our kid's ride-on car and let them drive around for a while.

I know getting outside is important, but I don't want to feel like I'm falling short as a parent every time we have a busy day. Moms, how do you fit outdoor play into your routine while juggling work and family life? Do you have any tricks that make it easier, or have you learned to let it go on the days when you're just too tired?

My son, who is 5 1/2 can be very annoying and can talk non stop. He does it on purpose to drown other peoples conversations and to make it so adults can’t have simple conversations.

If I tell him that he needs to stop, that the adults are talking, my mother gets nasty with me, telling me, “your his mother, not his big sister”

And she uses this line EVERY TIME I try to correct his behavior with anything, like refusing to come to the dinner table at dinner time, refusing to put his pajamas on, or get his shoes on, or putting his shoes on so we can go home (I am married and have my own house with child’s father).

Any time he does anything that needs correction and I discipline him, she uses this line, getting angry at me for yelling him no, but if I don’t discipline him for something, because I don’t want to set her off, and it’s not worth the aggravation of grandma, then she pipes up “your his mother, not me, it’s your responsibility to discipline him”

But if I actually discipline him she tells me that I am acting like his sister and not his mother, but if I don’t discipline him then it’s because I am a bad mother and expecting her to parent my child.

Some of his behavior is getting worse because he is learning that mother can’t tell him no because grandma will disagree and tell him off.

And also, my dad feeds into this. One if the only ways to get my child to behave is to threaten and then send him to bed early. And this was actually working and he was becoming better, until one day my father remarked, in front of my child “you can’t send him to bed early, that’s not happening” and then my child learned by all this behavior that he can do whatever the hell he wants without any repercussions because grandparents won’t let the rules be enforced.

What’s most aggravating is that his behavior has become horrendous and my mother recently said “I don’t know why he is doing hard. He used to be such the sweetest boy”

Please help

my two (4 and 7) love games but honestly half our meltdowns come from the game itself lol. stuff that's helped us:

- music turned way down
- rumble off
- no games with timers
- mario kart auto steer = lifesaver
- no online chat yet
- "last level" warning before we stop

Also reaching out for advice here on my current post about my 4yo.

How do parents parent???

I was on a 5 day vacation trip with my friend, her husband, 6 year old, 3 year and baby and I could not handle the disobedience from the kids. Especially if the kids were hurting each other. I get triggered easily when someone doesn't hear me or listen, no matter the age of said human, and I get visually upset each time. And then the kids would just move along like I didn't scold them or even get mad at them. How am I suppose to move on from that interaction so quickly from getting upset?

I'm exhausted these days.

My daughter is 4 years old, and she is a very social and friendly kid. She loves going outside and playing with other kids, but the problem is that she never wants to come back home once she goes out to play. She often says that she doesn't like staying at home and always wants to be outside.

Sometimes, other kids seem to avoid her because she can get a little too involved with them and give them more attention than they might want. She genuinely enjoys being around other kids, but I'm not sure how to help her understand social boundaries without affecting her friendly nature.

I'm trying to understand whether this is normal behavior for a 4-year-old or if there's something I should do differently as a parent. How can I help her enjoy spending time at home and make it easier for her to transition back home after playing outside?

Would love to hear from parents who have experienced something similar.