Search Results for: blog watch out for overreacting

Watch Out for Overreacting

I know that the tendency to overreact in the parenting department is not the sole property of the single parent, but I also think that with only one of at the head of the household, we do not have someone else to balance us out or help us get calm about things before we unleash on our children. Not to mention that stress and exhaustion can make it tough to see things clearly and with any sort of distance or perspective. As single parents, therefore, I do think we need to be careful to get our bearings before we respond … Continue reading →

The Parent Precipice

My period was a day late this month. I know that shouldn’t be a big deal at all, but I’m prone to worrying about the littlest things, so yeah, even though the rational part of my brain knew I was overreacting – it was only a day – I couldn’t help but fret. I’d sort of asked for it; a small part in the back of my brain wanted something to go wrong with my pills, so the decision of whether or not to have kids yet would be taken out of my hands. In the first two years or … Continue reading →

Disciplining Your Child: Some Ways Work Better Than Others

I would love to think that time-outs were the ideal disciplining method to curb unruly behavior and bad attitudes, but sometimes they are not. They are a good first method to try and hopefully it will work. It does not harm the child physically. It is also not too harmful regarding their self-esteem. Once the time-out is over and done the previous activity can resume. I tried time-outs many times. I was hoping that it would eventually work. It did somewhat, but not as well as I had hoped it would. Initially, time-outs were me holding my child in his … Continue reading →

My Homeschool History

People often ask me how I got in to homeschooling. The answer is simple –it’s how I was raised. My parents started their home school when I was a baby. My sisters were having difficulty in their public school settings. The two oldest were getting propositioned in the hallways, and the sister next in line was struggling so much in her third grade class, she was getting ulcers. Each day when my sisters came home from school, they were nervous wrecks, and my mom was at her wits’ end to know what to do. She began to notice a pattern. … Continue reading →

When Peanut Butter Became the Enemy – Part 2

Read part 1 of this account of my son’s first major allergic reaction here. After about 24 hours and multiple doses of Benedryl, the last of the hives slowly disappeared, leaving us only with a frightful memory of the allergic reaction and a mission to find out the severity and scope of his allergies. We wondered, what else was he allergic to? Could the next reaction be fatal? Fortunately, his one-year well baby visit was that week, so we decided to deal with it at that visit. His pediatrician referred us to an allergist. The wait time was over a … Continue reading →

How To Calm Those Delivery Fears

If you are nearing the end of your pregnancy and you find that each Braxton Hicks contraction is making you cringe at the thought of a real one, it may be time to unwind and relax. Labor hurts, it’s true, but it’s not something to be afraid of. Getting stressed about your impending delivery will have no impact on the pain. Worrying about the pain won’t make it go away. That said, you might as well make the most of your final weeks, by enjoying the quiet nights and free time that you will undoubtedly miss once your bundle of … Continue reading →

Try Not to Overreact at Mistakes and Stumbles

As much as I would sometimes like them to, things do not go perfectly around here. My kids will do really well in some areas and then stumble in others; I will set expectations that are rather unreasonable, and then be disappointed when we fumble. As a single parent, it is a constant battle and lesson for me to remind myself that lessons are learned through mistakes and I need to temper my reactions. For me, I can get wound so tight that I over-react when my kids (or myself) make mistakes and things don’t go as planned. The only … Continue reading →

Social Drama, Part Three–When it All Falls Apart

As I have been writing this series on the challenges of growing children and the pressures of their “social life,” I have been focusing on things we can do as parents to help them build strong social skills and bolster them against some of the pain and drama. Regardless of how much of that we do, however, there is a very good chance that at least once in their growing up years, our children will suffer at the hands of bullies, mean social cliques, get ousted from a social group, or experience their own transformation and decide to choose different … Continue reading →

Dealing with Invisible Demons and Made-Up Problems

There are plenty of real life dragons for all of us to wrestle with—single parents and partnered parents alike—so many, in fact, that I think it can be a good thing periodically if we ask ourselves if we are wrestling with real issues or if we are clinging to long-gone or invisible demons or are spending our energy working on problems we have actually made up ourselves. I know this might not be a very popular way to look at things, but sometimes we single parents might be clinging to outdated modes of thinking about our lives and/or fighting battles … Continue reading →

Behind-the-Scenes Drama at “Dancing with the Stars”

Drama. Drama. Drama. From Marie collapsing to the Samantha Harris/Drew Lachey debate, “Dancing with the Stars” is not lacking for primetime drama. And forget about what’s taking place on the dance floor in front of millions, it appears the really juicy events are transpiring behind the scenes. In this corner… professional dancer (and Jane Seymour’s partner) often moody Tony Dovolani. And in this corner… persnickety judge Carrie Ann Inaba. Let’s get ready to rumble! According to show sources, Dovolani has come out swinging at Inaba. The pro dancer is still irate with Inaba’s call (the one she made weeks ago) … Continue reading →