Posted By: Elisabeth Wilkins, EP Editor
Category: Social Events, Stress, Younger Children
Comments: 11
Last month, I received the invitation that all parents dread. I knew this day was coming: The Chuck E. Cheese Birthday Party.
The worst part was, there was no way to get out of it — the birthday girl was one of my son’s best friends from pre-school, and his future bride, according to both of them.
So I did what any good mom would do. I grit my teeth and emailed back my reply: “Of course we’ll be there! Alex is so excited.”
As the day approached, I had flashbacks to two prior parties at this frenetic, migraine-inducing establishment. At the first, I lost my son in the habitrail tunnel for a good 30 minutes. (He was purposely blocking up the pipe like some kind of toddler hair clump.) And at the second, a random child vomited pizza on my feet. You know how when someone yawns, it makes everyone around them yawn? Uh huh. You get the picture.
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Posted By: Dr. Joan
Category: Helicopter Parents, Parenting Skills, School, Stress
Comments: 15
As most of you know, I usually write about issues facing parents of young children for EP, but this past week something happened with my middle schooler that gave me pause. My son participated in the annual science fair, which in itself is not remarkable. What was remarkable was how many projects were clearly accomplished by the parents, and not the children. As I walked through the school gym looking at the winners, I started wondering how many projects and assignments kids really do on their own nowadays. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not talking about parents helping, coaching, or even correcting their kids work. I’m talking about parents taking on their children’s assignments as their own, and letting their kids take a back seat.
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Posted By: Matt and Julie Hellstrom
Category: Anxiety, Stress, Teens
Comments: 8
Being a parent of a teenager is inherently stressful – I think the words “teenager” and “stress” are actually synonyms – and any way you can figure out how to prevent stress while dealing with your kids is a huge help. As the adoptive parents of five kids, we’ve found that stress management is key to parental survival!
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Posted By: Elisabeth Wilkins, EP Editor
Category: Acting-out Behavior, Holidays, Stress, Swearing and Name-calling
Comments: 8
In the midst of a manic shopping spree last week, I found myself panicking. You see, this year I failed in my holiday duties miserably.
All my five year old son asked Santa for was a dinosaur tent. As tradition dictates, I frantically raced from store to store looking for it – to no avail. (When I finally checked online back at home, they said it had been discontinued. Argh.) I found myself shouting like a rabid chipmunk over the phone to my cool-as-a-cucumber husband, who was unmoved by the lack of dino tents in North America.
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Posted By: Annita Woz
Category: Holidays, Stress
Comments: 6
I’m not sure that the word “stress” should be allowed to take so much credit for all the magical hubbub going on around us at this time of year.
Balancing our holiday parties, gift giving, visiting with relatives and spending time putting in batteries can be viewed as stress or as LIVING! How about a perspective shift?
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Posted By: James Lehman, MSW
Category: Holidays, Stress
Comments: 3
As parents, it’s easy to focus on the kids and lose sight of ourselves and our needs as adults at this time of year. So, when we look at how to manage family and behavior problems during the holidays, we need to look at the effect the season has on us and on our kids. We are often overwhelmed by the amount of work we need to get done on the job and the amount of pressure we feel due to social obligations at this time of year. Add in the stress of gift buying (especially in divorced and blended families) and we feel a tremendous emotional fatigue—which means we have fewer emotional resources with which to manage our kids. The whole thing can become a cycle of stress.
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