Tag Archives: Advice

Reader’s Guide to Parenting

Short of a personal trainer, an industrial strength leash, a never empty coffee pot, and an ironclad agreement with the relatives to babysit every weekend, you know what would make this whole parenting thing a whole lot easier? A book or better yet a whole library to tell you what was coming and what to do once you got there. Motherhood doesn’t just change your pants size, your shoe size, and your selection at Victoria’s Secret, Motherhood changes EVERYTHING. And then it keeps on changing. ALL. THE. TIME. You will just get your parenting stride at a stage, and your little darling is sprinting on to the next one. So we took some inspiration from classic books and children’s books to mark some milestones of childhood for you. Think of this as the Cliff’s Notes Reader’s Guide to Parenting. Some fanfare, please . . .

1. War and Peace

The First Year

Now Erin has never actually read this book, but we heard that it concerns Russia. The title conjures what it feels like in the trenches of your first year with a new baby. It’s either bliss. . . or bombs raining down on you. Prepare to be delighted, completely decimated, and so deprived of sleep you could put on your husband’s underwear and think it’s your own or fall asleep mid-sentence. Not that either of these things has ever happened to either of us.

Looking for a short, sweet, simple guide to parenting? We found a whole library of books that provide a Cliff's Note primer to childhood that should make this whole motherhood gig a little easier | Sisterhood of the Sensible Moms

2. What Do People Do All Day?

The Second Year

Hope you like naming aloud everything you own, see, think, hear, feel, smell, flush down the toilet, etc. because that’s what baby likes. Oh, that’s not for me, you say, my kid’s just chillin’. Well, we say that clearly you have never been at the mercy of a newly mobile but vocabulary-limited tot. YET. They jonez for this stuff like miniature meth addicts cut off from their supplier. Buy every oversized, ridiculously detailed book you can find now to assuage the tiny beasts. Richard Scarry knows. He’s the toddler-whisperer.

Looking for a short, sweet, simple guide to parenting? We found a whole library of books that provide a Cliff's Note primer to childhood that should make this whole motherhood gig a little easier | Sisterhood of the Sensible Moms

Oh, and they run. A lot. This is when they start the sprinting.

3. Where the Wild Things Are

The Third and Fourth Year AKA The Terrible/Terrific Twos and Threes

These kids are adorable but nuts with a little extra nutty on top. Every time we think back to when our houses were ruled by these fickle tyrants, there is a little catch in our throats. We do miss our ladies who dressed as princesses or ladybugs every day and our lads bedecked in boots and capes. But it’s a dog-eat-dog world in the Land of Tod and we’ll give you three guesses who’s their favorite meal. Come to think of it, Lord of the Flies works for this stage too.

4. Interrupting Chicken

The Funny Fabulous Fact-Filled Four Year Old

Erin is 100% convinced that she did not have her attention issues until she had to parent a 4 year old—FIVE TIMES! No sentences are finished, no thoughts completed, no work is done. The four year old runs the place like a miniature Napoleon or Attila the Hun and the only consistent thing he or she is serving up is questions. Note: When the 4 year old inevitably asks you where babies come from or why you and Daddy like to wrestle, deflect, defer, and lie your pants off. You have plenty of time to pay for future counseling.

5. Brave New World

Kindergarten

This stage marks the end of an era and the beginning of a new one, so all that sniffling and carrying on you’re going to do is totally justified. Your baby belongs to the great big world now. And it’s a beautiful, terrible, amazing, nauseating, wondrous sight to see.

6. The Call of the Wild

Early Elementary School

Seriously, kids at this age are powered by sheer force of will and their wily, wily ways. If we could harness it, we would solve the world’s energy needs. Oh, yeah, and they are full throttle without the benefit of forethought or reason. Invest in Band-Aids and mecurochrome and wine.

7. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde

Late Elementary School

As a pre-cursor to the full-blown hormonal onslaught headed your way, Mother Nature gives you a little tapas of what’s to come. Honestly, a lot of the angst comes from having one foot in the Land of the Little Kid and the other in the Acreage of Adolescence, but that doesn’t mean that this stage isn’t sometimes going to keep you up at night or wrangling with each other during the day.

8. Something Wicked This Way Comes

Middle School

Too dramatic? Maybe, especially when we both actually enjoy our Middle Schoolers and Erin loves teaching this age group. But storms are a-comin’, so you need to be ready to ride them out when they come AND to enjoy the calm seas in between the blow-ups.

9. Catch-22

Early Teen

Your tongue might actually hurt from all the times you will hold it. Happy, successful parenting with teens is all about choosing your battles, so often times you may get caught in senseless, absurd situations. We’ll take those over the scary stuff that also sometimes comes with the teen years, but none of it is easy. And <sniff>, you do sense your time together is shortening.

10. Great Expectations

Late Teen

Your baby’s getting ready to spread his or her wings, so there is great talk about the future and plans and what happens next. It’s all exciting and scary and nothing at all like what you imagined when you started this journey, oh so many moons ago.

And you will wonder how you got here so fast.

And then you’ll remember. Oh, the sprinting.

jump

Don’t say we didn’t warn you!

-Erin and Ellen

Looking for a Cliff’s Notes version of this #motherhood gig? The Reader’s Guide to #Parenting!

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10 Things to Tell Your Kid Before High School

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If you are one of the many filling out high school course loads for next year, we know you have a laundry list of things to tell your kid before high school. But long before you get into the heavy conversations about expectations and goals, light years before the talks about peer pressure and all its attendant things, and eons before the conversations about college, first things first. Freshman year will work a morphing magic like no other on your sweet child. Even while your head knows that you are now looking up at your darling boy, your heart is gonna be slow to catch up. To avoid a nasty Tuesday morning kick in the feels from the Facebook Memory feature next year, it’s best to remember that kids sprint at extra zulu warp speed through this year. If you want to keep up, you have to be prepared.

Moving from middle school to high school can be daunting. Here are 10 things for parents to talk about with tweens and teens as they move up | Parenting Advice | Sisterhood of the Sensible Moms

First reaction: deep down soul level joy. I mean, come on, this is GOLD. Second reaction: Dude, where did that baby boy go?

With this sprinting in mind, remember that the easy time you have shared up to now is about to shrink into fleeting, flashing moments too. High school busy is a whole new brand of busy and you won’t believe it until you are living it. But thanks to those pesky hormones, the moments you do have will not all be precious either. So as we just crossed two more kids over into high school, we thought we would share some of the things we talk about when we talk about high school. If you are crossing a kid over into high school, this might help you. Moving from middle school to high school can be daunting. Here are 10 things for parents to talk about with tweens and teens as they move up | Parenting Advice | Sisterhood of the Sensible Moms

1. TV/Movie High School bears little resemblance to the actual halls you will walk for the next four years.

Our kids, and our girls in particular, feel that media has let them down. There are pressures for sure, but they are not so finely drawn or amped up as when Disney depicts them. Are there cliques? Absolutely. Do they look like Mean Girls? We wish it was that obvious to find the rotten apple in the bunch. The truth is that high school relationships look a lot like adult relationships and sometimes they won’t know when their friend will turn on them. On the other hand, high school friends can be some of the most important ones they’ll ever make. Finding the people who will walk with them as they make that transition from kid to adult might be one of the highlights of their high school years. Or not. Best to set realistic expectations before they even walk through the front door.

2. Plan their escape route before they need one.

The time for solving problems is before you actually have them. We both tell our kids to throw us under the bus if necessary. In Erin’s family, they pull the old “my mom would kill me/won’t let me/said no” trick. Kids bow before a mean, crazy mom. The offenders will back off and your kid gets off scot-free. We also advocate pulling a “sick kid” when the need arises. If our kids are at a party that’s headed south, they can text “sick kid” and they will get a pick-up. All conversations about the situation will be delayed until everyone is “feeling better”.

3. Trust is earned.

Love is unconditional, but trust is not. A casual lie about having cleaned your room when it takes all of three seconds and one whiff to verify that this is in fact not even passingly true? Worse than not cool, it erodes trust. Hit hard on the notion that casual lying when the truth would suit them better makes it really hard to believe them when the stakes are higher.

4. High School is a great time to explore and try new things.

Let them know that they can try new and different things or even put on old familiar ones and take it to the next level. High school is about finding new friends, interests, passions, and most importantly, uncovering who they really are. We are all about encouraging them to try on different hats.

Moving from middle school to high school can be daunting. Here are 10 things for parents to talk about with tweens and teens as they move up | Parenting Advice | Sisterhood of the Sensible Moms

5. Be your best self.

One of the challenges of parenting teens is that they can look lazy, insolent, disengaged, and apathetic. Don’t get sucked into the labeling trap. These are masks for things like fear and anxiety. Remind teens daily of your expectations and be ready with consequences when they are not met.

6. Safety first.

In both of our homes, we talk candidly about what that means in all aspects of their lives. This includes hard talks about dating, sex, alcohol, and everything else. The stakes are so high that they need honest information from us as well as opportunities to ask questions and get answers. We rely heavily on facts and have adopted “all questions welcomed” policies. With our oldest kids in college or headed there, we are not above giving advice whether they ask for it or not. And we definitely send up prayers like this or this in hopes of graceful passage through this phase of life. Sometimes, we even get a little mushy as the big milestones hit, but that’s a mom’s perogative and we’re taking it.

Before the pretty pictures, about 5,000 conversations need to happen first.

7. Encourage the buddy system.

Two Jiminy Crickets are better than one, so encourage kids to travel in twos everywhere. Boy or girl, there is safety in numbers. In a pair of buddies, usually one of them is able to put the brakes on something unsafe or get help or call foul.

8. The life you are supposed to have will not pass you by.

Good or bad, all of these high school experiences are building the uniquely awesome story that belongs uniquely to them. Even if things don’t always turn out the way they hoped, there is value in the experience.

9. Dream Big, but Work Hard

Frame the future realistically. Some things will come easy for them and others won’t. Ellen’s go-to t-shirt motto is “Hard work beats talent when talent hardly works.” Pretty much sums it up. If you are talented, you need to bring your A game. Every Day. If you have struggles, you can beat them with hard work and determination. Now is a great time to start thinking about post high school plans and plotting steps to make that plan happen.

Moving from middle school to high school can be daunting. Here are 10 things for parents to talk about with tweens and teens as they move up | Parenting Advice | Sisterhood of the Sensible Moms

10. Get Moving

High school life got your kid down? Boyfriend troubles making you all glum? AP anxiety got the whole family tied up in knots? Take this show on the road. Tell your kids right now that putting one foot in front of the other is the first step to getting over whatever obstacle lies before them. We have no idea why putting one foot in front of the other works, but it does. It is also a great way to get the conversation flowing between you. And chances are when you get your kid talking, it won’t just be about high school or classes or stresses but about what really matters: you and your kid. Moving from middle school to high school can be daunting. Here are 10 things for parents to talk about with tweens and teens as they move up | Parenting Advice | Sisterhood of the Sensible Moms

In all honesty, high school is a juggernaut on fast forward.

Best of luck in this exciting new phase!

-Erin and Ellen

10 Things to Tell Your Kid before They Go to High School #teens #parenting

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Dear Perfect Toddler Parent

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Dear Perfect Toddler Parent - Feeling a tad self-righteous about your little angel? Here's a few wee things to consider before throwing judgement around. | Parenting Advice with Humor | Sisterhood of the Sensible Moms Dear Perfect Toddler Parent,

We’re going to assume right off the bat you only have the one child. Because frankly speaking, the chances of having multiple “Sucker Babies” are as likely as our minivans ever getting cleaned out. As if.

What’s that you say? All of your toddlers are or were perfect? Then the stars shone brightly upon you, my friend. Immediately play their combined birthdays on a lottery ticket. However, do NOT under any circumstance write a parenting book. The hate mail would make Darth Vader weep.

What’s a Sucker Baby? You’ve never heard your pediatrician use that term? A Sucker Baby is that mild child who spurs first-time parents to innocently share such irritating proclamations as “Feeding is never a problem. When I want him to breastfeed, he nurses, but when I need him to take a bottle, he never refuses.”

Then there is this eye-roll inducing classic: “Napping? That’s never an issue. Why, I just tell him to lay down and he closes his eyes.” We know this is a thing because Erin was guilty of this one, but don’t worry, she followed up with four more kids. She’s been duly adjusted.

Notice the common denominator of “never”? You know what “never” is? It’s the devil’s stink bomb. It’s that sneaky ass Norwalk virus lingering on the public restroom door handle that will transform your household into Calcutta. It’s that cop lurking behind the Dunkin’ Donuts billboard where the speed limit plummets meteorically from 55 to 35. You’re not going to see it coming, but it’s going to take you down.

Now if your Sucker Baby was not first in the birth order, this letter isn’t really for you. If you’re like Ellen, you KNOW you are blessed with this bundle of docile and you are not passing judgments on ANYONE because you have already walked through the Valley of the Spirited Child. However, if the stork brought your bundle of serene first, like Erin, you may be under the impression you got this shizz handled, just like Custer . . . before his LAST Stand.

Well, we got your other side of the Sucker Baby coin . . . and the battle scars to prove it. Here are the differences.

It begins in infancy . . .

As you peacefully dine at a restaurant with your bundle of joy slumbering in her infant carrier, you notice a frantic woman attempting to nurse her screaming banshee as her food congeals into a lump of nasty. When she dashes to the restroom to mop the spit-up from her hair and her spouse sprints to the car for the magic binkie, their waiter stops by your table explaining the restaurant is taking up a collection to pay their bill to get them OUT NOW. (Ellen wishes the part happened where they paid for her meal.)

And continues into toddlerhood . . .

Playgroups for you mean relaxing over a cup of coffee as you tsk-tsk at the mother on For-The-Love-Of-All-That-Is-Holy-Don’t-Break-Anything duty. Whether it’s blocking the seven foot tall bookcase deathtrap or diverting from the precious glass curio case filled with Lladro, she is on her toes. But bonus for her, she is sweating off the baby weight. (Or at least that is the delusion Ellen used to soothe herself to sleep with at night once upon a time.)

You may have been the pious one to look some frantic mom in the eye and utter, “You may want to take a break from playgroup until you can control your child better.” (Hmmm, maybe you should be afraid because Erin never forgets a face.) Moving on . . .

You think you know tantrums? If you’ve never abandoned a full cart of groceries and dragged a flailing child out of the store by her heels because your 8 and 98/100 months pregnant self couldn’t get a grip on her, then you’re not Ellen. Although Erin has everyone beat. She was told by a priest “God will understand if you take a break from church.” (Erin got a coupon for half off her next exorcism, so really, it was a wash).

So let’s make this clear. If you have never experienced parenting on the beaten-down side of the above scenarios, then you need to keep your advice to yourself. Your little “Ignore the bad and praise the good and they will realize they get more attention for the good behavior,” or your recommendation to simply say “I can’t understand you when you’re whining” is no good here. Those are fighting words to a spirited child and you risk altitude sickness from how quickly things will escalate. This is a different level of child who requires a different level of fortitude. Your advice works, just not for these little ones. We know because we’ve been on both sides of the equation.

Here’s the only advice these frazzled parents of the less than perfectly behaved toddlers need: Make your boundaries and STICK TO THEM like industrial strength Velcro because the payoff will come in the teen years. These folks deserve sympathy and kind smiles because it is HARD to stand your ground when you are getting battered every. single. day. by a terrorist with a Napoleon complex and rudimentary communications skills. Most of these parents could also use wine. Or a beer. At the very least, go get them a grocery cart when they’re struggling into the store.

We’ll let you in on a secret, too. Those willful little terrorists transform into some very fine citizens with some very desirable traits such as not following the crowd and thinking outside the box. Just because a sprite is asked to leave story time, does not mean she is destined for the Hoodlum Highway.

So let’s all remember that every child is different. Oh, and keep on your toes. While a little rebel is creating a diversion, your little angel could be sneaking over the line without you ever noticing.

We just thought we would give you a chance to shed your McJudgy pants before Karma came along and delivered you a swift kick in them.

Your friends,