Selina Carter, RCC

03/08/2025

❤️ this from Kelly Mahler

Massive lens shift here! And desperately needed!

04/04/2022

“Parents are not to blame because they’re reacting anxiously to a hyper-competitive world with ferocious academic pressures, runaway inequality and technological innovations like social media that propagate unrealistic ideals of how we should appear and perform.

Parents are placing excessive expectations on their children because they think, correctly, that society demands it or their children will fall down the social ladder. It’s ultimately not about parents recalibrating their expectations. It’s about society—our economy, education system and supposed meritocracy—recognizing that the pressures we’re putting on young people and their families are unnecessarily overwhelming."

"Parents can help their children navigate societal pressures in a healthy way by....."

Rising parental expectations and criticism are linked to an increase in perfectionism among college students, which can have damaging mental health consequences.

03/01/2022

"Understanding a bit about how kids perceive the world in each phase of their development helps you deliver information about it in the most age-appropriate way. Of course, every child brings his or her own sensitivities, temperament, experience and other individual traits to any conversation. So use your best judgment as to how your child tends to takes in information to determine how deep to go."

For 2-year-olds to teenagers.

10/25/2021

Yes! 👇
From Institute of Child Psychology

Children’s behaviour is always communication. So often we punish the behaviour, without taking the time to really question what is going on underneath. What is your child telling you? Do they need more connection? Less stimulation? More consistent limits? More sleep? Let’s stop punishing and instead start really identifying and working with the underlying need.

10/20/2021

"Squid Game, the gruesomely violent South Korean series that’s become a Netflix megahit, is clearly not appropriate for children. But that isn’t stopping many kids from being exposed to it."

A reminder of how important it is to not only monitor, but really examine, the type of digital media content our young children & teens are consuming.

The Netflix murder-fest is clearly inappropriate for children, but they are being exposed to it anyway. And teenagers are drawn to dystopian fiction. What parents can do.

10/16/2021

"A parenting mantra to tuck in your pocket:

So many problems can be avoided if we respond with L.O.V.E. instead of reacting in haste…

💞Listen - “I hear you.”
💞Observe - “I see you.”
💞Validate - “I accept you.”
💞Empathize - “I understand you.”

Found on L.R.Knost - Little Hearts/Gentle Parenting Resources

Children are whole people.
They are separate individuals.
They are humans with problems
and plans and goals and opinions
and preferences and interests
and wants and needs and feelings
and good days and bad days and ideas
and anxieties and hopes and fears
and dreams and disappointments that are
just
as
valid
as
ours.
🌱
Give them space to grow and explore.
🌱
Help them if and when they ask for help.
🌱
Encourage them when they struggle.
🌱
Support them when they fail.
🌱
And guide them gently
when they get off course.
🌱
Love is the answer
to every question,
every problem,
every challenge.
🌱
Love is always the answer.
🌱
That is the heart of peaceful,
gentle, respectful parenting.
- L.R.Knost

🌻 🌻 🌻
A parenting mantra to tuck in your pocket:

So many problems can be avoided if we respond with L.O.V.E. instead of reacting in haste…

💞Listen - “I hear you.”
💞Observe - “I see you.”
💞Validate - “I accept you.”
💞Empathize - “I understand you.”

Remember, a need met is a problem solved. Responding with love restores peace — to your relationship, to your child, and to yourself.
-L.R.Knost
________________________________

🌻Peaceful parenting resources: http://t.co/T8goym3P6Z
________________________________
📷

——————————————————

www.LRKnost.com

Fighting a rare, incurable cancer, but I'm still here!💞 L.R.

09/09/2021

Found on TimberNook

It's important to remember that we don't always need to entertain children. ❤

"We are a society afraid of boredom. We are addicted to entertainment and the stimulation of certain neuro centers in the brain. We are losing the ability to just be.

When we deny our children their God-given right to boredom, we are restricting their development.

Do you remember the hours you spent in boredom as a child? We would daydream in the waiting room, stare at the dust motes dancing in the sunlight, invent new games, draw, read, create, research. We were building important neuro pathways. Did we whine to our parents that we were bored? Of course! But we quickly learned that this would only lead to chores or being forced outside regardless of temperature or weather.

When we had a question, there was no Google. We had to ask another person, look it up in a book, or, gasp, ruminate on it until we found the answer within our own brains. We developed common sense and logic, because we were experiencing the world firsthand and engaging our problem solving.

So, don’t be afraid of boredom! Every generation before this one has had to learn to live with it. And they have benefited because of it.

Give your children the gift of boredom." - Homeschooling with the Classics

08/25/2021

Found on All thats left unsaid.

4 yrs later and this is what I needed

05/02/2021

Useful checklist to help challenge and reframe negative thought patterns.
Via WholeHearted School Counseling

04/26/2021

I see this dynamic a lot and it can also be boys on the receiving end. While it might be true that someone's hurtful behaviour may be a misguided attempt to show their interest or affection, we shouldn't just dismiss it as such.

Sending the message that mean behaviour implies romance, or shrugging off the behaviour as a normal right of passage is confusing and fails to teach kids appropriate boundaries and healthy ways to express their feelings.

It's important for our children to understand their right to set limits and for adults to explicitly teach kids how to assert their autonomy in a meaningful and respectful way.

Via AhaParenting.com

Violence and aggression are never signs of love or affection.

04/14/2021

In our high-performance culture that places an emphasis on achievement and outcome, it’s important to consider the ways in which motivation is fostered. As a former high-level athlete, turned coach, and now father to two young developing athletes, I am acutely aware of the narrow definition of success that can afflict the world of sport.

In the beginning, we do it for the love of the game. Yet, too quickly, that love can be squeezed out of the game by coaches who see athletes as assets or commodities. All of a sudden we have attached a sense of worth to the and motivation becomes driven by fear — fear of losing, not being quick enough, tall enough, not being a team player, not putting up enough points or simply not meeting the expectations of a program or . What once were expectations reserved for a collegiate level team are now being projected onto our youth programs. The resulting pressure and fear of not measuring up, comes at a cost; it can strip all sense of joy from the game. When the joy is lost, we lose the most fundamental driver of .

As our boys were being introduced to sport, we were mindful of results focused dialogue. Every pre & post game breakdown focused on the we felt as parents seeing them find joy in the game and with their teammates, irrespective of the outcome. Their desire to play was (and still is) intrinsically motivated, that is, engagement arises from within rather than extrinsically motivated by reward or a need to satisfy others. The joy of winning is not lost on them and absolutely is part of the game, it’s why we compete. But in the drive towards excellence, it is so important to acknowledge and nurture the human element and to convey that achievement transcends the performance, the trophies, and the scoreboard.

“Results are just an outcome, they are not your worth.” -Pippa Grange, Sports Psychologist

Grange brilliantly distinguishes “deep wins” from “shallow wins” and conceptualizes winning deep as feeling the richness of the win, connected to the joy and being able to while still enjoying the endeavour.

The fear of not being good enough is pervasive in our culture and resonating for our kids at strikingly young ages. By defining success more broadly and deeply, where joy permeates the sport/academic/professional culture, we create the conditions for winning deep.

Infographic: Brené Brown

03/06/2021

If you're noticing your child isn't that motivated to read, providing them choice in books that are relevant, relatable and on topics that are of interest to them, will help engage your reluctant reader.

Check out this fantastic list of chapter book titles separated by age level!

Parents of avid book readers will appreciate the 48 titles to peruse with your child. 📚

Via Nurture and Thrive - Parenting and Child Development

To raise a lifelong reader, your child needs to see that reading can be fun. Otherwise, they won't choose to read. Here are the best chapter books your child will devour. 100% kid approved!