unnecessarywisdom
Babies
The Ugly Truth About Depression
To this day, we still don’t like to talk about mental illness. We’ve gotten a lot better, for sure, but it’s still seen as a defect, character weakness or the potential to do harm. We are scared of it, we are scared of those with it, we don’t really want to know about it. The … Continue reading
Taking Care of You
We spend a lot time taking care of our kids, trying to be better parents, trying to run our household, trying to be good partners and good sons and daughters. We are constantly on the hunt for the next trick in shopping, cleaning, beauty, parenting, relationships, anything to make life go along just a little … Continue reading
How I Know For a Fact That Children Are Not Morons
I’m still surprised and dismayed at the many articles and discourse I see online discussing whether or not children are just immature, sneaky, manipulative little creatures who require extensive breaking to become sufficiently molded to adapt to the human world. I’ve always operated on the concept that my kids are legitimate humans with real souls … Continue reading
Why Do Fathers Matter? A Wounded Daughter’s Perspective
This weekend is Father’s Day. Today we focus on our fathers and our love for them. We focus on everything we love and appreciate about our fathers. Some of us didn’t have great fathers. I didn’t. I love my father. But he hurt me terribly. And I’m no longer married to my children’s father. That … Continue reading
How Attachment Parenting Produces Independent Kids
Children are in our care for a limited amount of time generally spanning two decades. During that time, their needs change drastically, yet gradually from year to year. I’ve always found it odd that the principles of attachment parenting are criticized as promoting dependence in children when, if you analyze the proper development of independence … Continue reading
The Difference Between Play and Entertainment and Why It Matters
Kids are born with natural curiosity about their world and the desire to explore and learn. They have a drive to touch, taste and feel everything around them. This is how they learn. This is also how they get into trouble and we often find ourselves stopping them, redirecting them or even punishing them for … Continue reading
Respect and Discipline: Can You Really Have Both?
I spent half my childhood in a home that practiced corporal punishment. My parents believed that children needed to be trained to be obedient and conform to expectations of the adult world. They also believed that bad behavior was a result of a sinful nature and they aggressively attempted to curb these supposed tendencies. I … Continue reading
Beyond the Labels: Parenting with Respect
There are a lot of parenting theories swirling around right now. I’ve found that I can relate to many of them and sort of fit with some of them. But I don’t really belong to any of them. I never found a group and followed along. And in searching for how or why I came … Continue reading
5 Easy Ways to Get Your Kids to Eat More Veggies
We are always talking about vegetables. How to get our kids to eat them more often? How to sneak them into our day? How to make them more delicious? Here are a few quick and easy tricks to get your kids to eat more veggies and you just might join them, too. 1. Add vegetables … Continue reading
How My Toddler Tamed My Temper
I grew up around a stepfather who had an explosive temper. He would throw things, hit people, even toss us around the room. It wasn’t a pleasant experience. I swore I would never put up with that kind of behavior and I would never inflict such pain on anyone else. But I did have one … Continue reading
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