The PARENTS' TOOLKIT

The PARENTS' TOOLKIT is your handy bag of proactive tricks, designed to make parenting easier and more rewarding. By Dr. Laura Marham http://www.ahaparenting.com/parenting-tools

Connection

No amount of "parenting skills" can make up for the lack of a close parent-child relationship. Kids accept our guidance because of who we are to them. Without that relationship, it’s very hard to parent. A close bond not only makes our kids want to please us, it gives us access to our natural parenting know-how.

Communication

Most tweens and teens regretfully report that there are things about which they can’t talk with their parents, either because their parents won’t listen, won’t understand, or will over-react. But believe it or not, there are parents whose kids who talk to them, and even ask their advice, right through the teenage years. This web site is dedicated to the possibility that you could be one of those parents.

Positive Discipline

Children misbehave when they feel badly about themselves and disconnected from us. The word "Discipline" means to teach, which raises the question of how kids learn how to behave. Research shows that children learn best when they feel heard and valued, not when they feel on the defensive. Here's how.

Family Life

From setting up routines to daily dinners to family meetings, here's how to create a more connected family.

Rituals & Traditions That Nurture Strong Families

Extraordinary moments often masquerade as ordinary life. So look around the pandemonium and remind yourself to be grateful for every minute you get to spend with your children as they grow. These years pass more quickly than we can imagine, and when kids look back, these are the memories that will define family for them.

Peaceful Parenting

What does it mean to be a peaceful parent?

Attachment Parenting

There's nothing new about Attachment parenting; parents have been doing it naturally for as long as humans have existed. Attachment parenting is based on responding to a baby’s needs, which in infancy include staying in very close proximity to the parent. Once the baby learns that her caretakers are reliably nurturing and protective, she builds on this internal security as she proceeds to the next developmental tasks, which include insisting that you put her down so she can pull all the pans out of the cupboard.

Raise Great Kids

We all want our kids to reach their full potential intellectually, emotionally, and socially. Maybe even more important, we want them to be people of character: responsible, generous, courageous. Luckily, there's actually research on how you can raise a kid like that. Here's the inside scoop.

Keeping Your Child Safe

Parents have always grappled with harsh realities to protect their children. But our culture poses risks that are difficult to navigate, because they aren't obviously dangerous. In fact, we take them for granted as we go about our busy lives.

How To Raise an Emotionally Intelligent Child

Managing anxiety in order to tackle a big project, managing anger in order to work through a marital conflict, managing fear in order to apply for a job -- the ability of a human being to manage his or her emotions in a healthy way will determine the quality of his life much more fundamentally than his IQ.

How To Raise an Intelligent, Creative Child

We all want our kids to reach their full intellectual and creative potential, to love learning, to enjoy reading. There's no question that doing well academically gives kids huge advantages for the rest of their lives. But even more important is the lifelong joy your child will derive from learning, if you can protect his natural curiosity and love of exploration. The links below are designed to help you raise a child who's intellectually curious, creative, and excited about learning on every level -- for the long haul.

How To Raise a Child with Character

Parents often ask how to raise a child with good character and values, in the context of a culture that often seems to reward the opposite. The simplest answer is that children learn what they live, so if you live your values, your kids are likely to as well.

How To Raise a Socially Intelligent Child

Your child lives in a very complicated social world. This has always been true for children: all parents can remember their own tears or rage at the cruelty of another child; all parents can remember wanting desperately to be accepted and approved of by other kids. Most of us can remember, at some point in our lives, longing for a best friend.