Susan Newman's Blog, page 5

5 Ways to Maximize the Morning Commute with Your Child

The ride to school and after-school activities can quickly become a tiresome chore. It’s a mad morning rush — up with the alarm, out the door, and then getting everyone where they need to be on time. For working parents, it can be tough to resist the urge to think about your upcoming tasks for the day. Perhaps your child tends to be glued to a smart device, keeping to himself or herself. However, the morning commute with your child don’t have to be solely stressful or solitary affairs. As you...

5 Family-Friendly Halloween Activities

Any holiday offers fertile ground for fostering positive family togetherness and warm memory making. Halloween, with its delightfully spooky fun, can be an especially exciting time for young children. Whatever and however you celebrate your family-friendly Halloween, it is important to include rituals and traditions.

To you, Halloween may pale in comparison to higher profile, family-oriented holidays coming up later this fall and winter, but to your children, it makes a big difference to play...

Calling All Only Children!

Are you an only child? We’d like to hear from you! Take our survey and share your perspective on the only-child experience. As a thanks, receive free tips from Susan’s latest book.

The post Calling All Only Children! appeared first on Parenting Expert, Susan Newman Ph.D..

5 Scripts to Use with Your Strong-Willed Child

Some children are naturally independent and opinionated — even used to getting their own way. In short, they can be obstinate or defiant at times. This makes your job as a parent all the more challenging. A typical strong-willed child often misbehaves or refuses to test your love and limits. It could be there are only a few areas where you butt heads with your toddler or teen. Nonetheless, it can feel as if your child’s assertions and wants are consistently contrary to yours.

If you have a st...

5 Quick Parent-Child Bonding Activities

With back-to-school season here once again, the dog days of summer shift dramatically into busy mode. Suddenly, schedules feel packed. In between morning commutes, after-school sports or weekend extracurricular activities, it seems that there’s barely time to update each other on your day. You’re not alone. Life swirls at a hectic pace in most families. That reality places a high premium on family time, even if parent-child bonding seems difficult.

However, carving out small pieces from your...

6 Reasons Why You Have a Pushover Problem

Your phone rings or an incoming text chimes. You’re greeted with the same all-too-familiar message: “Can you help with…” or “Can you do me a favor?” As always, you are the go-to person in your family, friend circle or work group to handle a crisis or solve an issue. And, as usual, you’ll do it—even if you don’t
want to. It boils down to this: You have a pushover problem.

There’s a difference between enjoying rescuing others and being a pushover. Are you someone who does things for others, lea...

Will the Only Child Bashing Ever End?

More families worldwide are choosing to have one child. However, unfair attitudes still abound. Even though I, and others, have spent decades shedding light on only child discrimination and stereotypes, we continue to see and hear baseless only child bashing.

Recently, I spotted advice offered in a daily newspaper’s parenting Q & A section. It is disturbing, but unfortunately, it reflects not uncommon thinking. The implications are obvious…and wrong:

The Question:“My nine-year-old son is alw...

5 Ways to Assert Rules with Your Teen

When your child was younger, he or she routinely looked to you for answers or assistance, from learning to tie his shoes to help with homework. That made you feel needed and loved — popular with your own child. Then everything changed: You parent a teen now who is not keen on all your rules.

Adolescents naturally are or want to be more independent. They struggle to form their own identity and be self-governing. In different ways, most will push against parents’ rules — often wanting to take...

3 Secrets to Relationship Contentment

Most of us equate happy relationships with harmony: getting along, agreeing, and not disappointing one another. In the extreme, however, always striving to keep things rosy with a spouse or partner can be draining…and has the potential to strain the bond. There’s much more to relationship contentment than avoiding fights.

In order to keep your partnership free of conflict and calm you likely say yes to most things your partner asks or expects: always going along with his or her plans when...

How Technology Causes “Brain Drain” & Weakens Family Connections

It’s no secret that the advent of smartphones and other technology puts strains on family life, but technology is also a brain drain. According to recent data from the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, children now spend more than seven and a half hours a day in front of a screen. (“Screen” includes cellphones, televisions, video game play and computers).

Perhaps your family is one of many that struggles to keep smartphones, tablets, or laptops away from the dinner table in an a...