Geek Loves Nerd

This made me laugh the other day when dropping my daughter off at pre-school. I don’t think you could fit one other thing into that cubbie.

Many of you have been requesting a JennaCast… maybe we’ll do one this week.

What do you do when your kid freaks out in public? How do you handle it? Jenn and James provide practical parenting advice and tips to help parents deal with outbursts in public.

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Inspired by a Sunday comic, James and Jenn talk about the different expectations they have for and the different ways they raise their first and second child.

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Having young children means I have to keep them busy. When I’m keeping them busy, it’s usually at places where there are other parents trying to keep their own kids busy. All those kids and all those parents means I get to see a lot of different personalities and parenting styles. I hate to say [...]

It’s funny to me how I have no struggles with how to keep my kids healthy. I know to feed them good things and make sure they get plenty of sleep and such. I’m even pretty confident about how to make them smart. I read to them, play with them and make sure they have [...]

I remember when it was just play-doh… and that was it. Now they’ve got so many gadgets that I’ve noticed that we don’t ever just shape things ourselves. I challenged Jenna to make a dog without any tools. She did great… but obviously wasn’t pleased with the outcome. She started clumping bits and pieces of [...]

Sometimes parenting can feel like more of a chore than a blessing. Especially with young kids. Keeping them out of trouble and busy can easily become a chore than takes up your entire day. If we’re not careful we run the risk of herding them and caring for them but secretly resenting them for taking [...]

5. Draw them a picture
Think of all the times they’ve drawn pictures for you. It’s how they show you they love you. Drawing you and them standing hand-in-hand with your house in the background… maybe put the dog in there. It’s a great way to let your youngun know how you feel about them. If [...]

Natural Rewards & Consequences
Children, at their core, are simple creatures. They’re not so different from us. Behavior that has benefits to them is repeated. Behavior that has negative consequences are not. Two simple categories right? Yes… but they both apply in two ways. Let me break it down like this:

Good behaviors that have naturally occurring [...]

Discipline used to be a dirty word to me. It still has a sting to it. I had a hardcore ex-military step-father who loved to throw it around while he rampaged around the house demanding perfect order. His demands on us changed moment by moment based on his moods. A good mood meant we could [...]