Joy of joys, it's July 1 and I can start using my new life planner. I got the Gold Edition, which is beautiful enough in itself, but I wanted to customize it a little more. I figured I'd use this opportunity to learn how to make and post a video, so armed with my Canon PowerShot and mini tripod, I bravely set out to record an upload my first video. It took a few tries (too long, bumped into the tripod, garbled what I was saying), but here it is.

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I’m lucky enough to be part of the launch team for The Child Whisperer, by Carol Tuttle, and as part of that I’m running a contest for a free book (I’ll ship it to you free as long as you’re in the continental US). The book teaches you how to read unsaid clues in your child’s body language, facial features and behavior in order to understand who they are and how to parent them with joy and connection.

The book will be available on Amazon on October 23, and I’ll announce the winner of my contest on October 22.

Here’s the contest: in the comments section, please send me in an example of when you’ve perceived your child to be truly him/herself. It could be something they’ve done, something they do continuously, a way they act or express themselves, or just how they look when they’re being themselves.

Obviously, I’m the only judge, and judging will be completely and utterly subjective.

I finally got my copy of The Child Whisperer in the mail! It was pretty exciting to be able to read the PDF, but having the hard copy in my hand is even better. Now I need to write a review, but I don’t know where to start.

When my daughter saw the cover, her first response was that it was an insulting knock off of The Dog Whisperer, and that she didn’t want to be treated like a dog. I informed her that the Horse Whisperer came first, and the whole reason that book was successful was that treating creatures with respect and honoring their individuality was a radical idea. You needed to understand and appreciate your dog’s or horse’s nature in order to get the results you wanted; “training” them through one-size-fits all domination just didn’t work. Read More

Now that the official school year is coming to an end, I’m finding myself ogling new planners again. It’s like a quest for the holy grail, trying to find THE planner that will work perfectly for me, keeping me organized and not feeling like a loser for only sticking with it for a month. It’s even harder as a homeschooler finding an organizational tool that works for me, and I’ve tried many.

It’s not that I’m a planner slut; its more like I’ve been serially monogamous and perpetually disappointed, as well as torn. I want paper, but I want digital. I want both! I’ve finally come to the realization that I can’t expect one single planner to meet all my needs, and think I’ve found the small group of tools that are going to make me a happy girl. Here’s what I’ve come up with, after many trials: Read More

Most people think they know how to keep their child safe: don’t talk to strangers, if you’re lost find a policeman. This is what we were told growing up, and nothing happened to us, right? What we don’t realize is that this advice is dated at best, and is potentially very dangerous. Mostly we try to say in our comfort zone by not thinking about these things except when something happens to someone else. And then we just get scared. But there’s an alternative to being ignorant, or scared.

Protecting the Gift: Keeping Children and Teenagers Safe (and Parents Sane) by Gavin De Becker debunks the safety myths we grew up with and gives parents excellent advice on how to keep their children safe in an increasingly scary world. De Becker is a famous security consultant and wrote the book The Gift of Fear. His main point in that book is that most people have lost the ability to interpret and respond to their instinctual fear response and have not developed the judgment to know when they should, or shouldn’t be afraid. So, they spend most of their time hyped up in a completely wrong fear state (is that weird-looking guy in the book store really dangerous–probably not) and not picking up on cues when we should (that really nice guy is asking me too many personal questions.) The book is well worth reading, and more empowering than scary. Read More