Kids' Health | PulseonParenting

Letting Go: Parenting our Kids to Be Independent.

Aug 03 2023

A couple years ago I made a startling discovery: my children would soon be finishing high school. They would be moving out into either the real world or stepping into the transitional setting of university. And with that sleep-suppressing realization came panic. Had I done enough to prepare my kids to be independent? For the first time in years, I went into cram-for-the-exam mode. Read on to see the five ways I’ve been Letting Go: Parenting our Kids to be Independent. A Generational Difference I grew up very different from my own children: I was a latch-key kid from the…

May 18 2023

I remember a sun-drenched living space and views of Ponderosa Pines from the large picture window. And the quiet. That deafening stillness between hurried bowls of cereal and the afternoon dump of shoes and backpacks on the mud room floor. I also remember sitting on the kid-tested couch, the same one I’m settled into as I type these words. A couch now with a subtle tear along a back seam and a few loose, straight threads emerging from the seat cushions, a bit worse for wear but as comfy as ever. Hello, World And I remember the open laptop screen,…

Teen Friendship Breakup: How to Help With the Trauma

Mar 09 2023

The end of an era. Friendships come and go, as adults know all too well. We’ve been through those ups and downs and growings-apart more than we care to admit. We know the drill. But our children don’t. So when the best friend since Kindergarten drops a bombshell, it feels like World War Three in our child’s life. When friends break up, we need to help our teens cope. “I don’t want to be friends anymore.” Those seven words. And then she walked away. Not a great beginning to high school. When I think back to my 9th-grade year, that…

Mar 02 2023

This week my twin boys turn 18. The good news: they get to register to vote in U.S. elections. The bad news: they have to sign up for the U.S. draft. And the interesting news: they can legally buy alcohol. In other words, turning 18 in New Zealand means the partying turns real. My generation of Americans and younger may find this to be crazy or cool, or somewhere in between. The minimum legal drinking age (MLDA) in the U.S. has teeter-tottered in the last 100 years: in the early part of the 20th century, it was 21. Then it…

Feb 23 2023

The post I had planned for this week is just not going to happen. So instead, I bring you The Post Without a Title. No time spent on focus keyphrases or headings or ALT text for images or on improving SEO rankings. It’s just not that kind of week, but I hope you’ll stick around and read this anyway. My kids are finally experiencing high school, for real. One of them experiencing in-person, in-classroom learning for the first time since fifth grade (or, the equivalent of 6th level in the New Zealand school system). Learning differences, COVID and our trans-Pacific…

Aug 11 2022

Think back to when you were a teenager, or younger. Who were your idols? And why? It can be embarrassing to think about so to break the ice, I’ll go first. When I was four, I idolized Mac Davis. He sang songs on a record my family owned, and I thought he was kinda cute in a cowboy hat. When I was eight, I idolized Bo and Luke Duke. Because they were cute (AND every other girl in school felt the same way). Also, they were constantly getting one over on the idiots who ran Hazzard County. When I was…

Feb 19 2021

“She’s nice.” “Niiiiicccce!” says my son, ogling the Rolls Royce parallel-parked outside a downtown Boston McDonald’s. (Yup, really….) Nice. (Sarcasm oozing, eyes rolling, when we witness someone else’s blunder.) That was a kind thing to do! Often we consider “nice” and “kind” to be interchangeable descriptors. But let’s try a quick experiment. Try replacing “kind” for “nice” in each of the first three statements above. “Kind” only works for the first, but not for the second or third. We would not describe an expensive car (or any other pricey, stylish object) as kind, or, at least in current vernacular, use…

“But I Just Know MY People are COVID-Free”: Human Nature Fails Us Yet Again

Oct 22 2020

Don’t shame me, if I want to rent a house and lay on the beach with twenty of my fabulous friends from across the country, that’s what I’m going to do. I thought about this for a moment. Shaming. I didn’t know about her latest vacay plans when I told her about my grandmother’s lonely suffering in a care facility after three surgeries and the death of her daughter, that my own child was at-risk for severe COVID symptoms, and that my husband sees people in hazmat suits every day he goes to work. I’ll give her that: providing a…

Oct 08 2020

“I don’t WANT someone to marry me!!!” That was the climactic point in a tearful exchange with my 14-year-old daughter. Shamefully, I smiled a little to myself despite her distress, because my husband and I often joke to each other how some poor (but INCREDIBLY lucky) shmuck will get to marry our headstrong, determined daughter. He better be ready for space travel because, as our older son says, “D is gonna colonize the moon.” This is a girl who could out run her older brothers through the back acre behind her grandparents house, who once wore a set of laboratory…

Oct 01 2020

Where did this year go? (Down the toilet, to the dogs….) Certainly there’s no taking a reminiscent tone when pondering 2020. But seriously, where did it go? Seems like just yesterday we were all closed up in our houses and venturing out to get the paper in our Sunday best. Wait…that actually was yesterday. Except now, we are on the threshold of cold and flu season. This fall, more than in any previous year, getting your and your (older than 6 months) kids the influenza vaccine is of tantamount importance. In this time of a global pandemic and also with…

Category - Kids’ Health

Letting Go: Parenting our Kids to Be Independent.

10 Popular Posts: Celebrating a Decade of PulseonParenting

Teen Friendship Breakup: How to Help With the Trauma

Turning 18 in New Zealand: the Partying Turns Real

The Post Without a Title

Who Do Your Teens Idolize? Why You Need to Know.

The Kindness Series: No More Mr. Nice Guy, Be Kind Instead

“But I Just Know MY People are COVID-Free”: Human Nature Fails Us Yet Again

Teens Need Control, Independence, and Straight Teeth

9 Undebatable Points: Get Your Influenza Vaccine Now