When your child says “I hate you!” it can really hit a nerve. You might find yourself getting defensive (“How could you say that to me? I do everything for you!”). You might feel the urge to assert control over the situation (“You’re not going to speak to me like that!”). Narratives you hold around obedience and respect may come up and you may have fears that you aren’t raising a respectful child.

Here’s the thing: a child's hurtful words often come from a place of frustration or lost control. While adults use "hate" as a permanent feeling, children use it fleetingly to express a big emotion. 

The key to connecting with your child and getting to the root of the challenge is to look beyond th...

00:00:01    Alyssa

You're listening to episode five of our School and Childcare Transition series. In this episode, we're going to chat about the routines and what to expect once this is underway. Note, there will be a lot of messiness, and we are here for it. We've got you. All right, let's dive in. 

00:00:27    Alyssa

Welcome to Voices of Your Village, a place where parents, caregivers, teachers and experts come to support one another on this wild ride of raising tiny humans. We combined decades of experience with the latest research to create the modern parenting village. Let's dive into honest conversation about real parenting challenges, so it doesn't have to be this hard. I'm ...

00:00:00    Alyssa

You're listening to episode four of our School and Childcare Transition series. In this episode, we're going to dive into you, the adult. How do you take care of your nervous system as you're doing this stuff with kids? It's hard, and it's draining to hold space for somebody else. So what does this look like for you? All right, let's dive in. 

00:00:27    Alyssa

Welcome to Voices of Your Village, a place where parents, caregivers, teachers and experts come to support one another on this wild ride of raising tiny humans. We combined decades of experience with the latest research to create the modern parenting village. Let's dive into honest conversation about real ...

You're listening to episode three of our podcast series on Childcare and School Transitions. In this episode, we're going to talk about when to talk about this, when to let them know that it's coming, and what to do if some anxiety comes up around it. Alright, let's dive in.

00:00:24    Alyssa

Welcome to Voices of Your Village, a place where parents, caregivers, teachers and experts come to support one another on this wild ride of raising tiny humans. We combined decades of experience with the latest research to create the modern parenting village. Let's dive into honest conversation about real parenting challenges, so it doesn't have to be this hard. I'm your host, Alyssa Blask Camp...

00:00:00    Alyssa

You're listening to episode two of our School and Child Care transition series. In this episode, we're going to get down and dirty with these emotions. How to support the tiny humans big emotions. How to validate and acknowledge and hold space for and build coping strategies for them to use, both leading up to and then in the moments of the transition and throughout the day. This is the work. It is messy and gnarly, and you don't have to do it alone. We're here to help you. All right, folks, let's dive in. 

00:00:36    Alyssa

Welcome to Voices of Your Village, a place where parents, caregivers, teachers and experts come to support one another on this wild ride of ...

00:00:00    Alyssa

Welcome to episode one of School and Childcare Transitions. Going into a new classroom or starting a new school is a huge transition with a new attachment figure somebody that is going to be in charge of keeping them safe all day long on who they have to get to know that they don't know yet. It's a big deal, and I'm here to guide you through this. We have five short episodes that will walk you through different steps to take to help this transition be as seamless and emotionally supportive as possible. Buckle up here, folks. All right, let's dive into episode one. 

00:00:42    Alyssa

Welcome to Voices of Your Village, a place where parents, caregivers, teachers an...

Do you ever feel like you can’t have hard feelings in front of your child? When you get frustrated or sad do you feel like you have to hold it all in so that you don’t upset them? Often in the world of respectful parenting there is this idea that parenting with intention means always being calm and happy with our kids. 

Here’s the thing, the goal is not that kids think we don’t have emotions. The idea that we’ll never be triggered or feel hard things in their presence, that we'll just remain calm at all times is unrealistic and not how our bodies are designed. Kids know when we are feeling something hard whether we tell them or not. They pick up on our tone, our body language, and the ot...

One of the biggest challenges of parenting young children is navigating their intense need for autonomy and independence. Often this leads to power struggles where we find ourselves putting more and more pressure on the child to comply, and in turn they push harder and harder against us.

When we can move away from focusing on compliance and move towards connection, understanding, and collaboration, we can put the power struggles to bed.

Choice theory outlines two options and the key is that neither of them is punishment. The adult setting the boundary has to be okay with both choices so you don’t end up mad if your child doesn’t choose the one you wanted.

This might sound like:

It's time to g...

We’ve all been there. The stresses of adult life seem to be piling one on top of another. The laundry is piling up, you’re about to miss a work deadline and you’re barely going to have dinner on the table before bedtime.  You manage to get dinner on the table and go to round up your family, only to discover that your kiddo has knocked over a plant and there is dirt all over the carpet. The carpet that you just vacuumed yesterday, after everyone was in bed, before you collapsed on the couch, completely spent. And in the scheme of things, you know that this isn’t a huge deal. It’s par for the course with young kids. But still, in this moment, it feels huge. It feels like one more thing, one mo...