Monday Medley: Gentle parenting

As peaceful parents, we strive to be as gentle and loving as possible with our children. Not only does yelling not work; it’s also a great way to give our kids horrible memories and to alienate them from us. That said, we all have our bad days. It’s important to apologize, forgive ourselves, and try to do better the next day. I have a big roundup of great articles about this with helpful tips today:

The Important Thing About Yelling from Hands Free Mama

Positive Discipline from Aha Parenting

Dealing with Anger from Genevieve Simperingham

Congratulations, You Just Broke Your Child is a very powerful post going around about how we need to be kind to our children, but it specifically targets fathers. I want to say that I’ve seen plenty of mothers who need to read this, too. In fact, we could all read it, if nothing else as a reminder of what our actions can do.

Why We Explode and How to Prevent It from Positive Parents

How to Respect Your Child, also from Positive Parents

Your Child is Not Your Property is a great piece from Big Love, Little House

And this photo is such a great reminder of why we need to worry more about what we do than what we say.

Parents of toddlers, here’s a great piece from Community of Mindful Parents about teaching your toddlers independence.

Need some homemade, organic and safe baby shampoo? Here’s a recipe to try. And here’s a recipe from Homestead Survival for grown-up shampoo. You can also try making your own apple cider vinegar.

Parentables has a wonderful piece on why we shouldn’t label our children as shy. Wood Sprite does not have this label at all—but I have had it my whole life. It’s a very helpful read.

File courtesy of Wikipedia Commons (Nevit)