Compassion for early feeding choices

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You can find it here: http://consciouslyparenting.com/compassion-early-feeding-choices/

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Book Review and Give Away: What Not to Say by Sarah MacLaughlin

 Sarah MacLaughlin and I are doing a book review swap today. Here's where you can go to see her review of my new book, Consciously Parenting: What It Really Takes to Raise Emotionally Healthy Families. http://sarahsbalancingact.blogspot.com/2012/07/book-review-swap-with-consciously.html 

I’m delighted to introduce you to Sarah MacLaughlin, author of the book, What Not To Say: Tools for Talking with Young Children. Sarah is a licensed social worker in Maine and the mother of a 4 year-old little boy, who gives her lots of practice with what to say (or not to say).

I’ve got to tell you that the positive parent in me was going crazy with the title of this book. I don't know about you, but at this point in my parenting career, I'm pretty clear about what I don't want to do or say as a parent. Of  course, sometimes that is what is most readily accessible, isn't it?!  

But once I actually opened the book, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the book was full of suggestions, helpful children's stories to read with your little ones if you're struggling with a particular issue, and lots of suggestions for what TO do. 

I was happy. And, it turns out that the way that it is written, the title is really perfect. She helps us all understand in simple language the phrases that most of us have heard and possibly used with our children, then what we need to know about it as parents, followed by suggestions for handling the situation positively. How great is that?!

What I love most about this book:

-It is short.

-It is easily digestible.

-No matter what page you open to, you’re going to find nuggets of wisdom.

-It is positive! Lots about what TO do with your kids. 

-It is based on current research on the brain, but I don't need a degree in neuroscience to apply it.

-Seriously, I loved the sweetness of having children's stories suggested that go along with the phrase to avoid with your young children. I always have parents asking me for stories and Sarah already did the work to find them! Yay, Sarah! 

This book would have really been a great resource for me when my own children were between the ages of one and six.  But even now that my children are older (8 ½ and 13 ½), there were still nuggets of wisdom that got me really thinking about my own journey and struggles as a parent. I definitely encourage you to check out this book and Sarah’s work.

I’m the book-end of Sarah’s month long blog tour. In the next day or so, Sarah will be giving away a Kindle Touch, so enter now if you’d like a chance to win! Details below.

Special Giveaway!

Please comment on this post about why you'd like your own copy of What Not to Say. Your comment enters you in the eBook Giveaway -- to win an ebook copy of What Not to Say: Tools for Talking with Young Children, in the format of your choice: PDF, epub, or Kindle format. Sarah will be giving away one copy at each blog stop and will announce it on the comments of this post tomorrow. Be sure to leave your email so we can contact you in case you're the winner!

Other stops and opportunities to win during this Blog Tour are listed on Sarah's blog here:

http://sarahsbalancingact.blogspot.com/p/blog-tour.html.

Also, you can enter at Sarah's site for the Grand Prize Giveaway: a Kindle Touch. Winner will be announced at the end of the tour after July 15th. Go here to enter: http://sarahsbalancingact.blogspot.com/p/blog-tour.html

About The Author

Sarah MacLaughlin has worked with children and families for over twenty years. With a background in early childhood education, she has previously been both a preschool teacher and nanny. Sarah is currently a licensed social worker at The Opportunity Alliance in South Portland, Maine, and works as the resource coordinator in therapeutic foster care. She serves on the board of Birth Roots, and writes the "Parenting Toolbox" column for a local parenting newspaper, Parent & Family. Sarah teaches classes and workshops locally, and consults with families everywhere. She considers it her life's work to to promote happy, well-adjusted people in the future by increasing awareness of how children are spoken to today. She is mom to a young son who gives her plenty of opportunities to take her own advice about What Not to Say. More information about Sarah and her work can be found at her site:

http://www.saramaclaughlin.com/ and her blog: http://sarahsbalancingact.blogspot.com.

Sleep, sweet sleep! $10 off series (through Sunday midnight eastern ONLY)

Did you know that the way you sleep (or not) is part of you SHOWING your early stories? And that when you take the time to integrate your daily life, as well as specific things that have happened to you, that you'll sleep better? And so will your children (beginning at birth!). 


I'm so delighted to offer $10 off this very special program that gives parents another way of looking at sleep issues. Rather than resorting to cry-it-out or wait-until-they-outgrow it, Ray and Mary offer something different altogether that respects everyone's needs. This series follows a real family through their journey to help their daughter (and themselves) sleep better and create a new understanding of each member of their family. We know you'll learn a lot listening to their journey, as many other parents have already.


I've been so intrigued by what I've seen and experienced with the work of Ray Castellino and Mary Jackson (of www.aboutconnections.org) and BEBA (Building and Enhancing Bonding and Attachment) in Santa Barbara, CA. I've learned so much about myself and my own early patterns, and have wished I had known this information when my babies were little.


You see, I had a baby who wouldn't sleep. Who struggled to nurse. Who was colicky and fussy. It never occurred to me that the way we went through our pregnancy together and the way his birth happened had anything to do with his behavior as a newborn, a baby, a toddler, and into his later years and particularly how he slept. We muddled our way through and eventually he started sleeping better. (And now that he's 13, I have a hard time getting him to wake up before noon.) But I wonder how different it could have been if I'd had some additional understanding and tools to help us!


Ray Castellino and Mary Jackson explore a real-life sleep challenge with Beth and Scott and 2 year-old Beata. Listen in as they learn how to help her sleep and understand why she isn't sleeping well in the first place. This weekend ONLY, get $10 off this one-of-a-kind series. (Full series includes the recording of the teleseminar with Ray Castellino, 3 recordings with Beth and Scott, transcripts of those audios, and the recording on Story Sharing as well. Normally priced at $50, the series is available this weekend only for $40!)

For more information and to hear an audio clip, click here.

This deal ends Sunday at midnight eastern time.


If you want to sign up for the Daily Deal emails, and receive a new deal each day through July 31st, click here!

Deal of the Day for Consciously Parenting

We're trying something here at The Consciously Parenting Project for the month of July ONLY. We love the idea of Groupon, so we thought we'd try having our own Deal of the Day. You get a good deal and a sampling of what we offer and we get our resources out into the hands of people who need them, which is why we created them in the first place.

We've put together 31 days of good deals- from free items to nearly free items, deep discounts and other good deals. You can check the page daily to see what we're offering or you can sign up to get a daily email with the basic information delivered to your inbox. Each day, you have 24 hours to respond to the offer before we take it down and put up a new one. Offers begin and end at midnight eastern time each day.

For example, today ONLY, we're offering a 60-minute consultation session with me for only $75- that's $15 off! We've only offered this once before and don't plan to offer it again anytime soon. Limit 4 per family. Sessions (phone, Skype, or in-person) must be used by Dec 31, 2012.

What do you think? Have any requests? If you like our work, please help us to spread the word about our resources and this special event. Thank you!!

Do YOU need a mom-cation? Here's how to get yours

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You can find it here: http://consciouslyparenting.com/how-to-get-a-mom-cation/

See you there!

Happy Father's Day to the Father of my boys

Dear Ryan,

As I think about this Father's Day at this juncture in our lives together, I really want to celebrate the Father you are to our boys today.

Palm Harbor Auto Show 2012

Scouts Promotion 2012

Josh's first pilot lesson

Supporting Josh in the plane

View from the spoil island, camping

Beehive Adventures

Trying out the tent...in my office

Getting ready to camp on a spoil island summer 2011

NYC subway, summer 2011

Happy Birthday, Josh!

Fantasy of Flight, Nov 2011

It has never been about perfection in my eyes, but about willingness to try again when things didn't go well.

Pinewood Derby 2012

I love your adventuresome spirit and I know our boys do, too. From the time they were little, they've enjoyed being thrown up into the air, giggling with delight as you caught them.

Beehive Buddies

Homemade cardboard box smoker

As they grew older, it was camping adventures and now learning about bee hives. You bring your own curiosity to your fathering and a willingness to figure out how to make adventures  happen.

You're navigating your own way through the twists and turns of parenting and forging a relationship with your boys in a way that's different than the relationship I have with them. This is as it should be.

It isn't about perfection. It isn't about always knowing what to do, but it is in realizing when it doesn't feel right, about knowing your own story and getting to know yourself as a parent. It is about paying attention to how the relationship feels and learning to adjust your sails when necessary. And we all have moments when we realize we're pointing in a direction we didn't intend to go.

It isn't always easy. And maybe living with a "parenting expert" isn't the easiest thing, either. But I see you and I appreciate the efforts you are making. And so do our boys.

Happy Father's Day, Ryan!

Guilt: Are You Alive Enough?

When I first saw the cover of Time magazine's issue with the nursing 3 year-old on the cover, I had really mixed feelings. I believe that a nursing relationship is a private matter and that mother and baby/child need to negotiate this relationship according to what works best for their family. Breastfeeding can be a wonderful way to nurture a relationship that goes well beyond nutrition, but this photograph felt like something else.

The American Academy of Pediatrics suggests babies nurse "for at least the first year of life and beyond for as long as mutually desired by mother and child."*  That last part is critically important. As long as is mutually desired. I nursed my kids well into toddlerhood and that worked for us, but it doesn't work for everyone. What anyone else does or doesn't do with their kids should have little to do with what you feel you "should" or "shouldn't" do with your kids. Get information. Make informed decisions. But don't do something because you feel like you should. If it isn't coming from your heart, it isn't going to create connection. And just because something isn't right for you doesn't mean that it doesn't work very well for another parent.

When I moved beyond the picture on the cover of Time, I was struck by the title. Are You Mom Enough?

What does that mean? Are you mom enough for what? I see parents every week who are struggling with the things that have happened since they became a parent. Whether it is a mom who doesn't want to breastfeed anymore but doesn't know how to transition away from it, or parents who are struggling with what happened with their birth because it didn't go the way they planned, I see parents who are all doing the best they can do. And they all have something in common: guilt. They wish they felt differently. They wish something happened differently. They wished they'd known something they didn't. They wish they had been braver, smarter, faster, had a better doctor, or known how hard becoming a parent was really going to be.

Feeling like they're "enough" is not part of their stories. I don't often see parents who say, "I'm so glad that I ended up with the c-section." I hear parents who didn't want it to go a certain way and who don't know how to deal with it when it happened differently than they'd planned.

Instead of it being yet another competition to see who is "mom enough," why don't we see if we can be connected more deeply to our own aliveness, embrace our unique circumstances and decisions, and become compassionate enough to support parents even if we don't understand their decisions and choices. What if we all embrace our humanity, knowing that we're all doing the best we can do with what we've been given? It is in our aliveness, in our consciousness, our awakeness, that we can wise up to the fact that some publications thrive on feeding the guilt mothers are already feeling. When we realize that if we are simply ALIVE, compassionate, and empathic as parents, we can remind each other that we're ALL doing the best we can do until we all feel it within our own bones.

Let's feed a movement of love, compassion and support for each other, instead of the mommy wars. We're all raising this next generation in the best way we know how given our own personal life experiences and challenges. What can YOU do today to encourage another parent? To build up instead of judge? To lift up another parent who is struggling? Tell me about it. Let's make this world a better place- together.

* Pediatrics Vol. 115 No. 2 February 1, 2005
   pp. 496 -506
   (doi: 10.1542/peds.2004-2491)