Age - Tweens, Age - Teens, Tech and Parenting
Dana Hirt
Mentoring -- not Monitoring -- Best Approach ...

Raising digital natives requires parents to mentor their children on their journey to becoming good and safe digital citizens. Get my top resource recommendations and consider questions designed to help you develop an approach that reflects your values and intention.

Mentoring -- not Monitoring -- Best Approach for Parenting Digital Natives
Age - Teens, Age - Toddlers, Age - Tweens, back-to-school, Intentional Parenting, resilience, Teaching Resilience
Dana Hirt
Three 'Must-Dos' To Help Kids Cope With Violent ...

Here’s one thing you can rely on: Your kids will be exposed to an uncontrollable media assault on multiple platforms, as well as information – and misinformation – from friends and schoolmates.

As concerned and hungry for information as we, ourselves, may be, our job as parents in the face of this type of crisis is threefold:

·      Control your kids’ environment

·      Share only age-appropriate information

·      Don’t answer questions they haven’t asked

Three 'Must-Dos' To Help Kids Cope With Violent Events
Intentional Parenting, Tech and Parenting
Dana Hirt
4 Keys to Intentional Millennial Parenting

An intentional millenial parent is an empowered one. The four keys to becoming an empowered parent can be found here.

4 Keys to Intentional Millennial Parenting

Intentional Parenting

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Parenting and Politics

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Parenting and Politics

Our society is seemingly struggling to accept the dialectic, which I am defining broadly as the ability to tolerate the truth of contradictory information. More simply put, two things can be true at the same time. In dialectical thinking, we can recognize and accept opposite ideas and reconcile them as both being true, rather than reject that which does not align with our thinking. Our political environment is a stark example of how binary thinking, this OR that, has created massive polarization and manifested in lack of civility of discourse.

I am not pretending to be able to influence the growing paradigm of the angry binary, rather, I want my clients to have the language to confront this in their own homes, with their own children. Ultimately, I am motivated to help parents feel empowered and more confident and I want them to have meaningful relationship with their children for life.

 So, how does all of this translate to talking to your kids about politics and why does it matter?

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Sharing the Mental Load/Being a Co-CEO at Home

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Sharing the Mental Load/Being a Co-CEO at Home

An imbalance in the “mental” aspect of parenting is where I see the most discrepancy – and sometimes it’s what lies underneath a couple’s presenting issue when they first start working with me.  Because even if both parents share equally in the execution of the tasks – or if they have the funds to outsource the cleaning, cooking, carpooling and childcare– one partner still does much of the heavy lifting that remains.

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The Value of Reflection: Your Year-End Parenting Inventory

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The Value of Reflection: Your Year-End Parenting Inventory

At this time of year, I suspect your to-do list is more overflowing than ever. I get it. Mine is too. Actually, it was.

In a recent Instagram post, I shared my decision that this holiday season I would focus on the people and activities that have meaning and moment and are aligned with my values. Not surprisingly, these types of things seldom have anything to do with list-making or gift-buying.

In that spirit, I’m inviting you to prioritize what matters most to many parents: family. It’s a 3-step inventory for people who parent together – in every family configuration. The inventory is designed to help take stock of your personal parenting experience, assess wins and challenges in 2023, and determine the areas in which you want to put your energies and efforts during the coming year.

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Gratitude Offers Hope for Parenting through Tough Times

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Gratitude Offers Hope for Parenting through Tough Times

When kids are little, parents get to witness up close their tremendous capacity for learning and growth and delight. Our joy often arises spontaneously, and we feel overwhelmed with gratitude for the gift of parenting those amazing little beings.

As children grow and face normal developmental challenges, parenting can feel rocky as we watch our kids react with frustration or anxiety at milestones not yet mastered. But as long as we stay tethered to our values and use them to guide our decision-making, we can find reasons to be grateful during these times, too, particularly when we see evidence of our kids meeting their difficulties with resolve and determination.

No question, it’s easy to feel grateful when life is good and parenting feels manageable.

But what about those times when, as parents, we’re challenged to navigate an extremely difficult time in a child’s life? It’s one thing to feel grateful when a rocky time is in the rearview mirror. But how can we possibly feel gratitude when we’re in the middle of the maelstrom?

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What To Do With Your Kids' BIG Emotions?

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What To Do With Your Kids' BIG Emotions?

Big emotions, as you know, are natural for kids of all ages (and for adults, too!). That’s why before we attend to our child facing emotional dysregulation—it’s super critical for parents to regulate their own affect first.

Here’s some advice in the spirit of putting on your oxygen mask before helping others. As long as everyone is safe, there’s absolutely no harm in walking away from a screaming child to calm yourself down before engaging. When we feel emotionally triggered by a kid temporarily carried away by big emotions, it can make us feel out of control or impotent to the handle the situation. And chances are high that if both parent and child are dysregulated, they will spiral down together, making the upset harder to regulate and repair.

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It's Time for your 4-Step Scholastic Checklist

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It's Time for your 4-Step Scholastic Checklist

The current academic year is pivotal for families, largely because it’s the first ostensibly “normal” scholastic experience since March 2020. Given the return to routine, parents might be inclined to simply breathe a huge sigh of relief convinced they and their kids are finally free from the myriad pandemic-induced educational stressors of the last two years.

However, given the recent reports on the “impacts of the coronavirus pandemic on learning,” now is the time for parents to pay even keener attention to their kids’ school experience. To ensure their return to academic life is as smooth as possible, consider this comprehensive 4-step process.

How to Make Parenting Decisions Even Your Kids Understand

How to Make Parenting Decisions Even Your Kids Understand

It’s estimated that adults make approximately 35,000 decisions each day -- about 220+ of them about what to eat alone!

Researchers have yet to determine just how many of those decisions are related to parenting, but I’d guess that a significant majority of them are. To navigate the thousands of discrete and unique parenting decisions with more confidence and (relative) ease, I believe the best approach is to ensure those decisions are clearly tethered to your values.

I frequently refer to this approach as values-based or “intentional” parenting. That’s just a fancy way of saying that as parents, we need to have clear and concrete ideas about the ideals and traits we care about and want to instill in our kids. Your values, then, are simply the principles that matter to you…what you live by and put into practice each and every day.