The husband and I were invited to give a parenting talk at our older kids' school last week. We LOVE this school, and just had to say yes. It was a good time, although I will say that it was a different experience than my usual public speaking, as we were giving a...
It's been an AGE since we dug something out of the old mailbag. Let's take a peek, shall we? The Question: Hello Kendra, I know you are very busy but I have a few questions from something on your blog. You said the kids can’t get out of bed during nap, how do you...
If the figurine genre has taught us anything, it's that children love to kneel reverently and piously recite their prayers. But if your children happen to not be figurines, maybe they sometimes complain about saying their prayers. Maybe sometimes prayer time turns...
Mailbag questions sometimes come in waves around here, and recently I've gotten a slew of them on the same topic: How to get your kid to stop a certain entrenched behavior. Hitting, fighting, throwing tantrums, refusing to go to school in the morning, and screaming ....
Mailbag time! Today, you get two for the price of one, on a really challenging topic: how to handle family members who undermine our parenting. - first question - Hey, Kendra! I was at the funeral for one of my relatives, and after at the cemetery, we went to visit...
Mailbag time! This is a variation on a parenting topic I've addressed a lot on the blog. But I know it's something a lot of us struggle to figure out how to handle. So here we go again . . . - the question - Hi Kendra, I'm a new fan of your blog, and I love all of the...
Last time, I answered a different mailbag question about this same topic: babies in a house full of their sibling's toys. That post was about babyproofing (or, more specifically, about NOT babyproofing). Today, I'm going to approach that same topic from a slightly...
I've received a couple of related mailbag questions over the past couple of weeks about how we handle the issue of babies in a house full of their siblings' toys. Today I'll discuss the idea of babyproofing, specifically how I DON'T do it, and in a different post,...
It's mailbag time again. Today we're going to discuss managing unruly children in your home . . . when they're not (exclusively) yours. The Question: Hi, Kendra! I enjoy reading your blog, and I find your posts on discipline and family culture particularly...
I have a backlog of great mailbag questions I got during and since the ol' hiatus. So, here's another one. The idea that I might be overburdening my kids with responsibilities around the home is something that I have definitely worried about myself, but, so far, what...
What do you do when you want to blog, but you ALSO really, really want to take a bath and hit the sack? Why, fish something out of the mailbag of course. It's already written and at least one person in the universe is interested in the answer. Today's question is from...
Question: How do you stop the fighting between your kids? What do you do with them? I've tried many things like separation, spanking (which I hate but it sure works on my older one!), toys taken away, stickers toward new toy for good behavior, etc. but I get the...
I got this mailbag question a week or so ago, and responded to it. Since then, my Cryin' Babies Go To Bed post was shared on a parenting forum, to GREAT misunderstanding, confusion, concern, and general unpleasantness. Sometimes I kind of forget that my blog is...
It's our first day of school! So . . . I'm going to throw up a question from the mailbag, since it's already typed up. Perhaps it would be of interest to some other newish mamas out there. Question:(it was a long one so I'm going to excerpt it here . . . )Dear...
I shared this image on the Catholic All Year Facebook page over the weekend: I love this quote from Pope Benedict XVI. It comes from a question and answer session he had in St. Peter's Square in 2005 with some children who had just had their First Communion. Some...
When my eldest son was in preschool, I made the mistake of handing the buck to the Pope when it came to some of our parenting practices. When Jack would ask why he couldn't watch a particular show that his friends were watching, I'd say, "Well, we're Catholic and...
I mentioned this technique in a post in which I used it on Miley Cyrus, Robin Thicke, and MTV, and I can't remember hearing much about any of them since, so I'm going to assume it was a big success and they've all decided to turn their lives around. In which case,...
It's pick on three-year-olds week here at Catholic All Year, which is odd since I don't even have a three-year-old right now. But I have had five three-year-olds previously, so I can say with some level of expertise, that those guys are generally up to something....
Guys? I need everyone to promise not to tell Grace about this post. She pretty much explicitly forbade its writing. But I wrote it anyway. INTJ and all that. Here's the thing: I really DO think twos are better than ones, and better than threes as well. I have written...
Kaitlin from More Like Mary wrote me asking about how we deal with toddlers' picky eating habits. I fired off a quick email back to her before I remembered the super-frustrating food allergy issues her family is dealing with. Our family does not have any allergies or...
I'm going to start this by saying that plenty of people do not discipline as early as I do. Which is fine. I am a firm believer in doing what works for your family. I also believe that the level of discipline in your home is up to you and can be changed at any time,...
Here's another summer re-run from the early days of the blog, so maybe you've already seen this one. But if your kids are driving you crazy this summer, this might be able to help. For a post on WHY we practice Parenting With Authority, see here. I started out to make...
Hey guys, it's me Frankie. You may remember me from such posts as: An Open Letter to the Church Lady Who Yelled at My Mom and What Cranky Frankie Taught Me About God (my Mom wrote that one, but it's about me!) So when Adam from Equipping Catholic Families...
Hey all, while we're out of town for Easter Break, I'm cleaning out my drafts folder. So if this sounds like it was written a while ago, it probably was. I'll still be checking comments, so feel free to have an opinion. And a very happy Easter to you...
Last week, I posted about WHY we believe in Parenting With Authority and HOW we do it. And I assured you that if you ALWAYS MEAN WHAT YOU SAY you'll be all set. And, I stand by that. But there IS another component to the system, which is -- to assume that your kids...
For me, writing a blog has been an interesting window into my own brain. It turns out I think very tangentially. Who knew? (Husbands are not invited to answer). Every post I start writing makes me think of three others I ought to do alongside, or before, or instead...