I would like to be a more patient mother and it turns out I’m not the only one! My readers have told me they want to be more patient too and a 1999 York University study commissioned by Today’s Parent found that patience was the top skill parents felt they needed and impatience was the number-one attitude they didn’t want to pass on to their children.Not only is being patient more pleasant for all involved, I also find that it is more effective. If I am impatient, my son tends to dig in his heels and be stubborn and my daughter gets whiny and clingy. But how can we slow down and be more patient?

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Before I was a parent, December was a time of calm. There were a few office Christmas parties, and a little bit of shopping, but there was nothing frantic about it. We’d drive around to find the best light displays, go see a Christmas movie or two in the theatre, [...]

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Joy, love, and simplicity are certainly some of the most compelling reasons that our family has chosen to practice Attachment Parenting. AP principles, like keeping our baby close, responding to our children with sensitivity and respect, and engaging in night time parenting have made our lives infinitely sweeter, gentler, and less stressful. So, recently, when [...]

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Last month, my son received an award in school.  Something I really like is that his school gives out character awards as opposed to academic awards.  The award my son received was for demonstrating respect.
Of course as his mom, I was very teary and sniffly and proud as could be during the awards assembly.   [...]

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I find the whole concept of “being present” for another person so relevant to our world.  How many of us have not really been given sufficient presence by our parents while we were growing up or even by other influential adults that helped to shape our lives? There really is so much to be said [...]

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Today, API Speaks is proud to feature a guest post by Dr. Lawrence J. Cohen, Ph.D., author of Playful Parenting. Dr. Cohen is a licensed psychologist specializing in children’s play and play therapy. Find out more at PlayfulParenting.com.
Some parents are intuitively attachment-oriented; some seek out an alternative to their childhood; and some stumble onto it. [...]

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Before I became the mother of a toddler, I remember listening to other parents describe their little one’s behavior with the term “terrible twos.” To be honest, I had no idea what kind of behavior was meant by the term except that whatever was going on during this stage in a child’s development [...]

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I’m a parent educator. I’m a mom of four. I am an advocate for all things AP. I should be able to handle this. So, what the heck am I doing wrong?
These are the thoughts running through my head at the grocery store the other day. The store is being remodeled. It is glaringly bright, [...]

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My kids are not babies.  They sleep in their own rooms.  They don’t breastfeed.  If I wore them in a carrier, the sling would rip and my spine would snap. They have homework.
Does attachment parenting still pertain to me?
Sometimes it seems as though the API principles are geared mainly toward babies and toddlers: have the [...]

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I often hear new moms tell me they are pumping so that dad can give the new baby a bottle. Over and over I hear that they want dad to feel involved and feeding an infant a bottle is just the way to do it.
As the mother of four, this seems redundant to me. My [...]

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