I was undiagnosed, but in retrospect clearly diagnosable, with depression from age 12. For much of my youth I “other-reflected” rather than self-reflected. I made the worst attitudes of others my own. I would say that I hated the way others viewed my depression but I really just hated myself.

Hi Jennifer, I’m struggling to deal with a particular behaviour that my five and a half year old, Chandra, has been displaying. For the last three months or so, when she gets upset about something, she says she doesn’t like herself and starts to smack her head. This is very upsetting to me and even [...]

Understanding respect and boundaries is crucial to parenting. What does this mean? When I was growing up, respect meant one thing only – how we spoke to and behaved towards our elders. Today, I have a very different understanding of these words.

I know some parents who intimidated me as a young mother. They seemed to get everything just right. Their children were always immaculate, clean and well-behaved. They slept when they were supposed to and ate what was good for them. These same parents found the time to teach their barely toddlers to recognize their abc’s and still find space in a day to work out!

I can’t help but notice the hype around the movie, “Where the Wild Things Are”. My daughter is seeing it twice in the upcoming couple of weeks. Once with her school and then again at a friend’s birthday party. Why are children and adults drawn to this story?

There are so many wonderful things about Jennifer Kolari’s book “Connected Parenting” that I hardly know where to begin.

Kolari understands that even when parents feel despair, overwhelmed, angry or feel guilty because they no longer like their child, that these feelings are just a mask for fear and confusion. Kolari never blames parents who have lost their way and find themselves in a vortex of negativity.

Parents will spend hours, days, and often months thinking of a name for their unborn child. It can be an agonizing and often unpleasant experience for many. The permanence of the decision feels overwhelming and we feel a weight of responsibility as we ponder the issues of name suitability. We often want uniqueness and conformity [...]

If it was possible to pass on just one piece of advice from the wisdom I have gained from parenting, it would be this: Embrace your child’s anxiety.

Many parents don’t do this because they hold two mistaken beliefs. First, they believe that it is their responsibility to make their child happy; and second, they believe that feelings of anxiety in their child means that they have failed somehow.