In this wonderful blog post entitled “Permission to Feel,” Coach Nancy points out that parents sometimes curb positive emotions like excitement as well as the more painful ones. All humans have feelings, she says, and by not allowing them to be felt we become unable to process them in healthy ways.

Hi Jennifer,

I’ve always felt my daughter was maybe gifted somehow. She is 8 years old and extremely hard on herself. I think she is a perfectionist and gets very upset if she doesn’t do something perfect the first time. She then shuts down and won’t redo something. I am hoping this website might help me respond to these outbursts. She also has difficulty handling conflict with her peers. Her father (who doesn’t live with her) doesn’t think these are things to worry about but I do.

- Julie

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.

Although concepts of emotional intelligence are evident in literature as far back as the early 1900’s, Daniel Goleman was the first to popularize this idea in 1995 with his book “Emotional Intelligence”. The belief that improving emotional intelligence can improve overall success in life grabbed the attention of the western world.

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 [...]

Anxiety and depression in adults and children continues to rise at an alarming rate. Many struggle just to make it through each day. And the reality is that life doesn’t get any easier. The stresses that we face are increasing and we need all our emotional strength to cope with them. How do we bolster [...]