Lana

Yes exactly! I taught my daughter (just turned 3) that the most important word is “why”, and boy has she been using it! She is so curious and it brings me endless joy helping her discover and understand the world.

I just lost my mom to terminal cancer almost a month ago. I’m so incredibly sad and miss her terribly. I told my husband that I just want a quiet day to myself hiking with my dog while he and our almost 3 year old daughter take his mom out. Then we’ll go to a brewery for dinner and I’ll toast my mom (who loved IPAs). He has a very complicated relationship with his mom and I realized that I don’t have the emotional bandwidth right now to deal with that and that I don’t have to.

Yes, it’s exactly like that. I also highly recommend reading the Bringing Up Bebe book and buying the Big Little Feelings course because they’re very complementary. We use this method with my almost 3 year old and it works really well. Of course there are still tantrums, but when we validate her feelings, it at least solves half the issue and she can then focus on learning the boundaries. We also try to always say what to do in the positive so she can follow instructions (hold my hand while we walk in the street vs don’t run in the street by yourself).

Yes, completely agree! After listening to the podcast I bought the book and then made my husband read it too. I knew I wanted to raise my daughter differently from how I was raised (so much pressure to succeed – mostly from the extremely competitive magnet school I was attending, but also internal pressure). I knew I mattered to my mom, but being a single parent, she wasn’t around much when I needed her. In spite of this, I found myself planning and getting sucked into researching the best schools, and she’s only 2.5! This book snapped me out of it and made me reflect on my own path and those of my classmates. I can’t tell you the number of classmates I knew who went to UC Berkeley, Harvard, Georgetown, etc. and still had no idea what to do with their lives after. All this competition and achievement culture destroyed our natural curiosity and drive and eventually caused burn out.

The magnet school certainly prepared us for college (all my classes at university were easy compared to high school), but I had no idea what to do after. I ended up enlisting in the military after undergrad (to the chagrin of my mom). That was the first time that I felt a sense of purpose beyond myself and my own achievements. Instead of what I was used to in high school and college and constantly competing with my classmates, we needed to work together to help each other succeed. This experience profoundly changed my perspective in life, but I still find myself struggling to care less about status.

I loved the story about the boy with dyslexia who forged his own path. There’s not one path to success and happiness in life, and it certainly doesn’t have to include an Ivy League education (and ironically it’s these sorts of experiences that help kids get into their choice colleges).

In short, it was an excellent book and I’ve really taken it to heart. Because of it, I’ve decided on a different school for my daughter, and will make giving back to the community a focal point.