After giving birth to my daughter and finding myself with a new body, one that wasn’t exactly in a state of health, fitness and well being, a question came up within me: How can I accept my body if I want to change it? We’re bombarded with suggestions of accepting ourselves and accepting our bodies, …
How often do we use manipulation tactics to get our children to behave in a way that we think is best? Even when we have on a conscious level let go of the practice of punishing and rewarding, we’ll at times notice ourselves trying to assert ourselves as authority, or inadvertently deny them the opportunity …
To date, the most challenging experience I’ve come across is seeing my daughter being ill and facing the thought of losing her. In this podcast I share what happened to Syntia in recent weeks and how I in turn reacted to what was unfolding. To be honest, this is not an experience I know how …
When I imagined myself one day becoming a soccer mom, I didn’t think I’d actually be playing any soccer… Seeing our kids growing up gives us as parents the amazing opportunity of revisiting our childhood, the personalities we created, the beliefs we formed about ourselves, the decisions we made and the chances we never took. …
What does kindness mean? How have I been living kindness? Have I been truly kind to myself and others, or have I been micro-managing myself to ‘fit in’? How we define a word affects our relationship with ourselves, our children and everyone else around us. Maite opens up her relationship with the word kindness, how …
Seeing the type of mother I want to be for Syntia and all the ways I am willing to support her, has been a great source of inspiration to change my relationship with myself. In this podcast, I share an experience that came up when Syntia was sick (those challenging times tend to really bring …
Every parent knows that there are different types of crying and we make it our mission to become familiar with these differences so we can tend to our child’s needs as best as possible. But something that is not often talked about is how we react in different ways internally and emotionally to these different …
As a parent you hold your child’s well being as a top priority and know that if need-be, you’ll place your child’s needs before your own. But does sacrificing yourself for your child always make you a better parent? I share in this recording my personal experiences and lessons learnt in the process of trying …
![Cesar gave Syntia his train tracks about a year ago, and before they were hers, she would play with them together with Cesar. She's had a ton of time to learn the different pieces, how to put them together and build a track, but for some reason, she DID NOT want to build a track by herself and most of all preferred to just watch as someone else built the track for her.
Lj and I knew she was perfectly capable of building a track for herself and we tried to support her to start small and show herself that she can do it. Or that we'd be here if she gets stuck, but she can at least try on her own. Any such attempts, however, were met with an absolute and firm refusal. So, we did it with her, or for her.
We started wondering, is this little girl really just taking advantage of us at this point? Are we entertaining this too much? Should we push harder? We knew she could do it, she knew she could do it, but for some reason she just didn't want to do it, at least, not yet.
And then one day, out of the blue, she takes out her blocks and starts building a track... by herself. Lj quietly waived me over, pointing at her, then signing 'shhht', lol - didn't want to disturb the moment. The track you see in the pic is the first one she built by herself. It wasn't a "beginner's" track like a simple circle or a straight line, it was a more intricate design laid out exactly and precisely how she wanted it to be, including all the elements she wanted to have as a part of it. Kabam, out of the blue.
There are other things where Syntia 'took her sweet time', like learning how to walk and potty training, where it was clear at some point that she was able to do it, but for some reason, pulled back or didn't want to do it all by herself just yet. It's so easy as parents to freak out over that, to think that children should develop skills in a particular way, like 'starting small' or doing something by yourself as soon as you're able to. But not all kids are the same in this. [Continued in comments..]](https://scontent-dfw5-1.cdninstagram.com/v/t51.29350-15/135216034_868657797266702_107582540258970761_n.jpg?_nc_cat=105&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=c4dd86&_nc_ohc=Z1V8WJUUqosAX-4LmjA&_nc_ht=scontent-dfw5-1.cdninstagram.com&edm=ANo9K5cEAAAA&oh=00_AfCJjAXVxtNiIi6gvUUl0MZd6cdkXtaHW6r2JeZgYPVE-A&oe=64DB2E92)
