When I was in middle school, I would ask my mom if I could watch certain TV shows other kids were watching: FRIENDS, Scrubs, and so on. She said sure (she’s pretty chill about stuff like that), but she told me there were a lot of jokes I wouldn’t get. She was right. I didn’t understand why the laugh track played when Ross forcibly wouldn’t let his toddler son play with a … [Read more...]
How One Adult With SPD Wants To Explain This Condition to Your Sensory Child
This article first appeared on the author’s blog, Coming to My Senses, and is reprinted with permission. As a delayed-diagnosis sensory adult with Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD), one of my greatest pleasures is helping newly diagnosed children with the same condition, whether this means championing their parents or explaining sensory issues from the inside. We SPD adults … [Read more...]
4 Ridiculous Questions People Asked Me When My 11 Year-Old Came Out as Gay
When my son was 11, he came out to me and my husband as gay. Or as he initially put it, “I think I am finally ready to realize something about myself.” (He’s smart and hilarious). My husband and I are both queer (more on that later), so he knew we wouldn't have a negative reaction. We did go out to dinner to celebrate his “realization," but it was largely a non-event. I'm … [Read more...]
7 Things I Teach My Kids About Consent, Sexual Harassment, and Assault
During a crowded bus journey, my daughter's shrill four-year-old voice piped up clearly and succinctly above the hum of the ongoing conversation: "I want to have sex with [insert classmate here]." A silence, not unlike the one pervading the moment before the conductor raises his baton, fell in anticipation of my reply. And on behalf of all the sex-positive parents, I swallowed … [Read more...]
7 Things Not To Say to a Child Wrestling With Their Sexuality
As a young person, I didn’t have any queer adult mentors to teach me about the positivity of exploring my sexual orientation, not to mention my gender identity. Most of what I learned about being LGBTIQ came from '90s mainstream media and my Gay Straight Alliance in high school. After high school, a couple of my friends eventually came out as gay. I listened and learned from … [Read more...]
How I Navigate Talking to Kids About My Gender as a Trans Parent and Educator
Children are a distinct, purposeful focus in my life. I'm the parent of a brilliant six-year-old and have many close friends with delightful kids as well. I work as a substitute para-educator, a job that sends me to a plethora of classrooms, K-12, throughout my city. I'm also a transgender woman. People often connect children with trans issues, but outside the occasional … [Read more...]
10 Ways To Raise Radically Sex-Positive Kids
One of my key jobs as a parent is to raise kids who love themselves and their sexuality. My own childhood was filled with silences and horrible caveats about sex. My mother told me repeatedly that she would ‘snap my spine’ if I had sex outside of monogamous marriage. And that sex ‘was not all that it what was cracked up to be.’ The only other ‘education’ I … [Read more...]
3 Problems With Talking to White Kids About Trump
Since Donald Trump was elected president of the United States, there have been tons of articles about talking to your kids about a Donald Trump presidency. As parents this is a hard thing to talk about – I get it. I was originally going to write one of these articles myself, but anxiety and other things have kept me unable to write anything until today. But as I read through … [Read more...]
7 Tips for White Parents To Talk to Their Kids About Police Murders of Black People
As a white parent of white kids it would be very easy to ignore the police murders of black people and other people of color. However, as a halfway decent person who wants to raise kids who are not monsters I believe that as white people talking to our kids about white privilege and what is happening in this country to people of color is the literal least we can do. I know it … [Read more...]
Hugs Not Required: Respecting Children’s Bodies and Boundaries
The Body is Not an Apology promotes radical self love and body empowerment. If we are to truly advocate for these values, then we need to not only do this work for ourselves as adults, but do it for children as well. We adults struggle with these issues mainly because of the culture we were raised in and how the adults in our childhood treated us. Knowing this, I believe we … [Read more...]
All That I Did Not Know: Supporting My Transgender Kid
In 2012, my kid West came out as genderqueer and now identifies as non-binary. Although assigned a gender of female at birth, West does not fit inside binary gender categories and uses the pronouns they, their, and them. For West, gender is fluid; sometimes, they move between male and female, and at other times, they are outside the binary altogether. My reactions to West … [Read more...]
Political Parenting: 5 Lessons Resisting the Trump Administration Taught Me and My Kids
I’m walking my daughter home from the bus stop and she’s chattering about the elections. I’m glad she’s learning about it at school but I listen closely, ready to pounce on any propaganda. While our town is pretty liberal, I’m not so sure about my children’s teachers. Suddenly my child asks, “Do you think my teacher is voting for Trump?” I wish I could say no but I honestly … [Read more...]
9 Common Mistakes Parents Make About Their Kid’s Weight
When I see someone teaching kids to hate their bodies, I’m mad. I’ve spent the bulk of my career as a therapist helping adults to let go of body shame, and I know that the roots of this dissatisfaction often starts during childhood. A recent study of 111 girls revealed that by age 5, 50% of these kids had internalized the thin ideal. Many of my clients have spent … [Read more...]
10 Tips for Introducing Disability to Kids
As parents, there are so many things that we need to help our kids learn. I think every parent or guardian has had a similar experience of the first time their toddler saw someone with a visible disability. Maybe the child saw a person in a wheelchair, or someone with dwarfism, and they pointed and stared. Perhaps the child said loudly, “Look! What is wrong with that person?” … [Read more...]
