In my last blog post I talked about how parents like me sometimes give “accidental” positive reinforcement, often in the form of attention, to their kids even when their child is doing something that they don’t like.  I call it accidental because you’re usually not intending to do it, and sometimes you’re not even aware that you are doing it! Positive reinforcement occurs when you reward or ... read more

Whenever I get on the phone, my children immediately need me.  As soon as they hear the phone ring I could swear that all four of them have a pressing issue that needs to be attended to by me at that very moment.  I think they have a sixth sense or something that Mommy does not want to be interrupted (and so they do!).  Does this ever happen to you?  I’ve taken to locking myself in the laundry ... read more

When I was in graduate school, I had the good fortune of learning about Dr. John Gottman’s magic ratio research.  Gottman discovered that relationships were most successful when couples had five positive interactions for every one negative interaction.  In general, his research showed that it took a lot of positives (five to be exact) to cancel out the effects of just one negative interaction!  ... read more