How to Enjoy the Santa Story Without Lying to your Child
By presenting the “Santa Story” as fiction, you can still celebrate the fun traditions of the Christmas season while avoiding the downsides of deceiving your child. *This post was updated on 12/11/18 to include an FAQ section and some quotes from other parents. Every December, a few articles circulate with titles like, “How to Tell Your Kids the Truth About Santa Without Breaking Their Hearts.” They encourage parents to tell children they get to “become Santa” and thus “the Santa construct is not a lie that gets discovered, but an unfolding series of good deeds and Christmas spirit” (quote attributed to an anonymous Facebook post, which has been widely shared).…
Bringing Home Baby Without Breaking Your Body – How to protect your joints when you have arthritis and a new baby
Despite infants’ diminutive size and stature, caring for a new baby is a very physical job! Many new parents and caregivers experience joint or muscle pain after repetitive stress caused by lifting, carrying, diapering, and holding their baby. It’s estimated that between 25-50% of new parents experience DeQuervain’s tenosynovitis (or “Mommy thumb”) alone. It is also common to have pain in other areas such as the wrists, shoulders and back. These issues are of course exacerbated by chronic underlying illnesses such as autoimmune arthritis. From my experiences as a new mom with rheumatoid arthritis and from my training as an occupational therapist, I would like to share tips on my…
Bringing Home Baby: Tips for Meeting the Caregivers’ Basic Needs
It’s hard to put into words how simultaneously joyful, exhausting, transcendent, stressful, surreal, and miraculous the first few months home with an infant can be. Now that I’m emerging from the fog but the experience is still fresh in my mind, I’d love to share some tips and strategies that helped me adjust to parenthood* over the last five and a half months. While pregnant, I found countless resources for how to care for a newborn, from feeding to sleeping to swaddling to safety. However, there were less resources available for how to care for myself and other primary caregivers in the newborn days. Thus, I will focus on these…
Everything I Need to Know About Grit, Perseverance and Frustration, I learned from Soccer
Soccer is one of the most frustrating sports, which is why my husband and I hope our kids choose to play someday. You might wonder why on earth a prospective parent would actively desire that their child experience frustration. My reasoning is simple: frustration is an unavoidable part of life. By being chronically exposed to frustrating situations and learning to persevere through them, you develop grit and perseverance, which will be more beneficial long term than being sheltered from negative experiences. Additionally, recent research suggests that grit and perseverance are more correlated to lifelong success than traditional measures such as IQ or grade point average. Of course, all sports help…