Author Archives: Jodi Cohen
Mom friend break ups
You were best friends. Your kids were best buds. Now you don’t talk and you’re not sure why. Sadly, this scenario is more common than it would seem. Families that do everything together and seem inseparable…. until they’re not. One family, for whatever reason, decides that the friendship isn’t working anymore and claims to be [...]
Posted in Conflict with Friends 3 Comments
What To Do When Your Friend’s Kid is Mean to Your Kid
You love your friend, but your kids don’t get along. Or worse, her kid teases, bullies or physically abuses yours. For some this is a no brainer – if the kids can’t get along, you can’t get together. But for others, the line in the sand is not so clear. We really enjoy our friendship [...]
Are picky eaters born or made?
I know a lot of picky eaters and find myself exhausted watching their poor parents as they desparately try to please their picky kids. Still, I can’t help but wonder what would happen if the parents didn’t cater to their kids demands. Would the kids starve? Or would they find a way to eat [...]
Martyr Moms
It’s interesting how mothers label each other SELFISH or LAZY. “She loves to drop the kids with a babysitter, so she can exercise and shop,” one gossips. “We never use babysitters,” says another in a holier than thou tone. The implication is clear: spending time away from your kids makes you selfish, lazy or worse, [...]
Posted in Conflict with Friends, Judgement Days Leave a comment
Coveting your neighbor? Just remember “No One Escapes”
As we compete in the perfect parent Olympics, smugly congratulating ourselves on our child’s latest accomplishment or fretting over behavioral issues, it’s important to remember that much is outside of our control. A tragic story in Sunday’s New York Times drove this point home. A young family was posing for a picture in the [...]
Posted in Competition, Playgroups and Play Dates Leave a comment
The Benefit of Not Siding with Your Child
You did a great job mom! Someone actually said that to me in the park yesterday. My daughter was hysterical claiming that some other kid had hurt her. I didn’t see it because I was busy pushing her younger brother on the swing. She was hurt. She was angry. She was after revenge. She wanted [...]
Posted in Blame Game, Conflict with Friends Leave a comment
Letting your child experience disappointment
I think it’s human nature to want to protect our children from hurt and disappointment. As a result, we are sometimes quick to anger when another parent’s actions cause our children any upset. “How dare they do that to my child,” we fume. “If I were them, I would have handled it differently,” we rant. [...]
Posted in Blame Game, Conflict with Friends 1 Comment
Shame — How others influence your parenting
At a birthday party this weekend, another mother who I have known causally for years snapped at me that my son was too close to her daughter. It wasn’t so much what she was asking – her kid doesn’t like people too close to her and I respect that – but how she did it [...]
Posted in Conflict with Friends, Shame Leave a comment
Taking Discipline into our own hands
I previously shared an incident where a woman seated in front of my daughter hit her legs mid flight. Apparantly this situation is not unique as Phoenix police are currently investigating an incident on a Southwest Airlines flight where a woman allegedly grabbed a child who was kicking the back of her seat in March. [...]
Posted in Air Travel, On The Go 1 Comment
I can’t believe she just did that!