How Does a Child Work Out Who Someone Really Is?
Learning to look beyond appearances is an important part of learning to read.
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What If Being Slow Is Not an Indication of Failure?
Seven years. That was the training, not the delay.
What If a Scary Story Is the Safe Place Your Child Needs?
The safest place to think about scary things is in a story.
What If Your Child Refusing to Accept “It Can’t Be Done” Isn’t Defiance?
Knowing it is true is not the same as accepting it is finished.
What If Doing the Right Thing Costs Your Child Something and You Let It?
The cost is part of what makes it a choice.
What If the Line Your Child Keeps Repeating Is the One That Matters Most?
By the fourth time the story reads the same sentence, they are saying it with you.
What Happens When Your Child Goes Quiet?
You may be looking for one emotion, when multiple emotions are driving behavior.
What Do You Say When Your Child Lends Their Favorite Toy and Does Not Get It Back?
A promise cannot guarantee what will happen, but it can set expectations.
What If Your Child Could Watch the Same Day End Two Different Ways?
The two endings begin at the two doors.
What Did Your Child Mean to Say?
The first sentence may not be the whole answer.
What Does Your Child Hear When You Talk About Them in Front of Them?
Stories give children a way to show you what is really going on.
Can a Child Understand a Story They Cannot Retell?
Yes. A pencil can show you what words cannot.
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What Does Your Child Do When There Is No Grown-Up Around to Ask?
Good judgement is a skill. It can be learned.
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What Does “Visual Superpowers” Actually Mean, Once You’ve Seen It in Action?
A month’s worth of watching, gathered into one answer. Seeing, interpreting, predicting, solving — four skills that all run before reading, and often instead of it.
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What If Not Knowing the Answer Yet Was the Whole Point of the Game?
For the child who won’t try unless they’re sure they’ll get it right. The fix isn’t arguing about wrong answers — it’s play where wondering matters more than being right.
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What Do You Do When Your Child Can’t Win By the Rules Everyone Else Is Using?
The playground teaches kids that winning belongs to whoever is bigger, faster or louder. There is another option nobody mentions: change the game.
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What Happens If You Stop Trying to Fix the Meltdown?
Something I had to unlearn as a parent before I could write about it. The collapse at 3:15 is trust arriving late and messy, not a discipline problem.
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What If Pretending to Be Someone Else Was Actually Good Practice?
Choosing to pretend is different from having to pretend.
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Why Does Your Child Say “I’m Fine” Right Before They Fall Apart?
Your child holds it together all day somewhere else, then unravels with you. Both descriptions are true, and the collapse at home is not the bad news.
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What Do You Call a Kid Who Reads People Perfectly But Can’t Explain What They Saw?
A problem I watched up close, and learned to name differently. Understanding a moment and reporting it in order are two different jobs.
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What If Talking About a Story Didn’t Feel Like a Quiz?
Lots of kids shut down the second you ask “what happened?” It sounds like a test with a right answer. There is a way to talk about a story that doesn’t.
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Why Does Your Child Go Quiet When Someone’s Clearly Wrong?
Your child may understand much more than you think. Going quiet is often the opposite of checking out — it is the sound of two realities being held at once.
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What If Everyone Was Wrong About Why Your Child Won’t Read?
Meet the hero I wrote because my own kids needed one. A child who struggles to read is not a child who struggles to think.
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What If Story Time Didn’t Depend on Reading at All?
Help the child who hates reading before the book even opens. A read-along takes decoding out of the room and lets the story win first.
