Dear Mama Drama: I have three daughters ages 13, 11, and 8. They are all avid readers and generally read well above their age level. My eight year old wants to read whatever her sisters are reading, but as they get into their teens I am not always comfortable with the content. When there is sexual content or violence, my eight-year-old is often confused, scared, and has had nightmares, especially after reading some of the vampire books. The girls think it isn’t a big deal, but I do. I am not sure how to handle this with them. ~ Raising Readers (photo credit) Dear Raising: Your concerns about your youngest daughter’s reading material are valid. The themes in books for teens and tweens focus on different experiences and thinking processes than books for younger children. It can be difficult...
Dear Mama Drama: My five-year-old son used to eat a wide variety of foods, but now he will only eat a handful. I am concerned about him getting adequate nutrition and that we are constantly fighting over food. This is becoming a huge power struggle and is a nightmare for all of us. ~Food Fanatic (photo credit) Dear Fanatic: This is a frequent concern of many parents. Some children will eat anything and others are very finicky. Most children go through a picky phase at some point in their lives, but with time move past it. However, if your child has autism or other medical issues it will be important to consult with your medical practitioner or behavior specialist on how to handle this issue. Food intake is one of the few things children have complete control over as adults make most decisi...
My oldest daughter doesn’t want to take Spanish next year. I want her to take Spanish next year. It’s an elective only offered to eighth graders, it’s free, it’s available. To my mommy mind, it makes sense. I explained the benefits of having a full year of Spanish completed before high school. She’ll be a year ahead. Spanish is the wisest language to learn in today’s world and especially in our part of the country. These arguments failed to convince her, so I trotted out a seemingly innocuous observation about her friends. They are probably taking Spanish, right? I felt terrible hijacking peer pressure this way. Normally, I decry peer pressure but when it’s time to sign up for next year’s electives? Shame-less. She claimed no, they aren’...
Dear Mama Drama: My three (almost four)- year-old has always been very friendly and outgoing. She waves and chats with our neighbors and speaks easily to other family friends. Recently, she has begun behaving very differently with two families in the neighborhood. She hides behind me or my husband and won’t say hello. We feel very embarrassed and are not sure what to make of her behavior. We have talked with her about how rude this is and asked her why she won’t say hello. She can’t really give us any explanation other than that she doesn’t want to. We don’t see these neighbors as often as others and are just casual acquaintances. We probably didn’t see them for four or five months during the cold winter weather before the behavior began. We also haven’t had any conversations with her abou...
With Mother’s Day this month, I find myself taking a look back through all the years I’ve been a mother. I’ve officially decided that once you have children, time moves at double speed. I can so vividly recall those precious, magical days when my teenage daughter was a toddler – heck, I have SHOES older than her – that I can’t really believe I’m coming up on my 15th year of motherhood. People always joke about how hard it is to raise teenagers, and I’d like to set the record straight on that: I had NO IDEA. In addition to my oldest, I have two sets of twins who are seventeen months apart in age. I had four kids in diapers for YEARS. I have a child with autism. In other words, I feel like I’ve earned a few Mommy Merit Badges! But among all the parenting challenges I’ve faced, nothing ...
Dear Mama Drama: I am trying to get my five-year-old son to be more independent in bathing and dressing himself. I have been working with him for the past two weeks on this and he still cannot do anything on his own. I am frustrated and he starts crying every time I tell him to do it on his own. I don’t understand why this is so hard or how to help him. ~Confused Mama (photo credit) Dear Confused: Building independent self-care skills for bathing, dressing, etc., is very important for five year olds. While we, as parents, view these skills as fairly basic, we have to remember that we have been doing them for many, many years. Tasks that seem like one step for us, i.e. washing our hair, are really multiple steps. For your son to try to master all of these things in a short amount of time i...
“Momma? When can I get my ears pierced?” This was a question I’d anticipated, but not for a few more years. Claire is four-years old, and I knew it would come up eventually. I answered with my standard I’ve-been-caught-off-guard response, which consists of, “Well, that’s a great question!” …stalling, stalling, stalling. “Why do you ask?” …an answer with a question always gives you more time. That’s when I found out a little girl at Claire’s preschool has her ears pierced. The other girls had been talking about this fact at recess. That’s the point in the conversation with Claire that I was able to postpone the true answer by telling her I’d talk to Daddy about it and we’d make a decision about i...
New mothers in the U.S. are increasingly older and better educated than they were two decades ago, according to a new Pew Research Center study on the state of American motherhood. But that doesn’t mean women are waiting for just the right moment: The study also found that half of mothers surveyed said parenthood “just happened.” While most women giving birth are doing it within the context of marriage, the study found a record 41 percent of births were to unmarried women in 2008. That’s up from 28 percent in 1990, according to the study, “The New Demography of American Motherhood.” The trend crossed major racial and ethnic groups. Nearly 14 percent of mothers of newborns were 35 or older two years ago — and only about 10 percent were in their teens. The...
Every mother has hopes and dreams for her children. Even though I would love for my kids to share many of my pastimes, I am most invested in instilling a passion for skiing and hiking. This is because we spend most of our family time in the mountains. And the fact that I suck at pursuits such as golf, dance and tennis. I was thrilled when my daughter Hadley took to the slopes like a fish in very slippery water last winter but I also want my kids to develop their own talents. Hadley excels in art so I went to the mat to get her in a sold-out, week-long art camp at her school this summer. This, from the mom who only passed sixth grade art because her best friend did her projects for her. Three-year-old Bode is a Babe Ruth in the making and I will enroll him in T-ball this summer. He can hit ...
When Rebecca Loy’s family relocated to Denver, researching neighborhoods was key before setting up a new life for herself and her family. Loy’s method? Lace up her running shoes, buckle daughter Jessica into the jogging stroller and hit a few Stroller Strides classes, the franchise exercise program where moms get a 60-minute workout while pushing their kids in the stroller. In fall 2008, she found two options: one in a south suburb and Erin Johns’ workouts in Stapleton. “The first thing I did when I knew we were moving was search online for Stroller Strides,” says Loy, a 27- year-old mother of two, who attended classes in Knoxville, Tenn. “Once I got to class I met all these great women — including Erin — and that had a lot to do with choosing Stapleton....
When my daughter was a baby, I stumbled upon an organization that was accepting baby items at my local Target to be donated to newborns in need. It was heart-breaking to learn that many babies are born without having their basic needs met–some are forced to sit in the same diaper for days on end, others go hungry. Each year, nearly 4,000 babies are delivered at Denver Health and more than 85% of these children are born to families who live below the poverty level, often forcing them to make heart-wrenching choices. No family should have to choose between buying items of necessity for their baby or paying their rent. But this is the dire situation thousands of new parents face each year in the greater Denver Metro area. Now, we can all help at Denver’s biggest baby shower on Saturday,...