By Jillian Lauren Dear Parents of Well Behaved Children, I just spent the summer traveling around the country with two spirited children and I have met lots of you. You usually like the idea of us. You start out eager to chat with me at the pool or the park. You ask if my boys […]
By Jillian Lauren Two days ago we were at the water table in the Chicago Children’s Museum. I left the room for exactly five seconds to tell Scott something. When I got back, there was a knot of confusion and yelling around Tariku. I ran toward him and found an incensed grown man screaming at […]
By Jillian Lauren In some ways, tour is anarchy- the boys are up late dancing to crazy loud rock music, giving each other dinosaur tattoos with face paint, and smuggling forbidden Fruit Loops into their bunks. They spend their days scootering around parking lots, chatting up the other bands, riding questionable attractions in sketchy roadside […]
By Jillian Lauren Woke up this morning in Atlanta, though the view from the bus window looked exactly like the one in Tampa, Miami, New Orleans, Houston… Cloudless blue sky, sun turning the asphalt into a skillet, rows of trucks, camps of buses, sweaty crew guys with creative facial hair heaving around huge road cases, […]
By Jillian Lauren This past weekend, I had the privilege of delivering the keynote at the Parenting in Space conference, a fantastic therapeutic parenting conference. I followed up my presentation with a workshop on therapeutic writing. The conference was put on by some of my touchstones in the therapeutic parenting community, including Christine Moers, Billy […]
By Jillian Lauren Yesterday, I spent 5 solid hours on a plane correcting a toddler, who was banging with both fists on the seat in front of him, throwing his shoes, and screaming like I was sticking pins under his toenails. It has been a long time since I was so desperately beside myself. The […]
By Jillian Lauren Would you walk up to a pregnant woman and tell her about your friend’s cousin’s daughter whose infant died of a rare disease, offer her the unsolicited tale of your hairdresser’s daughter’s home birth gone wrong, tell her about every mother you know visiting her teenager in rehab, etc.? Would you walk […]
By Jillian Lauren First of all, go order Julie Fogliano’s When Green Becomes Tomatoes right this minute. Go ahead, I’ll wait. Run-don’t-walk next Tuesday and get it at your local independent bookstore. Okay, well done. You’ll thank me! Now I’ll tell you a little story about this gem of a book… Bright Eyes has a language […]
By Jillian Lauren I’ve been working on Bright Eyes’ life-book lately. I used My Family, My Journey for Tariku, and I liked it so much I bought another one. A lifebook is the adoption equivalent of a baby book, but has a more expansive focus, documenting not just milestones but also history. I appreciate this […]
A mother mourns her massive mom fail.
