April 2009
5 posts
Parenting Advice From Joy Berry: Potty Training
My son and daughter are only 10 months apart. (So much for the old wives tale that one couldn’t get pregnant while nursing!) For what seemed to be an eternity, I had two little ones in diapers at the same time. Disposable diapers were only a twinkle in some corporate inventor’s eye, and the children’s father subscribed to the notion that changing diapers was a job for mothers. (He even offered the...
Parenting Advice From Joy Berry: On Divorce
I’ve been through a lot of tough times in my life, but nothing was more difficult than my son and daughter-in-law’s divorce. I love both of them equally, and I wanted them to survive the divorce intact. More important, I wanted my granddaughters to survive the two-year-long ordeal. Like many young parents, my son and daughter-in-law adopted the opinion, “What they don’t know won’t hurt them” and...
Parenting Advice From Joy Berry: Anger and Other...
My foray into writing living skills books for children began after a yearlong search for materials to use in a summer program I was directing. I wanted to offer classes that would help children live more happily and successfully. I came across a lot of books about feelings. What bothered me most about these books was the fact that they never told the reader how to handle an uncomfortable feeling....
Parenting Advice From Joy Berry: Fitting In/Being...
I love my nine-year-old granddaughter. Already she is a “woman of causes.” In keeping with her school’s mandate that every student do whatever is necessary to help save the rainforests, she and four of her friends decided to hold a bake sale. In support of her efforts, I volunteered my apartment for the planning and preparations for the event. Several days before the bake sale, I went to pick up...