Tag Archives: social

First Friends

Every parent wants their toddler to be well liked. After all, we adore them, so why shouldn’t they have tons of friends and other adoring fans? Many toddlers revel in attention and enjoy social interaction. Others prefer to explore their surroundings independently and may seem shy and quiet. Part of paving the way towards positive social experiences for your toddler is observing how different types of social settings affect him and seeking out the kinds of social experiences that he enjoys. Play dates can be a lot of fun, but they can become overwhelming if there are too many children … Continue reading →

Play Dates: A Germ Factory?

I’m a social person. I enjoy getting out and talking with other moms, especially other moms with babies. If they breastfeed, it’s an added bonus, because it means we will have lots to talk about. My baby and I laid pretty low this winter. I felt like I wanted to keep her protected from germs during flu season. Now that spring is upon us, I’m much more open to getting together with other people. In fact, this week alone, there are three play dates we are attending. I’m not sure what your experiences have been with play dates, but mine … Continue reading →

Social Drama, Part Two

Earlier today, I wrote an introduction to the concerns and realities of evolving social drama as it can affect our children. This is such a huge topic, I thought it made sense to break it up into a few parts—starting with how we can help our children maintain perspective and become “bolstered” for dealing with the realities of adolescent social drama. I think we can remind ourselves that there are many important life lessons that can be learned through all the social drama of childhood and adolescence. It does not have to be “all bad” or “all good.” I do … Continue reading →

Social Drama, Part One

If you mention “children’s social life” to any parent of a child over the age or 8 or 9, you will likely get rolled eyes and looks of exasperation. Sure, we want our kids to have healthy and active social lives—but all that social drama can become overwhelming for a parent. We never know what sort of tears or new best friends might be coming around the corner… As children enter adolescence, social relationships seem to take on a new dynamic. That is not to say that some of us do not have social butterflies from a much earlier age, … Continue reading →

Primary Time: Friends

One of the wonderful things about Primary is that allows the children to build friendships with each other. It is great to have friends that can help to strengthen your testimony. Primary is a great place to form these friendships. Since I grew up in Utah, I really took having members as friends for granted. Now that I am raising my children outside of Utah, Iam grateful for this added benefit of Primary. If you are new to the area, you may need to set up play dates so that your children can start building friendships. This may take some … Continue reading →

One of the Best Things About a Home Business–Meeting Interesting People

I have met people due to my home-based business that I am convinced I would NOT have met otherwise. This isn’t to say that there haven’t been plenty of interesting, great, and inspiring people that I have met in other venues (including working the more traditional job), but I think the flexibility, creativity, and autonomy of a home-based business lets us intersect and interact with interesting individuals we wouldn’t otherwise come in contact with. Often, in a more traditional job, your “sphere of influence” or the people you meet at work might be confined to a specific sector of your … Continue reading →

Why Three is Not a Good Number For Play

I have experienced the woes and problems of the number three first-hand. With three children very close in age, I know very well the triangulation and issues that develop with the number three. It is amazing to me that so many of us have three children, but we do! However, if you are coordinating and organizing play groups and activities for children, there are some good reasons why you should make sure there are only 2, or more than 3 children in attendance… With the number three, someone is inevitably going to be left out. Who is actually the left-out … Continue reading →

When Your Child Gets Caught in a “Friend Triangle”

Learning to maneuver the complications of social interactions is one of the inevitable challenges of childhood. Our child has to learn how to make and keep friends, and all sorts of wonderful and painful lessons in how to interact with other people. One of the issues that can come up for a young child is when two (or more) friends are vying for attention and want to be the exclusive or “best” friend. This can be an incredibly stressful and challenging social situation for a child and mom or dad may need to step in and help. In a triangle, … Continue reading →

Joiners and Loners

We all want what’s very best for our kids—we want them to grow and develop and experience life to the fullest. BUT, sometimes our own values about what that means might clash with our child’s temperament. We may think that an active social life is best while our child prefers to be alone or in one-on-one relationships. We might actually worry that if our child is too much of a loner, there are (or will be) big problems. It can go the other way too and a shyer, quiet parent might have a real hard time with a child who … Continue reading →

Networking With Former Coworkers

Just because we’ve left the traditional work world behind (or at least we home business owners may have partially left it behind) doesn’t mean we should let our connections with old coworkers go. Former coworkers and colleagues can be an important group in our extended circle of connections (or sphere of influence) and it can be very worthwhile to keep those connections alive. I think I am a fairly common representation of the modern professional–many of my best friends (and even a few romantic interests) have come from work. We spend so much time focusing on our careers and work … Continue reading →