A kid pushed your child in the playground. What should your child do? Push back? Come running to you? Do nothing? Situations like these are confusing. We want our kids to be able to stand up for themselves. But we also want them to avoid using violence—even if it

Greetings from Tenedos (Bozcaada), a small Aegean island filled with ancient history, wine, and sunshine. I'm currently vacationing here part-time with my family in a beautiful vineyard. And part-time, I keep on creating. Tenedos is the island the Greeks hid their ships during the Trojan War. Hiding here on this

Am I an anxious parent? I see myself as an aware parent. But I wonder: Is my close-to-constant awareness bringing along some anxiety? This week I wanna think this aloud with you. My 21-month-old is soon to start daycare 2 half-days a week and I'm NOT feeling great about this.

I was on a business class flight this past weekend. My intention was to finish up the letter on the flight. But the temptation to enjoy the 3-course meal and watch a movie as my toddler napped took the better of me. Hence the 2-day delay. :) I hadn't pampered myself

In the early 1970s, an American psychologist named Ed Tronick started visiting newborn nurseries. Each Saturday, he and his colleagues would examine babies together, noticing how newborns communicated through behavior. They did this for 8 months. Back then, the social development in babies had never been studied. That's when Tronick

It's been 10 long weeks since the last issue. Thank you for your patience! I wasn't planning the pause to be this long but I ended up getting so much done thanks to it. I've finally started making long and short videos, done lots of writing for my new e-books,

I've been cooking up exciting new things at Apparent, meaning I was busy with the website the whole week. So this week I decided to put together a "best of" issue. Explore the best of Apparent Letter issues & articles down below! 🐘 30 million years: The case against sleep training,

A while ago, a dear Twitter friend confided in me with a parenting challenge she had been having. Her 3-year-old son always seemed bored. He was also clingy. When his mom offered an activity, he refused to play for longer than 5 minutes. Living in a 9-person family, he'd play

When I hit a parenting dead end, it's rarely about my kid—it's often about me. I see parenting as an opportunity for deep internal work. No wonder it's so hard! No meaningful work is easy. But there's one simple tool at our disposal: embracing the imperfect. Mess, tears, and

A few weeks ago, a friend I care about said he didn't agree with everything I wrote about parenthood. Curious to know what he was specifically referring to, I asked him to tell me more. He said: "Sometimes when I read your posts I feel you err too much on

This week we have twice as many readers as last week! I welcome you with all my heart and extend my gratitude for finding my Apparent Letter worthy of your inbox. ❤️ My piece on sleep training resonated with you guys so much that it got a fair number of retweets

Last week I found myself clenching my jaws while reading a post on Twitter. The author was talking about the perks of "sleep training." It had clearly worked for her and she wanted to share her "tips and tricks" so that other parents could get the "8-hour-long-periods of sleep" she'd

Do you ever worry about being a bad parent? If the answer is yes, you probably aren't one. Here's some shocking news: children actually benefit from imperfect parenting. Let me explain. In 1953, Donald Winnicott–the legendary British pediatrician and psychoanalyst–coined the term "good enough mother." I'll call it

Imagine a magic device. This device would receive our children's cues and translate them into words that we, adults, could make sense of. For instance, it would translate: "I hate you, dad!" into "I love you but I am mad at you at the same time, so I'm confused!"The

A few weeks ago, I thought of something during a walk. Like all good ideas, it came to me when I wasn't searching for it. "When parents manipulate children to have them under control," I thought, "it's a form of gaslighting." Simply put, gaslighting is to systematically convince someone that

Question 1: What is the sound of one hand clapping? Answer: The sound of one hand clapping is the sound of one hand clapping. Question 2: What is the sound of one child misbehaving? Answer: The sound of one child misbehaving is the sound of one child misbehaving. Question 3:

I passed him his tiny milk cup. He grabbed it and turned it upside down. Just like that, the milk spilled on his tray. I was confused. He was proud. A huge grin filled up his face. I filled up his cup again. He turned it upside down again. But

“It was a tragedy of errors. Fourteen-year-old Matilda Crabtree was just playing a practical joke on her father: she jumped out of a closet and yelled "Boo!" as her parents came home at one in the morning from visiting friends. But Bobby Crabtree and his wife thought Matilda was staying

My boy was never a great sleeper. Our 15-month-long experience was consistent: no matter what adjustments we made, he woke up quite frequently. Some months, he woke up every hour. And some other months he woke up every two hours. This is pretty much the summary of the entire thing.

This morning as I was showering, my mind was busy with all sorts of things. I had just woken up. But my mind had already jumped on the wagon of worrying about work and house chores. My mind was on fire😟 "I should have written more blog posts this week.

Today is 9th issue of The Apparent Letter brought to you on the 9th day of 2021. (I keep typing 2012 – damn it, muscle memory!) This week I'm writing to you about parent's mission. Do you ever stop to think – why did you become a parent? Here's a silly poem

Hi friends!– Your breath cannot linger in the past, neither can it rush to the future. It stays here and now, against all odds. Your breath is the never-fading rhythm of your life. It is what keeps you alive. It persists when you sleep. It persists when you cook, watch

Hi friends!– Every night, as I pull the zipper of my one-year-old's sleep sack from his chin towards his toes, I hold his chubby little feet in my hands and whisper to them: "Night night lovely feet, don't grow too much tonight, promise?" Then I kiss both of his feet

Hi friends!– Writing to you from the peak of the holiday season. Although a fairly unusual one this year, the gift-giving storm is real. That's why I am dedicating this week's issue to the best gift we can give to our children🥁: self-esteem. When we think of self-esteem, we think

Hi friends!– In most parenting conversations, I see a pattern. When faced with defiant behavior, parents desperately look for ways to change children. But, what if the best way to change our children's behavior was to change our perspective? "Are you suggesting that my child's bad behavior is my perspective's