Helpful Tips for Parents

• The goal of discipline is not compliance but self-discipline — teaching children to regulate their own behavior internally, without adult enforcement. Every interaction either builds or erodes this capacity.

• Children need connection before they can accept correction. A child who feels genuinely heard and loved is far more receptive to limits than one who feels disconnected.

• Praise the effort, not the outcome: "You worked so hard on that" rather than "You're so smart." Effort praise builds resilience; outcome praise builds fragility.

• Parent self-care is not optional — it's functional. A parent who is rested, supported, and regulated manages child behavior more effectively than an exhausted one. Put on your own oxygen mask first.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I handle a preschooler who lies?

Preschooler lying is developmentally normal from approximately age 3, when children develop the cognitive capacity for intentional deception (Theory of Mind). It's actually a sign of healthy development. Respond to lies without excessive drama: "I think that might not be exactly what happened. It's important to tell the truth. Let's talk about what actually happened." Avoid setting up no-win confession situations ("Did you eat the cookie?" when you know the answer). Model truth-telling — children who see parents tell convenient lies will lie.

Related reading: See also our social skills guide and our raising confident preschoolers for more ideas on this topic.

🎓 Skills Your Child Will Develop

• 🌱 Growth Mindset — Parents who praise effort and process rather than ability and outcome build children who believe intelligence can be developed — and children with growth mindsets achieve more, persist longer, and embrace challenge rather than avoiding it.
• 💬 Language & Communication — Rich parent-child conversation — especially expanded responses to children's observations and questions — is the single most powerful driver of vocabulary growth and language development available.
• 🧩 Problem-Solving Mindset — Parents who coach children through problems rather than solving them are building the independent problem-solving disposition that distinguishes capable, resilient learners from dependent, avoidant ones.
• 😊 Emotional Security — A child who feels emotionally secure — whose needs are met consistently by a loving adult — develops the confidence, curiosity, and resilience that enable learning and healthy risk-taking in every domain.

Step-Families with Preschoolers

With divorced, single parent and other non-traditional family structures, today's preschooler can experience a much more fluid upbringing than their peers in traditional family situations.

Their actual number of family members, for instance, can increase dramatically (and very quickly) with a remarriage. A post-divorce break-up, on the other hand, can do the opposite - aside from all of the emotional turmoil involved.

At its most basic level, planning the lives of preschool children of divorced parents is complicated and seemingly endless. The standard work week imposes a structure that needs to be followed without much room for negotiation; it's the down-time when crisis situations tend to occur. Unless (and sometime despite) a real effort is made on the part of all adults involved, extended holidays or weekend visits for step-families with preschool children can be torturous exercises.

One Mother's Choice

A grandmother related her live-and-learn story, saying:

My daughter's boyfriend has a little girl, 2 1/2, who is in custody of her mother. He was supposed to get her for Christmas Day and had prepared the house especially to accommodate a young child. We had child proof ornaments on the lower half of the tree. I even baked gingerbread men. We were very excited because the little girl's mama doesn't put up a Christmas tree and neither does her grandmother, so she had never seen one.

So, my daughter and her boyfriend went to pick her up, but when it was time to leave, she screamed and cried and didn't to come because she didn't want to leave her new toys. The mother, who has always let the father have the child when it was his time before, said she wouldn't force the little girl because she was so upset.

Plan the Get Away

Just as we parents literally crawl around the house, in an attempt to see it from the perspective of our newly-mobile babies, we need to look at our visitation plans from the point of view of our preschoolers. Because family customs or expectations are meaningless to a child, the parent needs to choose between following beloved traditions (without change) or bending the situation to fit the child's needs.

Sharing custody of a child is simply that - a split, a division - and there will always be an inherent loneliness and forfeit involved. Things will not be the same; however, by rotating visits and holidays fairly between extended family members, your preschool child can actually benefit by having more people who love her.

I'm Stephanie Olsen , the Preschool Parenting writer for PreschoolRock.com. As a mom of two and a freelance writer, I enjoy writing about parenting as well as exchanging ideas and opinions with other parents. If you have any suggestions or questions about this site, please contact me .

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