• home
  • contact
  • hire
    • blog
    • freelance
    • media kit
    • portfolio
    • resumé

lo-wren

muse. mom. maven.

  • Editorial
    • all
    • featured
  • Parenting
    • humor
    • breastfeeding
    • miscarriage
      • experience
      • healing|support
  • freelance
    • portfolio
    • resumé
  • natural living
    • cloth diapering
      • general topics
      • accessories
      • prefolds
      • fitteds
      • pockets
      • ai2s
      • aios
      • wool
      • trainers
    • ideas
    • products
    • recipes
    • events
  • blog series
    • featured WAHMs
    • guest posts
    • what we’re reading
    • sun protection
    • SIDS awareness

Little Things Long Remembered by Dr. Susan Newman

2015/02 By Lauren B. Stevens 2 Comments

Close your eyes and think back to your earliest memories of childhood. What stands out the most? What memories and moments put a smile on your face?

When I close my eyes, I can almost smell the woodsmoke in the crisp fall air, and hear the crunch of fallen leaves under my feet, on one the many nature walks I took as a child. When I hear the word circus, I’m taken back to a time when I was a third of the size I am now, my father lying on his back and bouncing me on his feet as I held onto his outstretched hands [for dear life]. Laughter, lots and lots of laughter. My father smoothing my forehead with the palm of his hand, saying “smooth as a baby’s behind,” and my mother calling me “Lauren Bethy-Boo” in a sing-song voice. These memories are the result of simple moments in my childhood, but each has had a larger, lasting impact on me.

If you want to amp-up your family time, find simple ways to make lasting memories with your children, or are just in need of suggestions to create family traditions, Dr. Susan Newman's Little Things Long Remembered is a must-read.

Susan Newman, PhD, a social psychologist, parenting expert, and blogger for Psychology Today, helps parents make meaningful moments in their children’s lives in her book, Little Things Long Remembered: Making Your Children Feel Special Every Day. I ‘bumped’ into Dr. Newman on Twitter, and was immediately intrigued by the many parenting books she’s written. Dr. Newman kindly sent two of her books to me to review, feeding my insatiable appetite for parenting wisdom.

I’m blessed to be able to work from home with my son, but there are still times when I wonder if I could be doing more as a parent. Working with tight deadlines and juggling multiple projects, I often get bogged-down with work and forget to take a few moments to meaningfully connect with my son throughout the day. Newman’s Little Things Long Remembered serves as a pocket manual, a guidebook, and an idea-starter for parents to meaningfully connect with their children in a big way. Whether you’re juggling your child’s extracurricular activities, or your work/household schedule makes it difficult to fit in meaningful moments, Little Things Long Remembered offers ideas for anywhere from 5 minutes to an entire weekend.

Eskimo kisses are just one example of a tradition Declan will carry with him through adulthood, and he asks for eskimo kisses often! Each time I give him eskimo kisses, he admonishes me for doing it ‘wrong’; Declan’s eskimo kisses are carried out with an up-and-down motion, rather than your typical side-to-side nose-rubbing (I’m laughing as I type this because it’s both absurd and something that’s uniquely his). This is just a small example, but the impact is lasting. Another quick way I connect with Declan is in telling him that I love him in a special way. It began by me asking him, Guess what? And responding with I love you when he would respond with what? Now it’s our thing. When I say guess what?, Declan responds with a huge grin and an often boisterous, I love you! It’s all about the little things.

 

Dr. Susan Newman, a social psychologist, parenting expert, and blogger for Psychology Today, helps parents make meaningful moments in their children's lives with her book, Little Things Long Remembered: Making Your Children Feel Special Every Day.

 

Little Things Long Remembered opens with Newman’s list of Cardinal Rules, the most important of which is for parents not to “let too much time pass between ‘little things.’ Make one a day your absolute minimum” (5). I appreciate this rule greatly, as it’s often easy to get lost in the day-to-day demands of work and managing schedules. Another of Newman’s Cardinal Rules is about unplugging from electronics to pave the way for meaningful time (an addition since the book was first published in the 1990s). While many of Newman’s suggestions are straightforward and simple, Little Things Long Remembered serves as a reminder that our children often find meaning in even the smallest moments.

Perhaps the best feature of Newman’s book, apart from the fact that she provides over five hundred ideas for memory making, is that it is designed to be flipped through. Looking to make the most of your weekend? Simply page through to the section with ideas for fun weekend family activities. Our favorite five-minute activity is Dr. Newman’s Remember When? exercise. Declan began this just before his second birthday, asking my husband and I, “Remember when I was a little boy?” and delighting in being regaled with our recounting of baby Declan’s funniest moments.

If you want to amp-up your family time, find simple ways to make lasting memories with your children, or are just in need of suggestions to create family traditions, Dr. Susan Newman’s Little Things Long Remembered is a must-read. You can check out Dr. Newman’s additional parenting books on her website, susannewmanphd.com. Purchase your copy of Little Things Long Remembered through Newman’s website, or through Amazon.com.

Sharing is Caring! Please share to keep the conversation going:

  • Email
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Pinterest
  • More
  • Tumblr
  • Reddit
  • Google

Related

Signature

Filed Under: all, books, Editorial, Parenting Tagged With: Dr. Susan Newman, Little Things Long Remembered, parenting, parenting books

Trackbacks

  1. How To Raise An Adult says:
    2015/06 at 10:41 am

    […] now you know that I really enjoy parenting books, especially those dealing with the psychology of parenting (and early childhood). So many of my […]

    Reply
  2. Finding Gratitude and Peach In The Everyday says:
    2015/12 at 10:20 am

    […] therapy has brought me to an unbelievably wonderful place in life, one where I cherish the small moments (in addition to the “big” ones), possess a confidence my teenaged self would be […]

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

CommentLuv badgeShow more posts

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Google+
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter

categories

Lauren B. Stevens is a former publishing rep-turned-writer, whose work can be found on ChildVantage, The Huffington Post, Scary Mommy and Care.com, among many other websites. When she's not chasing her precocious preschooler, Lauren pens hilarious and heartwarming stories about her life as a mother, ghostwrites blogs for businesses, and sometimes even finds the time to write a bit of creative non-fiction.
Look for Lauren's published essays in the books listed below:

i’m in these books!

  • SMITHCoverWidget.jpg
  • MMCoverWidget.jpg
  • 3534480-01Motherhood250-1.jpg
  • chicken-soup.jpg
  • SINSA-Cover-Image.jpg
  • PTB6.jpg
  • PTB7.jpg

popular this week…

  • 5 Ways to Repurpose Cloth Diapers
  • 5 Reasons to Use All-in-Two (AI2) Cloth Diapering Systems
  • Best Cloth Diapers for Boys
  • Should I Try to Conceive Directly Following a Miscarriage?

recent posts

  • 4 Things You Can Get to Ensure Car Safety for Your Kids (Without Breaking the Bank)
  • Cyber Security 101: 5 Tips for Keeping Your Kids Safe Online
  • 11 Activities To Tire Your Kids And Have Them Begging for Bedtime
  • Chicken Soup for the Soul: Military Families
  • Maximizing Marketplace Savings with Groupon and eBay

Stirrup Queen’s List of Blogs

Stirrup Queen's List of Blogs

archives

Pinterest Favorites

 photo 12UniqueGifts_zps5a66546f.jpg" alt="12-UNIQUE-GIFT-IDEAS" />
 photo 4ReasonstoUseMenstrualCupjpg_zpsb15ca7ba.jpg
 photo StopBreastfeeding_zps6df818b5.jpg
budget-cloth-diapering
 photo MiscarriageBabyLossjpg_zps3a6a4ab8.jpg
 photo PrefoldPinterest_zps43c4cd6e.jpg

Copyright © 2021

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.