In a world where kids get big praise for hitting their developmental milestones ahead of schedule- he sat up before six months! She was talking in sentences before her second birthday!- there are still times and places to let kids be little.

Letting kids be little means maybe they are wiggly worms when you'd like them to be sitting still.

Letting kids be little means letting them come back and touch base with you, and then leave, and come back, and then leave, and come back.

Letting kids be little means letting them still have those things that the world says they’re too big for. It means encouraging them to do and to have what they love, even if it isn't cool.

Here’s how we try to let our kids be little, and how it has made our kids’ lives (and ours) more joyful.

We find that we have the most fun in our families when we're the silliest-and when we let the kids be the littlest.

Here are links to research and other writing we discuss in this episode:

Dr. Ned Hallowell for Parents League: Protecting Childhood

Meredith Ethington for Scary Mommy: I Finally Get What They Mean By ‘Let Them Be Little’

Dr. Perri Klass for The New York Times: Offering Kids a Taste of Alcohol

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