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"Use your words" is too vague for young kids. Give them effective, specific tools to solve disputes.

When there's trouble afoot -  a child grabs a toy or pushes someone - it's common to hear a nearby adult say "Use your words."

That's frustrating for kids. "Use your words" isn't enough information. Which words?  What do I say? How do I do it? If we want kids to talk out their differences, instead of slugging each other, we need to give them effective words to say.

Especially for young kids, who are still developing emotional control and verbal skills, talking while mad is a huge challenge.  That's why offering them exact words to say can work such magic.

"Say 'Stop!'"

"Tell her what you don't like."

"Tell her what's making you mad."

"Tell him what you're worried about."

Specifics like this help an angry child know what to do next.  Sure, she's using her words, but she knows what to say. Soon these words become a second nature.  They need to be.  Because when kids are mad they're so busy raging inside about the immediate injustice that words fail them.

This happens to adults, too.  "Words fail me." We don't know what to say.  We either say the wrong thing or we don't say anything.  We all need help knowing what to say in high intensity situations.

Parents can't always just "use our words" all the time either. If an angry child crosses a boundary, words aren't enough. We need to physically stop her and remove her from the situation. It's a hands-on job.

What should we say when we move a child?  "It's too hard for you to stop right now."  This acknowledges the situation - the child simply can't muster the power to control her impulses at the moment.  She can't stop hitting/ knocking over the tower/ sitting on her sister without adult help.  It's too much.  Simply say "It's too hard right now" as you move the child away.

Having the right words handy is a godsend.  That's why I ended each chapter of It's OK Not to Share with a list of effective words.  Words kids can say.  Words adults can say.  It's handy to have a resource of easy-to-remember words, especially in the heat of the moment, when words might just fail you.

What other phrases do you hear adults commonly use that bug you? What effective words do you rely on?

Celebrating the new year with a castle cake.

January is cake time in our family. My youngest has a birthday and we have fun making elaborate cakes. For his 4th birthday he asked for a castle cake with a princess coming out of it. Thought you'd like to see the 7-tower castle cake we made as a result.

We built the towers with cake and upside down ice cream cones. The doors and windows were made of fruit roll-ups snipped into shape with scissors. The moat was blue paper with a pretzel drawbridge.

Beware - making this cake takes lots of cake batter. The main castle base was built with two square cakes stacked on top of each other. Then I baked another rectangular cake and cut it into smaller pieces, plus made a few cupcakes for smaller tower pieces. I ended up baking extra cake along the way to finish all the towers.

And this January?  He's asked for a pirate ship cake.

What cool cakes have you ever seen or created? Any tips for making a pirate ship?

Powerfingers on their way to writing their next books.

Last week my writing group met for a joint book signing at a local bookstore.  We call ourselves the Powerfingers.  And indeed we lived up to the name this month - between us we signed two book deals and a movie option!

This seems like the perfect time to introduce you to the group that sustains my writing.  Just like raising kids -- or any all-consuming, worthwhile endeavor -- writing books takes a deep support system.  We may write alone, we may parent alone, but for best results we write our books and raise our kids together.

So in time for holiday book ideas, here are new authors you may enjoy discovering.  We write memoir, true crime, novels, poetry, renegade parenting and more. At the end, you'll see an announcement for a 2014 Read Along for my book being offered by Not Just Cute.  If you've been meaning to pick it up, now you'll have company.  Giveaway ends today!

Fleda Brown   A fall-in-love with poet, Fleda served as Poet Laureate of Delaware and is a former Professor of English at the University of Delaware. She believes nursery rhymes help develop the skills of language and poetry. Fleda has published numerous books of poetry and writes a thoughtful blog. Read more about Fleda.

Mardi Link is the author of three books, including her new memoir about single motherhood, Bootstrapper. If you like funny, irreverent writing set in the Midwest, try her book. Garrison Keillor liked it - you might, too. Hardback is out, paperback coming soon. Read more about Mardi.

Cari Noga  Cari is one those extraordinary mortals who can write a novel in a month.  She regularly creates new work during NaNoWriMo, national novel writing month.  Her first endeavor is published as Sparrow Migrations, a novel set around the Miracle of the Hudson plane crash in New York City, featuring a 12-year-old boy with autism. She's a true starlighting mama, raising two young kids and writing at odd hours on the side.  Read more about Cari.

Anne-Marie Oomen teaches creative writing at Interlochen Center for the Arts, and we all benefit. She's a playwright and author of numerous books of collected essays, poetry, and memoir. Like many teachers-who-write-books, Anne-Marie uses the summer months to write, write, write.  Read more about Anne-Marie.

Teresa Scollon   Teresa is a marvel. Primarily a poet, Teresa is a National Endowment for the Arts Fellow, essayist, writing teacher and author of the book To Embroider the Ground with Prayer, poems about life in rural Michigan.  If you don't have a poet in your writing group, I recommend getting one.  Teresa shaped my book's first chapter. Read more about Teresa.

Heather Shumaker  And then there's me. If you're following this blog then you're probably familiar with my book It's OK Not to Share. Now you can read it in the company of others.  It's OK is the featured 2014 Read Along book at Amanda Morgan's site Not Just Cute. She's offering Google Hangout interviews as part of the Read Along, with me and author parenting bloggers. Hurry over - book giveaway ends at midnight tonight. Read more at my author website.

Who's on your support team? Do you need to gather more like-minded people around you - for parenting, writing or other endeavors?  Are you stuck in a reading rut: is it time for you to discover and fall in love with new authors?