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FACT: 25% to 30% of “normal” families have emotionally insecure children — and are observed to need improvements in the emotional availability of their parent-child relationships.

The emotional security of children plays a significant role in shaping their lives — from their personality, confidence, success in future relationships, and mental health — as they grow. It is a widely accepted fact that children from loving and caring households go on to become well-adjusted adults, while children from abusive, broken, or neglectful homes often grow up to have serious emotional or even mental problems. But it is less well known that many concerned, caring, and well-meaning parents are still observed to need improvements in their relationships so that their children can grow up to be emotionally securely attached (vs. insecurely attached) to their parents. 30% of normal, benign relationships are found to be on the lower end of EA in our research studies.

When parents are emotionally reachable and are able to ‘read’ the emotional signals (through body and verbal language based on attachment and EA principles) of their kids, the children will perform better in a wide variety of situations.

Source: http://www.emotionalavailability.com

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Clinical competencies for the effective treatment of foster children

Source: http://ccp.sagepub.com/content/21/1/32?etoc

Abstract

Despite a high level of documented mental health needs among children who have experienced foster care, research indicates that treatment outcomes are often disappointing. In order to improve outcomes, evidence-based treatments for attachment, trauma and behavioral difficulties are often promoted for this population. However, little research exists on whether or not those interventions effectively address the unique and complex mental health needs of many foster children. While a rather robust literature exists on foster children’s multifaceted difficulties, most treatments do not fully represent that range and complexity in their interventions. This article attempts to begin to fill that gap by outlining the knowledge and skills clinicians must acquire if they are to effectively treat foster children. Treatment of foster children should be seen as a subspecialty within the field of child mental health, and trainings that help clinicians gain more knowledge of foster children’s unique needs should be more available.

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Nagging Never Works

By Ron Huxley, LMFT

Parenting teenagers can be a frustrating time for parents. They feel the need to nag, threaten, lecture and even yell to get them to be compliant. Research shows that this parenting actions create oppositional and defiant children. This is the opposite of what parents want. They desire compliant, fun-to-be-around children. 

Of course, no one likes to be nagged. Parents do not like it from their spouses or employers, so why would we think that children like it? How you show a child to do something and ask them to do it makes a lot of difference in how motivated they are to comply with you. 

Dr. Kazdin, Ph.D., author of the book The Kazdin Method: Parenting the Oppositional and Defiant Child, suggest parents have their practice the behavior they want when they parent is not frustration (which could be a rare moment). This practice is fueled by the parent being playful about it and using praise in very specific ways. Humiliation and shame is not the motive here. Even though Kazdin is more focused on behavior than attachment, the reparative actions of practicing in a playful way mimics what parents would do with younger children in a natural way which is typical of therapeutic work with traumatized children. 

What can you practice with your defiant teen that would build skills and not resentment? How can you increase cooperation with specific praise of your teens efforts to be helpful instead of argumentative? How a parent parents is a more powerful method than what tools a parents uses. 

Learn more power parenting tools with Ron Huxley’s parenting book: 

Love and Limits: Achieving a Balance in Parenting

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Sustain Your Families Successes

By Ron Huxley, LMFT

Parents want to know how to sustain the successes they have in the home. They want the temperature in the mood and attitudes in their children to stay constant. It is frustrating to have a good day and then have it follow with a week of anger and defiance. In order to sustain the good times, it is important that parents consistently put in what they want to get out of the family. For example, if you want kind children, keep putting in kindness to the children in your word and deeds. If you want joy, put in joy and fun activities. If you want respect, don’t just demand it, give it! This is why research demonstrates the power of modeling in social relationships. 

What do you want “out” of your family members? How can you put more of that “into” your home? 

Take back control of your home: 101 Parenting Tools: Building the Family of Your Dreams

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New photos of Ron Huxley’s Shell Beach, California office. 

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Parenting Through the Tough Times

By Ron Huxley, LMFT

No one likes to go through tough times. Everyone would prefer to avoid extreme challenges and painful relationship encounter but we all go through them. How we endure them reveals what we are a really made of…Difficult situations reveal our parenting character and attitudes quicker than anything else in life. 

Attachment researchers call this “rupture and repair”. A rupture can be anything from a minor disagreement to a child stealing or running away to a major incident like a death or divorce. All families have them but how do they discover how to repair? It is the ruptures that tear down old strategies that didn’t support healthy communication and connection. Ruptures quickly remove strongholds in our relationships that prevent us from having the family of our dreams. This can be considered a good thing. It doesn’t feel good but it provides an opportunity to redefine our relationships. 

One way that families repair is they break agreements with lies they have believed about themselves and their family. These are often dysfunctional beliefs learned early in life that served to protect us from painful rejections and taught us our to get needs met even if it was distorted and manipulative. Fortunately, if we learned dysfunctional and distorted ways to navigate safely in relationships, we can learn new ideas and adopt healthier beliefs about how to have intimacy and connection. Most parents never stop to reflect during rough times to discover these new truths. 

Take a moment to ask yourself what did I learn about myself and my relationship during this most recent crisis? What was identified that needs to change and what am I willing to do to change it? Are you going to keep doing what didn’t work so well in the past and lead to this recent moment of pain or are you going to find a new thought and a new truth? 

Imagine you are taking a helicopter ride straight up, about a mile high, and look back down at your situation. What do you notice that you didn’t see before being so close to the circumstance? What details stand out to your now and what new directions do you need to get yourself and your family unstuck? You don’t have to know all the steps just yet. What is the first step that you feel you need to take right now to get healthier. 

The other way that successful families met tough times is to not blame one another. Even if someone else created a mess, they look at themselves to determine what messes are on their side of the street that they need to clean up. They stand on the principle of “the problem is the problem. The person is not the problem.” It can take a lot of emotional strength to stand on that thought but the truth is that you cannot change anyone, even a small child. You have to clean up your messes and your can model/teach your child how to clean up their messes. Guiding children, not controlling children is the real goal of parenting. 

Learn more power parenting tools with Ron Huxley’s parenting book: 

Love and Limits: Achieving a Balance in Parenting

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Parenting Self-Reminders

By Ron Huxley, LMFT

If you like to be productive, you probably set a reminder or two about things that need to get done. Reminders can be put on our a phones, left as little post-it notes around the house or scribbled on a to-do list. Whatever your preferred method to get things done, you need to be reminded what, when and how in order for it all to get accomplished.

As parents we set up reminders. We make sure the parent-teacher conference meetings are on the calendar and the remind ourselves of short release days at school and when to get more pick up prescriptions, etc. What if we went deeper and reminded ourselves to tell our children how amazing they were or to stop our endless list of chores to draw a picture with them or pray for our kids day. Let’s try making a soul-reminder list and see what changes in our home atmospheres and relationships with the people who NEED us the most. 

Take back control of your home: 101 Parenting Tools: Building the Family of Your Dreams

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diyparent:

Punishments Vs. Rewards 

By Ron Huxley, LMFT

Even in this modern age, with tons of scientific data and thousands of books on parenting, mom’s and dad’s continue to struggle on how to manage their children’s behaviors. This is especially true when parents are dealing with a strong willed and defiant child.  

One of the most common complaints I hear from parents, in family therapy sessions, is that my efforts to build self-esteem and play games to model social skills and cooperation are actually rewarding bad behaviors. The goal of these sessions is to make the child feel better about himself and not his behaviors. Punishments creating a disconnection and the goal of therapy between parent and child is to build a closer connection where the child wants to please his parents and not frustrate them. Parents have to take a different perspective on what bad behavior is or more specifically, why it keeps occurring. 

The focus of therapy is not on the behavior but the relationship. How does the child feel about himself and about the parent. When children feel positive about these things, they will act in more positive ways. Research has proven to us that 80% of a child’s misbehaviors (what motivates them to act bad) is the desire for attention and power in the relationship. Punishments places time outs, spankings, and removing of privileges and doesn’t redirect the chid to find positive ways to get attention or use their power in a respectful way. It denies these things starting a viscous cycle of negative attention getting and power struggles. 

Parents who feel bad inside, due to work and family stressors, can act bad too. They may be more negative and irritable creating an atmosphere in the home that makes children feel insecure. Inconsistency in parenting is another big problem for children. The lack of predictability and routine can increase anxiety in them and result in inappropriate behaviors. Helping parents to see the underlying causes of behaviors will give them more power in managing behaviors and modeling positive attitudes. 

Take back control of your home: 101 Parenting Tools: Building the Family of Your Dreams

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Using Your Families Momentum
By Ron Huxley, LMFT

There will come a day when you and your family are not in crisis or feeling stuck. Perhaps it is already here. Whenever it comes how will use the momentum you have gained? Most families want to rest and do nothing. They have been in so much turmoil that all they can think about is taking a break. This might not be the time to pause for long.

When you are stuck all you think about is how to get unstuck. You are in survival mode. Now that you are unstuck it is time to take new ground, focus on left behind dreams, build new family skills. Take your well deserved break and then huddle together and move forward. Use that momentum strategically and with excitement.