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Take the 10 Day Parenting Challenge…

Are you the type of parent you thought you would be or are you everything you said you would NEVER be?

Are you wanting to be a better parent starting immediately?

Parenting can be hard and is often full of disappointments but it is never TOO LATE to transform yourself and your children into the family you dreamed you would be.

If you are serious about wanting to make some big changes in your family relationships, take our 10 Day Challenge by following the steps listed below. Post your successes and difficulties on our Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/parentingtoolbox to get more support and success tips along the way.

SPECIAL NOTE: The power of the 10 days comes from its “additive value.“ Every day builds on the next. You don’t just do day 1 and never do it again. You have to keep doing day one for ten days (and perhaps longer) while adding day 2 and then day three, etc. By day 10 you will be doing 55 power parenting tools. YES, I said 55 new tools that will repair and restore your family relationships. If you are really serious about better parenting, start your challenge TODAY!!!

Day 1: Take Inventory.

What is your biggest strength as a parent? What is your biggest weakness? This isn’t a time for denial to rear its ugly defenses. Be honest. What is your best plus or minus when it comes to parenting? Perhaps you don’t like your child. If that is it, admit it. Perhaps you are a horrible cook. Time for the truth, because the truth, as they say, will set you free. Be honest about your strengths too. Don’t minimize them…blow them up. You will need this strength to get you through the days ahead. What do you love more than anything else about what you do as a parent or how you do it? Love crafts, snuggle time, early mornings, weekend walks, trips to the park, reading stories together? Capitalize on these positive resources to meet the challenges ahead.

Remember, you will do this inventory of your most positive and negative qualities, behaviors, moments over the next 10 days…it gets easier fortunately.

Extra tip: Get a notebook or diary and put a ”-“ or ”+“ and list a quality or behavior over the next 10 days to evaluate your ups and downs. This will give you more insights that will help you move forward.

Day 2: Do more of what works.

Based on what you answered for day 1, do more of the positive thing you listed for yourself. Do it daily, even hourly if you can. Build up some energy and good vibrations with this power parenting tool. Conversely, do less of the negative thing you identified. Simple right?

Give yourself some grace here…You won’t be perfect. You might still yell at your child when they leave the towel on the bathroom floor. Just start over doing it less and more of what works for you. If you hate cooking, it’s not really feasible to stop cooking and eat out every meal, right? What foods are less challenging to prepare or how can you combine what you love to do when you are doing what you hate to do. Setting limits and sticking to them is hard for you? Keep practicing it daily, hourly, etc. You get the drill, yes?

Day 3: Find an audience of appreciation.

Who can you talk to share your successes and your struggles? Who will applaud you when you have a good day and hug you when you don’t? You need an audience that is nonjudgmental and emphatic Not many of parents have this in their lives currently. You may have to look long and hard for this person(s) but don’t give up on this exercise. It is important. Call this person daily and tell them what you did great, no matter how small. Let them be your cheerleader. In turn, you can be there’s. This isn’t necessarily a time for confession however. Just state it factually. Tell each other it will get better and in the spirit of most recovery programs, fake it till you make it.”

Are you doing the power parenting tools from the days previously that you already learned? Do ever parent tool and add to your tool belt over the total 10 days!

Day 4: Use Empathy.

Empathy is defined as the perception of being deeply understood by another. It is a “felt" sense that can be conveyed in words, no words, or just a grunt. Really! It is the under carriage of all attachment-based parenting and (sadly) one of the things most traditional parents rarely convey to their children. Spend an entire day just being empathic. Say things like “that is so sad" when you child complains and try to make it sound real 🙂 Look at the situation from their perspective and voice that feeling. You don’t have to agree with it. You may still make them eat their vegetables but you can certainly understand their dislike of them.

This can be one of the hardest parenting tools in this challenge. We don’t realize how often we judge, lecture or dismiss our children’s feelings. As a child therapist with over 20 years’ experience, 80% of parenting is emotion-based. This is how we model appropriate social/emotional behavior that will ultimately make your child a success in life. It is more powerful than IQ scores. Truly!

Observe how your child’s behavior change after one one example, one day, one week.. What did you learn about yourself?

Day 5: Plan.

Most of the problems that will come up today with your family also came up yesterday and probably the day before that and the day before that…get my point? Problems are predictable. That is to your advantage because now you can plan to manage the problems in a new way today. If today doesn’t work on the problems, you can plan for something new tomorrow and so on.

The nice thing is that you can DO ANYTHING DIFFERENT so long as it isn’t abusive or mean and you will problem make a significant change in your family member. Getting stuck if your worst enemy here. Innovation and novelty is your parenting toolbox friend.

Are you still using the previous days parenting tools? Are you sharing your progress with us on Facebook? Go now to share at http://www.facebook.com/parentingtoolbox

Day 6: Have a Routine.

I don’t care how old the child is, everyone needs structure. This is a basic element of parenting. You don’t have to post a daily to-do list but you can. You don’t have to set the timer for bath time but you can. You don’t need to have a large whiteboard with everyone chores listed but it might be a good idea. Children who have a structure feel more secure and safe. A secure child is better behaved. A behaved child makes for a happy home. Routines can be negotiated and relaxed as they get older but some form of schedule is always a necessary part of home life.

Day 7: Games are more fun!

It doesn’t take long for the little people to realize that work is not fun. Helping dad sweep the sidewalk was fun when they were younger but now it is torture. Anything that you can do to make an activity a game will increase your child’s cooperation. Challenge is an important part of parenting and life. Everyone needs it to stay motivated and happy.

You can take turns being the leader as you walk to bath time. See you can be the first one to fold the towels. Who can shoot their garbage into the bin? How high can you get the leaves raked into pile? Add incentives by offering praise at the end of a chore challenge and always give lots of admiration for technique, flair and creativity.

Of course, sometimes this backfires or older children get wise to the tactic but if you do this often enough in small ways, so it doesn’t seem so obvious, even teenagers will be more engaging with you.

Day 8: Use Leverage.

It doesn’t take long after the first child is born that mom and dad realized they are out-matched. How is that two adults can be so exhausted and the child is just getting his second wind at 11 pm! It gets worse when you have a second or third child trust me. My wife and I raised four children. How nuts were we…ha.

It is better if you accept the fact that you will be out-gunned, out-numbered, and out-smarted by the little people in the home. When you let go of the need to be perfect and have it all together or be faster, smarter, stronger, you will have much more fun as a parent. This doesn’t imply that parents stop being in charge.

Once you recognize you are out-numbered, you will have to start looking for special ways in which you can retain some leverage. Leverage is the ace card when negotiating with children. This is especially true for teenagers although negotiation happens a lot earlier than that. Many parents feel they have no leverage; therefore they can’t get their child to do anything they don’t want to do. The reality is that our children, in our society, have way too much entitlement.

You may have to feed them dinner but it doesn’t have to be fancy. You may have to take them to school but you don’t have to go to the Mall afterwards. You may have to clothe them but you don’t have to buy the expensive stuff. The thrift store has lots of decent items ready to be taken home and loved (again). In the real world, we all have to negotiate with other people to get what we need and want in life. Teach them in a calm and respectful way what it means to have to learn to scratch each other’s backs. I will scratch yours if you will scratch mine. They want something other than tuna salad for dinner. You want a clean bedroom. They want the more expensive shoes, you want a week of no homework battles. Everyone wins!

Day 9: Give Yourself a Cool Title.

The word “parenting" simply defined means to care for or raise a child. BORING! Try something with a little more pizazz like “Mom of Magical Moments" or “Household President" (but please no “dictator" titles) or “Conductor of Strategic Developmental Experiences" or how about “Captain of WOWness" or “Impresario of Daily Routines". Anything that puts a little smile on your lips when you child can’t find his shoes in the morning will make the situation more endurable.

Playfully, insist your family call you by your new title. In fact, they might want a new title too. Come up with one and imagine how someone with these titles might act toward one another and what they family as a whole might be or do with this fantastic new descriptors. Maybe this won’t help you be a better parent but you will feel like one.

Keep practicing all the earlier tools you learned today too.

Day 10: Take a Break.

Even the toughest marathon running mom will be worn out managing all the responsibilities of parenting. Get into the practice of taking time for you so you have more time and energy for your family. It could be an hour of quiet meditation after the children go off to school or it could be a night out with your partner while the children are with a babysitter. It could be taking turns sleeping in on the weekend while someone else makes breakfast for the kiddo’s. Taking time away to work or get your tooth crowned isn’t the point. This should be something specifically for you like starting a yoga class, reading a novel, gardening, taking a music lesson, personal shopping, having a sugary coffee drink with a friend. You will be amazed how much more energy you have for your family when you do this consistently.

Share your successes and your struggles on our Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/parentingtoolbox

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Avoiding the Parent/Teen Torture Chamber

By Ron Huxley, LMFT

Sweat streamed done his face as the heat from the lights glared on his face. His head swayed heavily forward, weary from the uninterrupted hours of questioning. The voices shot from the either side of him, out of the darkness: “Where were you till two in the morning? Why is there mud on the care tires? Whose sweater is in the back-seat? Why are your pupils dilated like that? Is that cigarette smoke I smell? Why didn’t you call?”

This could be a scene from a movie about an enemy spy being interrogated for unknown crimes. Or it could be a fictional account of innocent child tortured at the hands of sadistic tormentors. Instead, it is a dramatization of two parents questioning their teenager for coming home past curfew. At least, this is how a teenager might describe the experience. Teens often feel parents overreact or assume the worst case scenario. They don’t feel parents understand what it is like to be a teenager today. And, they feel that parents don’t give them enough freedom. No matter what a teen does, he or she winds up violating some new rule, like hidden trip wire strung about the house, waiting for an innocent victim. And the rules! Barbaric remnants from there parents generation as children, totally unrealistic for a teenager today.

Parents don’t want to torture their children. They describe their feelings of fear and horror when they don’t know where their child is late at night or early in the morning as the case might be. They know all too well the world a teenager must live in. That is what scares them, motivating their “barbaric rules.” They fear their teenager hides their behaviors and friends from them. They worry that they will be influenced by peers and fall snare to various social evils. They question their child’s ability to make good judgments and take care of themselves in a crisis situation.

So where is the middle ground? How can teenagers feel as if they are getting the freedom they need and still keep mom and dad secure? How can parents learn to trust teens, so if possible, they can meet the teenager half way? Here are some tools that may help teens and their parents avoid the torture chamber:

Things Teens Can Do:

Give parents information. They have a legal responsibility for their child’s safety and behavior, so they have a right to know a child’s whereabouts and activities. Teens who accept and acknowledge this fact can move a great distance along the road to independence. They also want to feel a part of your life, so share with them what is going on in it. They had you because they wanted a family. You need a family for survival (for a while yet, at least) and a sense of personal identity.

Take their perspective- in other words, do a Role Reversal. Take a look at the situation as if YOU were a parent- a person responsible for their child’s safety and well being. See YOURSELF from your parent’s perspective. Do YOU see someone who is responsible and trustworthy? What limits would you set for you if YOU were your parent? Next, look at the world the way a parent looks at the world. Good kids get hurt in this world too! Now, tell yourself the truth. Then, you will be ready to:

Negotiate. Accept compromise as being a reasonable tool for establishing mutually agreeable boundaries and limits. If you are unyielding with your information (tip #1), and unable to accept the fact that parents have to be responsible about their children (tip #2), you are doomed to trouble with the folks. Yielding in areas where maybe they have reasons to set limits and boundaries (areas where your choices have not been the wisest), will give you the opportunity to earn their trust. In time, those areas can get larger as you show you’ve learned to be responsible for yourself and earn the privilege of freedom.

Things parents can do.

Give teens information. Their minds are able to process intelligent reasoning, and understanding why you make the choices you do will open them to adult perspectives and responsibilities. They also need to feel a part of your life. If they have a sense of belonging at home, they’ll
be less likely to seek acceptance with an inappropriate peer group.

Take your child’s perspective. You can do this Role Reversal more easily than your child can, because after all, you’ve been there! Look at yourself through your child’s eyes. Are you reasonable with boundaries and limits? Are you intrusive or disrespectful of, your child’s growing needs for personal privacy, independence and freedom? Do you give your teen opportunities to be responsible, to demonstrate trustworthiness? Do you give them the supports they need to learn and make mistakes? Do you remember what it felt like to be that age? After being honest with yourself, you then are ready to:

Negotiate. Ask your teen what they feel are reasonable limits and boundaries. State what yours are. Then reach compromise. Be willing to “back-off” some in areas where your teen needs to grow. Be specific in what is expected behaviorally, and with what consequences for poor choices will be. Help each other clearly understand the expectations you each hold for the other and the reasons for them. Finally, be willing to follow through with consequences when necessary, both with the lowering or raising of those limits and boundaries in accordance with your teen’s choices.

Ron Huxley is a child and family therapist and the author of the book “Love & Limits: Achieving a Balance in Parenting.” You can order his book online or request it through your local bookstore. The ISBN number is 1-56593-936-0.

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Helicopter Parenting

Helicopter parents think they are protecting their children from harm and are standing up for their child to make sure they get their well-deserved special treatment The truth is that helicopter parents are doing their children more harm than good, are potentially stifling the creativity and emotional development of the children and often embarrassing them.

What is helicopter parenting?

Helicopter parenting was originally described by famed author, child psychologist, psychotherapist and parent educator, Haim G. Ginott (1922-1973). He is known as author of the 1965 best-selling book “Between Parent and Child.” Ginott is credited with the first published reference to helicopter parenting in his 1969 best-seller, “Between Parent and Teenager.” In the book, Ginott mentions a teenager who complained to him, “Mother hovers over me like a helicopter.” Helicopter parenting is described very simply by Positive-Parenting-Ally as parents who “seem to ‘hover’ over their children in an effort of trying to control their lives in order to protect them from harm, disappointment, or mistakes.” They do their child’s daily homework and keep them safe by insisting that they be excused from activities where they could get hurt, in the opinion of the parent. So the child is often left on the sidelines when other kids in the physical education class are playing soccer or are taught gymnastics routines.

Helicopter parents demand to speak to the teacher “right now” even after school personnel tell the parent that the teacher is in class. The parent feels entitled to special treatment and should not have to wait for anything. Their child should also not have to wait. Their child should be first in line to receive rewards or to engage in an activity and their child should be seen first at medical or dental appointments, even if there are children who need more urgent care than theirs. Helicopter parents may think they are protecting their children, but they are actually hurting their children, possibly for a lifetime.

Who are the helicopter parents?

Mothers are overwhelmingly more likely to be guilty of helicopter parenting than dads and are also more likely to go to extremes to circumvent rules for their children. Moms more often refuse to let their children make mistakes, be given a bad grade or to perform in the ballet recital without the helicopter mom interfering and complaining. The helicopter parent feels the need to constantly come to their child’s rescue. They complain that their children are not treated fairly, that the child received a bad grade not because of poor effort or incorrect answers but because the teacher does not like their child. Other children are chosen for teams, school plays or recitals because the coach likes the other children better, not because the child of the helicopter mom does not have the necessary skills.

Helicopter parents, particularly mothers, are easily identifiable at an early age and typically interfere by the time a child starts school. There are differences between the types of behaviors exhibited by helicopter moms and helicopter dads. The fathers are so consumed by overall status and career path that they may skip going to the teacher or coach and go straight to the top with his complaints and even threats. Helicopter moms are busy working behind the scenes, manipulating and dominating to get the special treatment for their child that the mother thinks her child deserves, even though none of the other children in the class or on the team get that specific treatment or benefit demanded by helicopter mom. She is likely to threaten teachers and coaches directly, often telling them if they do not give her child what she wants, she will see to it that the teacher or coach gets fired.

Effects of helicopter parenting on the children

The results of helicopter parenting can leave a child with serious deficiency in some life skills and with poor emotional health. The U.K. Daily Mail reported on a study that found children of helicopter parents are “more likely to be depressed,” and to have difficulty getting along well with others. The children have less self-confidence than peers and are more likely to have anxiety issues, according to results of the study. This coincides with other findings on the effects of helicopter parenting. The Family Education Network quotes Ohio State University associate professor of child and adolescent psychiatry, Dr. Hiasako M. Koizumi, who explains that the helicopter mom “interferes with normal child development. She manages their environment to the extent that she prevents them from learning how to handle stress, inhibits healthy exploration, denies the growth of autonomy, limits self-confidence, and nurtures socially isolated and inadequate teenagers.”

Many other professionals stress the detrimental effects that helicopter parenting has on children and that the effects are long-term, potentially affecting the child throughout their entire life. Children of helicopter parents often exhibit a lack of confidence to accomplish anything independently. Some children may grow up unable to make crucial decisions on their own, while others recognize the helicopter parenting and are embarrassed by their parent’s behavior. Other children grow up with a sense of entitlement, stemming from the special treatment demanded by their parents throughout their childhood.

Helicopter parents are always there…always

Helicopter parents bully other parents, teachers, coaches and anyone else who they feel is the cause of their child not having the best grades, not being first in line and not being recognized more than other children. They also display hovering behaviors when a child spends the night at a friend’s house, when their children go off to summer camp or on a school field trip. Even when not physically with their child, helicopter mom is still there…hovering. Some summer camps have actually started hiring staff whose job duties are to deal with all the telephone calls from helicopter parents who call to request special treatment for their child and who demand that staff supply their child with certain items that the other campers are not given.

Helicopter parents do not stop when the child enters adulthood

Just because a child graduates high school does not mean helicopter parenting stops. Some grown children feel the hovering even after going off to college or after getting married and living on their own as an adult. The extremes that helicopter parents go to so they can still hover over their adult children is demonstrated in the ABC-News report “Helicopter Parents Hover Over Kids’ Lives,” which states that up to 60% of college students have at least one helicopter parent. The extremes that some parents have gone to includes a confession by one college student who reported that his parents installed a nanny-cam on his computer. Jim Settle, co-author of the study on helicopter parenting of college students stated that the parents installed the nanny-cam “so the parents were able to watch their son 24 hours a day.” Other parents have logged on to their college-aged children’s social media pages to keep track of what they are doing and with whom and have make repeated calls to university administrators over minor disputes and even to complain over the food served to their child on campus.

College is not the only place that helicopter parents hover after their child reaches adulthood. They are right there to “help” their child get a job, which usually backfires when the human resources officer or hiring manager gets a call from mommy. When the adult who has been victim of a helicopter parent throughout childhood does get a job, there are likely to be issues with keeping the job, difficulty accepting criticism or a sense of entitlement, expecting more favorable treatment than co-workers.

Are you a helicopter parent?

Helicopter parents often refuse to admit to being a helicopter parent. They usually see nothing wrong with their actions, as in the case of the mother who called the college dining hall to complain about her daughter being served chicken that was too salty. The mother said making the call was the right thing to do. Other parents do not recognize that they are guilty of helicopter parenting. Baby Zone offers a quick, 10-question quiz so parents can determine if they are a helicopter parent. If you are, back off and let your child be a child and if grown, let the child be an adult. Let the child fall, fail the math test or not get chosen for the lead in the school play. Johnny will learn to dust himself off and go back to playing football and Suzy will learn to study harder for the next test. Children need to make mistakes and learn from them instead of having a hovering parent “protecting” them from living a normal life. Children who learn from mistakes and who learn to make decisions on their own are more likely to develop positive self-esteem and not grow up with a sense of entitlement or lack of confidence.

Source: http://nobullying.com/helicopter-parents/

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Grieving and the Nontraditional Family

While grief is fresh, every attempt to divert only irritates. You must wait till it be digested, and then amusement will dissipate it.

– Samuel Johnson

It has been said that the nontraditional family of yesterday is the traditional family of today! These means that the nontraditional family is fast becoming the norm in today’s society. But that also means that society is not prepared to help nontraditional parents and children cope with that reality. In particular, society has few, if any, means to help nontraditonal families cope with grief and loss, out of which they are born.

Nontraditional families include single, divorced, step or blended, adoptive, foster parents, and grandparents raising grandchildren. They are quickly becoming the majority in today’s society. Whether society/people consider them defective or less than “ideal” they are a reality and need special information and support. Most of the parenting programs available to nontraditional parents forget this reality. Consequently, the parenting programs apply only to traditional, two-parent, biologically based parents. Part of the problem is that nontraditional families have unique needs not usually experienced by traditional parents. One example of this is grief.

Grief is the state that individuals experience when a significant loss occurs in their life. The loss might occur as a result of death, divorce, and/or abandonement by a familiy member. It might be said that nontraditional families are born out of grief as they are formed as a result of a loss. This is not to say the traditional families do not experience grief but that nontraditional families have this experience, to one degree or another, in common.

Grief has predictable stages of development. This is beneficial to the nontraditional parent as they attempt to make sense of their grief experience. Most importantly they know that it will not last forever, at least not in the same intensity as when it started. Perhaps the best know framework for grief and loss are the stages listed in the work of Elisabeth Kubler-Ross who wrote the book On Death and Dying (1969). Her stages of grief include:

Denial
Anger
Bargaining
Depression
Acceptance

A useful metaphor for understanding grief are the waves of an ocean. When you are way out in the ocean, the waves are large and frightening. They pull you under and twist you about, creating a sense of hopelessness or fear of your future. This is similar to the stage of Denial or shock at the reality of the loss. When the waves pass and the ocean feels momentarily calm, this is called the stage of anger or bargaining. The shore represents the stage of acceptance. As nontraditional parents and children swim for the stage of acceptance, waves continue to crash over them, sometimes threatening to pull them under in denial and shock and at other times settling down and letting anger and bargaining propel them forward to the shore. The closer you come to the shore the less intense the waves. But even small waves, when standing on the edge of the ocean can unsettle and cause you to lose your balance.

Nontraditional parents can use this metaphor to help them balance love and limits with their children. Because they are in the ocean and not on the shore they cannot compare themselves to traditional parents. Rather than live up to society’s expectation of what an ideal family should look like, nontraditional parents need to concentrate their energy on swimming for the shore.

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Kids put in institutions have different brain compositions than kids in foster care

In new research published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics, researchers looked at brain differences between Romanian children who were either abandoned and institutionalized, sent to institutions and then to foster families, or were raised in biological families.

Kids who were not raised in a family setting had noticeable alterations in the white matter of their brains later on, while the white matter in the brains of the children who were placed with a foster family looked pretty similar to the brains of the children who were raised with their biological families.

Researchers were interested in white matter, which is largely made up of nerves, because it plays an important role in connecting brain regions and maintaining networks critical for cognition. Prior research has shown that children raised in institutional environments have limited access to language and cognitive stimulation, which could hinder development.

These findings suggest that even if a child were at a risk for poor development due to their living circumstances at an early age, placing them in a new caregiving environment with more support could prevent white matter changes or perhaps even heal them.

More studies are needed, but the researchers believe their findings could help public health efforts aimed at children experiencing severe neglect, as well as efforts to build childhood resiliency.

Source: 

http://time.com/3683071/neglect-brain-development/

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It’s Almost Here! It was an honor to be able to contribute to this publication on helping grandparents raising grandchildren or aunts and uncles raising nieces and nephews or older siblings raising younger brothers and sisters or any kinship care situation. Reserve your copy today!

The Kinship Parenting Toolbox
A unique guidebook for the kinship care parenting journey

Edited by Kim Phagan Hansel
With 7.1 million grandchildren living with their grandparents and 4.7 million children living with “other relatives,” according to the 2010 census, almost 12 million children in America today are being raised in kinship care. Of course, this group of kinship providers comes with unique needs and challenges that they face. And the outcome for millions of children depend on the resources and support these families can access. This book helps build resources for these families, in the hopes that children’s lives will be profoundly, positively impacted.

Containing articles from more than 70 contributors touched in a variety of ways by kinship care – grandparents raising grandchildren, children raised by relatives, social workers, therapists, kinship support organizations and others, this book will be a much need resource for those working with and parenting relative’s children.

Chapters include:
The Unexpected Role
Getting Organized
Your Legal Toolbox
Your Financial Toolbox
Our Changing Family
Guilt, Shame, & Love
Perspective of the Child
Finding Support
Parenting Children from Tough Starts
Understanding Attachment
Behavior and Discipline
Working with Schools
The Teen Years
Tying Up Loose Ends
Resources

Get more info: http://www.emkpress.com/kinshiptoolbox.html