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Parenting One-Liners

My wife and I were recently listening to some parenting workshops on audio and the speaker was talking about parenting one-liners used by the Love and Logic organization.  I forgot how amazingly simple and powerful these one-liners are for parents who want to stay calm and regulated during potential power struggles with their children. 

Some examples of one-liners include:

  • “Probably so.”
  • “I know.”
  • “Nice try.”
  • “I bet it feels that way.”
  • “What do you think you’re going to do.”
  • “I don’t know. What do you think?”
  • “Bummer. How sad.”
  • “Thanks for sharing that.”
  • “Don’t worry about it now.”
  • “That’s an option.”
  • “I bet that’s true.”
  • “Maybe you’ll like what we have for the next meal better.”
  • “What do you think I think about that?”
  • “I’m not sure how to react to that. I’ll have to get back to you on it.”
  • “I’ll let you know what will work for me.”
  • “I’ll love you wherever you live.”

Instead of getting hooked into an argument or fixing a problem for child, use the parenting one-liners to facilitate more independent problem-solving skills by the child. Genuineness, on the part of the parent, is important when using them. 

Get a free pdf here: http://www.loveandlogic.com/documents/one-liners.pdf

Do you have any other one-liners you use that disrupt power struggles? Share them here or on Facebook at http://on.fb.me/1703QiT

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Parenting Toolbox Thought: If you think about today as having thousands of small choices, you can begin to believe that change in your family is possible. If you only look at the day as one way or the other, you limit yourself and make life continue to feel impossible. Be aware of the choices that present themselves every few minutes and take a thoughtful step in a different direction toward a better destination for your family relationships. 

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Parenting Toolbox Sweepstakes!

Win a free ½ coaching session with Ron Huxley, founder of the ParentingToolbox.com and get help with your parenting challenges. Winners may pick a friend to get a free ½ session as well so enter now. Winner announced 6/19/13.

Click here or cut and paste this into your browser: http://on.fb.me/1703QiT

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Two Secrets Teens Want You To Know!

Two Secrets Teens Want You To Know!

In my years of work with teenagers, I have learned some
very important secrets that might interest parents. It
wasn’t easy getting these secrets. Your teen will probably
deny all of them. For some, it is so secret, even they are
not consciously aware of it. But trust me, once they know
that you know about what most of them know, it will improve
your relationship. What do I mean? Let me show you by
telling the first secret…

Click here for the full article and “like” us on FB while your at it!

Two Secrets Teens Want You To Know!

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submitthedoc:

“When kids are bullied or harassed or mistreated or threatened or embarrassed or humiliated using the Internet and computer and cellphones, they tend to struggle. They tend to struggle emotionally, they tend to struggle psychologically, academically, with behavioral problems. So we as a society need to step up” – Sameer Hinduja (Cyberbullying Research Center) via @Submitthedoc

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Parenting Self-Talk: Improving Your Parenting By What You Say To Yourself

By Ron Huxley, LMFT

How you feel about yourself as a parent has a lot to do with how you talk to yourself. I’m not inferring that you have mental disorder or that you hear voices. I often tease friends and family members when I catch them talking to themselves if they are answering themselves too. Everyone talks to themselves with little awareness of it. Self-talk is automatic and carried out repeatedly through the waking hours. Hidden behind parents self-talk are their thoughts which are rational and 
irrational. Rational thoughts create positive, realistic feelings and behaviors. Irrational thoughts create negative, unrealistic feelings and behaviors.

Most parents assume that events around them produce these feelings. You can see examples of this in young children who say, “You make me angry!” The reality is that events cannot make you feel anything. Situations can 
be stressful but they cannot dictate our emotions. Take, for example, the parent who becomes angry at her children for running around the grocery store while another parent just brushes it off as “having too 
much energy” with no feelings of anger. Regardless of whether children should be running around the store, attitudes determine parents emotional and behavioral reactions.

These thoughts get expressed in our self-talk which, in turn, reinforce our thinking. Changing our thoughts, and by that some of our negative feelings and behaviors, can be as easy as changing what parents say to themselves. By easy, I mean, they can be consciously controlled. Like anything, parents must make them a regular part of their daily routine till positive self-talk comes naturally.

Some examples of negative self-talk would be:

“I am a mean mother.”
“I never get a moment to my self.”
“Everyone takes, takes, takes and no one gives to me.”
In contrast, some examples of positive self-talk would be:
“I sometimes make mistakes but I always try to be the best mom I can be.”
“I deserve to take some time for my self and not feel guilty.”
“Children need to learn boundaries and respect.”
“Although it is nice to be appreciated, I do not have to have the approval of my family to feel good.”

The first examples overgeneralized and focused on the negative part of parenting. It is easy to focus on the problems. Finding solutions and positive reframes of the parenting job is much harder. To help, parents 
can make a self-talk plan.

A self-talk plan empowers parents to look at the positive aspects of parenting or view it in a new light. Parents can identify several situations which usually produce negative or distressing feelings. Next, parents can identify their automatic thoughts and feelings about those situations by listening to what they say to themselves. And finally, 
parents can create more positive ways of talking to themselves about those situations. Here is an example:

1. Children walk through the house with dirty shoes (distressing situations).
2. My kids have no respect for me or how hard I work around here (automatic thought).
3. I know how hard I have worked and I need to provide consequences for walking through the
house with dirty shoes (positive reframe).

Every time a parent starts to feel those negative emotions bubbling up, they must stop immediately and evaluate what they were just saying to themselves before 
the emotions started. Most of the time this will be the self-talk that needs changing. Here are some more positive self-talk statements:

“I am a good parent.”
“I do the best I can.”
“I may make mistakes but that does not determine my worth.”
“It is O.K. if I feel frustrated or anxious. Emotions will pass as quickly as they come.”
“I am not helpless. I have people and resources to call upon if I need to.”
“This is an opportunity to teach my children about life and not ‘the end.’”
“I just need to take one step at a time and everything that can be done will be.”
“I can stay calm when my family members are being difficult.”
“I can get my child’s cooperation without having to threaten or yell.”
“He/she is responsible for their actions and feelings, not me.”
“In the long run, who will remember anyway.”
“In the big scheme of things, this is really a very small matter.”
“Other people’s opinions are not important to me.”
“I do not need other people’s approval to feel good about myself.”
“I won’t put pressure on my self to be the perfect parent.”
“I will not make assumptions about my families actions. I will ask them directly.”
“I will not react, but act on problems with my children.”
“I can still enjoy life, even if it is hard.”
“I will respect others even if they do not show me respect.”
“I do not have to be abused or mistreated. I can change my life to be more satisfying.”

In addition to using these self-talk statements, read books like “Don’t sweat the small stuff. It is all small stuff" and others that encourage positive affirmations. Daily reading materials, spiritual texts and devotionals, and songs can also change what you say to yourself so that you can change your parenting experience.

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The Dangers of Narcissistic Parents | Psychalive:

Most of us can relate, on some level, to scenes such as these – to ways our parents over-connected or lived through us, as a reflection of them. But when dealing with a narcissistic parent day in and day out throughout one’s childhood, the impact can be devastating. For example, in “The Joy Luck Club,” the little girl quits playing chess in retaliation to her mother’s intrusiveness. Her mother responds by giving her the silent treatment. After weeks, the young girl makes an effort to regain her mother’s approval and announces that she’s decided to play chess again. Without so much as a glance, her mother coldly replies that it won’t be so easy for her anymore. This cutting remark shatters the girl’s confidence, and, as her mother predicted, she can no longer win. Her voiceover concludes the story with, “This power I had, this belief in myself… I could actually feel it draining away… All the secrets I once saw… I couldn’t see them anymore. All I could see was–were my mistakes, my weaknesses.”

The problem with narcissistic parents is that, although the focus seems to be on the child, there is actually very little regard for the child in their parenting style. When her daughter insulted her own ego, the mother in the film no longer saw use for her the young girl’s talent. She didn’t support her daughter playing chess, because it made her daughter feel good or gave her confidence. She supported it, because it gave her the chance to feel like a winner, to bask in her child’s accomplishments and take credit for skills that were not her own.

People who feel they deserve success are among those most likely to fail when challenges arise, research from New Zealand has revealed.

[…]

“People who believe that they don’t need to work for good grades – that they are just entitled to them by right – are annoying, but there wasn’t any evidence before now that it’s actually a self-destructive strategy,” says study co-author Professor Jamin Halberstadt, at the University of Ontago in New Zealand.

[…]

The study also supports the notion that people who feel excessively entitled believe that others are responsible for their success or failure, and are less motivated to put in extra effort when required.

“When an entitled person encounters obstacles to achieving an outcome, they feel like they shouldn’t have to work for it,” Jamin says. “In fact, you should see a challenge as evidence that you need to work harder.”

Australian study confirms that entitlement is the enemy of excellence. Pair with the psychology of how to prevent such entitlement when raising children.  (via explore-blog)