parenting – Page 21 – Ron Huxley LMFT

Page 21 of 25

January 1, 2012

Change the Way You Deal With Anger

Did you have a parent who was out of control when they got angry? Are you afraid if you express your anger, you will get out of control? Learn a healthy way of expressing and learning from your anger.

There is much to learn from anger, yet many people are afraid of this feeling because they don’t know how to express anger in ways that are helpful rather than harmful. I teach a process at my weekend “Inner Bonding” workshops called “The Anger Process.” This powerful process, which is described below, is not only for releasing pent-up anger in harmless ways, but for discovering what your responsibility is in a conflict with another person.

Often, when I describe this process in a workshop, some people get anxious and want to leave. They are afraid of anger and of expressing their anger. This is invariably because they come from a family where one or both of their parents or other caregivers were angry in a mean, violent way – a way that caused harm to others. These people are so afraid of being like their mother or father that they repress their anger, taking it out on themselves instead of others.
Neither dumping anger on others nor repressing it and taking it out on yourself is healthy. Anger expressed in these ways is about controlling rather than learning. Venting anger on another is about controlling through intimidation and blame. Anger dumped on yourself is about controlling feelings that are harder to feel than anger, such as fear, anxiety, loneliness, heartbreak or helplessness over others.

Anger is an important emotion. It informs us that we are thinking or behaving in ways that are not in our highest good. You may have been taught that other people’s behavior causes your anger, but this is generally not true. Others may behave in ways that you don’t like, but your anger at them is frequently a projection of how you are not taking care of yourself – a way to control them rather than take care of yourself.

It’s important to differentiate between blaming anger and justified anger, which can be called outrage. Outrage is the feeling we have when there is injustice, such as seeing someone abuse a child. Outrage moves us to take appropriate, loving action in our own or others behalf.
Blaming anger comes from feeling like a victim and gets us off the hook from having to take personal responsibility for ourselves. This anger does not lead to learning or to healthy action.
The anger process is a way of expressing anger that leads to learning and growth. When people in my workshop want to leave rather than do the process, I explain that it is very important for them to reassure the frightened child within that this anger is not like their father’s or mother’s anger – it is not being expressed with the intent to control. It is being expressed with the intent to learn.

The “Anger Process” is a 3-step process that is done when you are alone:

Fully express anger toward a person you are presently angry with (not in their presence!). You can yell, call names, kick something, and pound with fists on a pillow or with a bat or towel, but do not harm yourself.

Ask yourself who this person reminds you of in the past – parent, teacher, sibling, friend – and then let the angry part of you again fully express the anger.

Finally – and this is the most important part – allow the angry child within to express his or her anger at you, the adult, for all ways you are not taking care of yourself in this conflict, or ways you are treating yourself badly, or treating yourself like the other person is treating you.

Step three is the most important part, because it brings the issue home to personal responsibility. If you just do the first two parts, you are left feeling like an angry victim. The anger that comes from being a victim is a bottomless pit, and will never lead to learning and resolution.

Once you understand that you can express your anger with an intention to learn, your fear of your own anger will go away. You don’t have to repress your anger in order to not be like your parents.

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Ron Huxley’s Resolutions: Over the years I have trained people on how to manage their anger and there is one big truth that I try to get across: Anger management is life management. As we enter into a new year, stop focusing on managing your emotions…emotions don’t want to be managed. Start focusing on life changes. Get out of the abusive relationship. Get some professional help through a marriage counselor, psychologist or doctor. Start getting healthier. Do whatever it takes to change your life and you will see anger lose its hold on you.

Click on the link to the right to join our 12 year long anger management group online –>

Join our Parenting “Inner Circle” and get exclusive tools to deal with anger in the home –>

December 29, 2011

Pig manure deters teenagers from drinking in the woods – Telegraph

via telegraph.co.uk

Ron Huxley Humor: OK, I am not a fan of this kind of discipline tactics but I did find it very humorous.

Youths have turned their noses up at a woodland drink and drugs den after it was spread with pig dung. iddlesbrough Council came up with the cheap but effective method of combating anti-social behaviour in woods at Coulby Newham.

It said residents had complained about young people smoking drugs in the area and, although there is a slight smell from the pig manure, locals “would much rather have a pong than a bong”.

Elderly people nearby had been upset by youngsters congregating in the woodland between Willowbank and Stainton Way to drink and smoke.

Council staff thinned out the trees so the area was more visible from paths, then spread a thick layer of pig manure to deter the youngsters.

A council spokesman said: “Following complaints, an inspection of the area revealed it was being used to drink alcohol and take drugs, as paraphernalia known as bongs were found.”

December 28, 2011

The Hormone Surge of Middle Childhood

VIEWED superficially, the part of youth that the psychologist Jean Piaget called middle childhood looks tame and uneventful, a quiet patch of road on the otherwise hairpin highway to adulthood.

Said to begin around 5 or 6, when toddlerhood has ended and even the most protractedly breast-fed children have been weaned, and to end when the teen years commence, middle childhood certainly lacks the physical flamboyance of the epochs fore and aft: no gotcha cuteness of babydom, no secondary sexual billboards of pubescence.

Yet as new findings from neuroscience, evolutionary biology, paleontology and anthropology make clear, middle childhood is anything but a bland placeholder. To the contrary, it is a time of great cognitive creativity and ambition, when the brain has pretty much reached its adult size and can focus on threading together its private intranet service — on forging, organizing, amplifying and annotating the tens of billions of synaptic connections that allow brain cells and brain domains to communicate.

Subsidizing the deft frenzy of brain maturation is a distinctive endocrinological event called adrenarche (a-DREN-ar-kee), when the adrenal glands that sit like tricornered hats atop the kidneys begin pumping out powerful hormones known to affect the brain, most notably the androgen dihydroepiandrosterone, or DHEA. Researchers have only begun to understand adrenarche in any detail, but they see it as a signature feature of middle childhood every bit as important as the more familiar gonadal reveille that follows a few years later.

Middle childhood is when the parts of the brain most closely associated with being human finally come online: our ability to control our impulses, to reason, to focus, to plan for the future.

Young children may know something about death and see monsters lurking under every bed, but only in middle childhood is the brain capable of practicing so-called terror management, of accepting one’s inevitable mortality or at least pushing thoughts of it aside.

Other researchers studying the fossil record suggest that a prolonged middle childhood is a fairly recent development in human evolution, a luxury of unfolding that our cousins the Neanderthals did not seem to share. Still others have analyzed attitudes toward middle childhood historically and cross-culturally. The researchers have found that virtually every group examined recognizes middle childhood as a developmental watershed, when children emerge from the shadows of dependency and start taking their place in the wider world.

Much of the new work on middle childhood was described in a recent special issue of the journal Human Nature. As a research topic, “middle childhood has been very much overlooked until recently,” said David Lancy, an anthropologist at Utah State University and a contributor to the special issue. “Which makes it all the more exciting to participate in the field today.”

The anatomy of middle childhood can be subtle. Adult teeth start growing in, allowing children to diversify their diet beyond the mashed potatoes and parentally dissected Salisbury steak stage. The growth of the skeleton, by contrast, slows from the vertiginous pace of early childhood, and though there is a mild growth spurt at age 6 or 7, as well as a bit of chubbying up during the so-called adiposity rebound of middle childhood, much of the remaining skeletal growth awaits the superspurt of puberty.

“Adulthood is defined by being skeletally as well as sexually mature,” said Jennifer Thompson of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. “A girl may have her first period at 11 or 12, but her pelvis doesn’t finish growing until about the age of 18.”

The 18-year time frame of human juvenility far exceeds that seen in any other great ape, Dr. Thompson said. Chimpanzees, for example, are fully formed by age 12. With her colleague Andrew J. Nelson of the University of Western Ontario, Dr. Thompson analyzed fossil specimens from Neanderthals, Homo erectus and other early hominids, and concluded that their growth pattern was more like that of a chimpanzee than a modern human: By age 12 or 14, they had reached adult size.

Life for Neanderthals was nasty and short, Dr. Thompson said, and Neanderthal children had to get big fast, which is why they hurtled through adolescence at the equivalent of today’s chapter-book age. Our extreme form of dilated childhood didn’t appear until the advent of modern Homo sapiens roughly 150,000 years ago, Dr. Thompson said, when adults began living long enough to ease pressure on the young to hurry up and breed.

And what an essential luxury item middle childhood has proved to be. “It’s consistent across societies,” Benjamin Campbell, an anthropologist at the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee said. “In middle childhood, kids start making sense.”

Parental expectations rise accordingly. “Kids can do something now,” said Dr. Campbell, who edited the special issue. “They can do tasks. They have economic value.”

Boys are given goats to herd and messages to deliver. They hunt and fish. Girls weave, haul water, grind corn, chop firewood, serve as part-time mothers to their younger siblings; a serious share of baby care in the world is performed by girls not yet in their teens.

Workloads and expectations vary substantially from one culture to the next. Karen Kramer and Russell Greaves of Harvard compared the average number of hours that girls in 16 different traditional cultures devoted each day to “subsistence” tasks apart from child care. Girls of the Ariaal pastoralists in northern Kenya worked the hardest, putting in 9.6 hours daily. Agriculturalist girls in Nepal worked 7.5 hours a day.

Then you come to the more laid-back lives of the foragers. The researchers focused on the Pumé, a foraging group in west-central Venezuela, where preadolescent girls do almost nothing. They forage less than an hour a day, significantly less than their brothers, and are very inefficient in what little they do. They prefer hanging out at the campsite. “Pumé girls spend their time socializing, talking and laughing with their friends, beading and resting,” Dr. Kramer said.

But most cultures mark the beginning of middle childhood with some new responsibility. Kwoma children of Papua New Guinea are given their own garden plots to cultivate. Berber girls of northern Africa vie to prove their worth by preparing entire family meals unassisted.

In the Ituri forest of Central Africa, Mbuti boys strive to kill their first “real animal,” for which they will be honored through ritualized facial scarring. And in the United States, children enter elementary school, for which they will be honored through ritualized gold starring.

In middle childhood, the brain is at its peak for learning, organized enough to attempt mastery yet still fluid, elastic, neuronally gymnastic. Children have lost the clumsiness of toddlerhood and can become physically gymnastic, too, and start practicing their fine motor skills. And because they are still smaller than adults, they can grow adept at a skill like, say, spear-tossing, without fear of threatening the resident men.

Middle childhood is the time to make sense and make friends. “This is the period when kids move out of the family context and into the neighborhood context,” Dr. Campbell said.

The all-important theory of mind arises: the awareness that other people have minds, plans and desires of their own. Children become obsessed with social groups and divide along gender lines, girls playing with girls, boys with boys. They have an avid appetite for learning the local social rules, whether of games, slang, style or behavior. They are keenly attuned to questions of fairness and justice and instantly notice those grabbing more than their share.

The mental and kinesthetic pliancy of middle childhood can be traced at least in part to adrenarche, researchers said, when signals from the pea-size pituitary at the base of the brain prod the adrenal glands to unleash their hormonal largess. Adrenal hormones like DHEA are potent antioxidants and neuroprotectants, Dr. Campbell said, and may well be critical to keeping neurons and their dendritic connections youthfully spry.

Evidence also suggests that the adrenal hormones divert glucose in the brain to foster the maturation of the insula and anterior cingulate cortex, brain regions vital to interpreting social and emotional cues.

In middle childhood, the brain is open for suggestions. What do I need to know? What do I want to know? Well, you could take up piano, chess or juggling, learn another language or how to ski. Or you could go outside and play with your friends. If you learn to play fair, friends will always be there.

via nytimes.com

Ron Huxley Reacts: I was intrigued by this topic of this article by the New York Times as middle childhood doesn’t get much press. I am not much on “evolutionary” talk but if you can get by that, you will find this a very enlightening post on the 6 to 12 year old child.

December 20, 2011

What’s Behind A Temper Tantrum? Scientists Deconstruct The Screams

Anatomy Of A Tantrum

http://www.npr.org/templates/event/embeddedVideo.php?storyId=143062378

Source: YouTube (by permission), iStockphoto.com

Credit: NPR

Children’s temper tantrums are widely seen as many things: the cause of profound helplessness among parents; a source of dread for airline passengers stuck next to a young family; a nightmare for teachers. But until recently, they had not been considered a legitimate subject for science.

Now research suggests that, beneath all the screams and kicking and shouting, lies a phenomenon that is entirely amenable to scientific dissection. Tantrums turn out to have a pattern and rhythm to them. Once understood, researchers say, this pattern can help parents, teachers and even hapless bystanders respond more effectively to temper tantrums — and help clinicians tell the difference between ordinary tantrums, which are a normal part of a child’s development, and those that may be warning signals of an underlying disorder.

The key to a new theory of tantrums lies in a detailed analysis of the sounds that toddlers make during tantrums. In a new paper published in the journal Emotion, scientists found that different toddler sounds – or “vocalizations” – emerge and fade in a definite rhythm in the course of a tantrum.

“We have the most quantitative theory of tantrums that has ever been developed in the history of humankind,” said study co-author Michael Potegal of the University of Minnesota, half in jest and half seriously.

The first challenge was to collect tantrum sounds, says co-author James A. Green of the University of Connecticut.

“We developed a onesie that toddlers can wear that has a high-quality wireless microphone sewn into it,” Green said. “Parents put this onesie on the child and press a go button.”

The wireless microphone fed into a recorder that ran for several hours. If the toddler had a meltdown during that period, the researchers obtained a high-quality audio recording. Over time, Green and Potegal said they collected more than a hundred tantrums in high-fidelity audio.

The scientists then analyzed the audio. They found that different tantrum sounds had very distinct audio signatures. When the sounds were laid down on a graph, the researchers found that different sounds emerged and faded in a definite pattern. Unsurprisingly, sounds like yelling and screaming usually came together.

“Screaming and yelling and kicking often go together,” Potegal said. “Throwing things and pulling and pushing things tend to go together. Combinations of crying, whining, falling to the floor and seeking comfort — and these also hang together.”

But where one age-old theory of tantrums might suggest that meltdowns begin in anger (yells and screams) and end in sadness (cries and whimpers), Potegal found that the two emotions were more deeply intertwined.

“The impression that tantrums have two stages is incorrect,” Potegal said. “In fact, the anger and the sadness are more or less simultaneous.”

Understanding that tantrums have a rhythm can not only help parents know when to intervene, but also give them a sense of control.

Green and Potegal found that sad sounds tended to occur throughout tantrums. Superimposed on them were sharp peaks of yelling and screaming: anger.

The trick in getting a tantrum to end as soon as possible, Potegal said, was to get the child past the peaks of anger. Once the child was past being angry, what was left was sadness, and sad children reach out for comfort. The quickest way past the anger, the scientists said, was to do nothing. Of course, that isn’t easy for parents or caregivers to do.

“When I’m advising people about anger, I say, ‘There’s an anger trap,”’ Potegal said.

Even asking questions can prolong the anger — and the tantrum.

That’s what parents Noemi and David Doudna of Sunnyvale, Calif., found. Their daughter Katrina once had a meltdown at dinnertime because she wanted to sit at one corner of the dining table. Problem was, the table didn’t have any corners – it was round. When David Doudna asked Katrina where she wanted to sit, the tantrum only intensified.

“You know, when children are at the peak of anger and they’re screaming and they’re kicking, probably asking questions might prolong that period of anger,” said Green. “It’s difficult for them to process information. And to respond to a question that the parent is asking them may be just adding more information into the system than they can really cope with.”

In a video of the tantrum that Noemi Doudna posted on YouTube, Katrina’s tantrum intensified to screaming, followed by the child throwing herself to the floor and pushing a chair against a wall.

“Tantrums tend to often have this flow where the buildup is often quite quick to a peak of anger,” Green said.

Understanding that tantrums have a rhythm can not only help parents know when to intervene, but also give them a sense of control, Green said.

That’s because, when looked at scientifically, tantrums are no different than thunderstorms or other natural phenomena. Studying them as scientific subjects rather than experiencing them like parents can cause the tantrums to stop feeling traumatic and even become interesting.

“When we’re walking down the street or see a child having a tantrum, I comment on the child’s technique,” Potegal said. “[I] mutter to my family, ‘Good data,’ and they all laugh.”

Noemi Doudna said she now looks back on Katrina’s tantrums and sees the humor in them.

Katrina often demanded things that made no sense in the course of tantrums, Noemi Doudna said. She once said, “’I don’t want my feet. Take my feet off. I don’t want my feet. I don’t want my feet!’”

When nothing calmed the child down, Noemi Doudna added, “I once teased her — which turned out to be a big mistake — I once said, ‘Well, OK, let’s go get some scissors and take care of your feet.’”

Her daughter’s response, Noemi Doudna recalled, was a shriek: “Nooooo!!”

via npr.org

Ron Huxley’s Reaction: I enjoyed this story on several levels: 1. It helps parents normalize a very frustrating behavior problem and informs them that the best thing they can do is “nothing.” I would add that “nothing” doesn’t mean no empathy. Sit with the child and make sure they don’t hurt themselves accidently but don’t give them any extra attention either. This makes it worse. 2. It links the emotional connection between anger and sadness. Anger is a very irrational behavior that is pure emotional brain with no logic. Anger pushes others away. Sadness draws them closer and is usually what underlies the harsher, more energetic emotion of anger.

OK, one more point: 3. A child’s nervous system is literally trained by an empathic but non-attention getting response to a child’s tantrum. The cause of tantrums is an undeveloped nervous system that requires external input to develop regulation and self-control. That is the job of the parents. Have fun 🙂

November 29, 2011

Firesetting: Why kids do it and how parents can manage it

For parents, the dangers of fire are so apparent that the sight of a child anywhere near a flame is enough to send them scrambling. And fortunately, most kids are afraid of fire and understand that it can hurt them and others.

But it’s not unusual for kids to be curious about fire, too. After all, we enjoy campfires and singing over birthday candles. That’s why it’s so important to educate kids about the dangers of fire and to keep them away from matches, lighters, and other fire-starting tools.

Even with the best efforts from parents, kids might play with fire. Most of the time this can be handled by explaining the dangers and setting clear ground rules and consequences for not following them.

But sometimes kids seem to be especially preoccupied with fire and repeatedly attempt to set things on fire, which can be a sign of emotional and behavioral issues that require professional help.

Why Kids Set Fires

Young children who set fires usually do so out of curiosity or accidentally while playing with fire, matches, or lighters, and don’t know how dangerous fire can be. During the preschool years, fire is just another part of the world they’re exploring. Unfortunately, these fires tend to be the most deadly because kids in that age group don’t know how to respond to a fire, and may set it in a small, enclosed space, such as a closet.

As kids get a little older, they might be fascinated with fire. It’s fairly common for them to do things like light paper with matches, set things on fire using a magnifying glass, or play with candles or other things that have a flame. That’s usually not a cause for concern.

But if a school-age child deliberately sets fires, even after being reprimanded or punished, a parent needs to talk to the child and consider getting professional help. That’s especially true if the child is setting fires to larger objects or in areas where the flames can easily spread and cause injury and damage.

Talk with your doctor or consult a mental health professional if your child exhibits behaviors such as:

adding more fuel to fires in the fireplace, grill, or campfires, even when told not to

pocketing matches or hiding fire-starting materials

lighting candles, fireworks, and other things, despite being told not to

Kids might set fires for any number of reasons. They may be angry or looking for attention. They may be struggling with stressful problems at home, at school, or with friends. Some set fires as a cry for help because they’re being neglected at home or even abused. Even if they know how dangerous fire can be, they might have other problems that involve difficulty with impulse control.

Whatever the reason for firesetting, parents need to get to the root of the behavior and address underlying problems. It’s important to consider seeking professional help as soon as possible to prevent serious damage or injury.

via kidshealth.org

Ron Huxley’s Response: I wanted to find an article on firesetting because it is a problem that we (parents and professionals) don’t talk much about. This blog post gives a good introduction into firesetting by children. It follows my “80/20” rule about misbehavior: 80% of the children do it for curiosity and attention-getting. 20% do it for more serious, underlying causes. It is this later group that parents need to take action on immediately by consulting with a professional. How have you dealt with this frightening behavior?

November 26, 2011

Love More, Fear Less: A Mantra for the Holidays

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. Unlike Halloween, it’s not about dressing up in costumes (which my best friend Jen and I do all the time; we don’t need an excuse). Unlike Christmas/Hanukah, it isn’t about gifts and shopping. It’s simply about expressing gratitude.

A recent article in The New York Times points to a growing mountain of research supporting the idea that gratitude is good for us. The article states that “cultivating an ‘attitude of gratitude’ has been linked to better health, sounder sleep, less anxiety and depression, higher long-term satisfaction with life and kinder behavior toward others, including romantic partners.”

Yet somehow, in the subtle way our consumer culture often does, we’ve managed to twist even my favorite holiday into a materialistic occasion. In every storefront, magazine article, and blog posting we see, we’re made to think that the real meaning of Thanksgiving is food.

Sharing a delicious, homemade meal with our loved ones is a ritual to be savored. Yet while celebrating Thanksgiving with a feast may give us an excuse to come together, we don’t have to stuff ourselves to the point of bursting to make it a happy holiday.

Too often, in fact, we eat out of fear. Psychologists call this “emotional eating.” Have you ever noticed yourself taking an extra helping of pizza or making your way to the freezer for ice cream when you are anxious, depressed, lonely, angry, or upset? Food is not the answer to our interpersonal problems. Love is.

And so, in honor of the holidays, as a reminder of its true meaning, I’d like to offer this mantra: LOVE MORE, EAT LESS.

I derived it from my personal mantra of the last several years: LOVE MORE, FEAR LESS. Here’s how my mantra evolved.

Within one month in 2005, I experienced two traumas that reshaped my existence. First, I separated from my husband and partner of nine years. Next, I watched in horror as my father’s conviction for a federal crime was plastered across the front page of the Honolulu newspaper.

My entire world crumbled. I went from a relatively smooth and easy life, in which I demanded no less than perfection from myself and those around me, to a lost soul who didn’t know who she was or what she stood for. Anxiety consumed me. I couldn’t sleep without taking pills. I became convinced, at age 32, that I’d never have a family of my own.

Yoga, meditation, poetry and spiritual books, being outdoors in nature, and the love of friends and family got me through these dark days. I began to see how fear overtakes us, causing us to act from a place of panic, a mentality of scarcity, and an attitude of grasping.

I adopted the mantra: FEAR LESS. And that helped me a great deal. I began to surrender to a higher power. I realized that no matter how hard I tried or how much I planned, I would never be able to completely control my external reality. What I could control, however was my reaction to the events that happened to me. I could choose to accept where life had taken me and make the best of it.

I often thought of the serenity prayer recited in Alcoholics Anonymous meetings:

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference.”

My anxiety lessened. After many months of loosening my grip on the steering wheel of life, I found myself cruising down the highway and actually enjoying the view. I was invaded by peace.

Still, something was missing from my mantra…

Then, in the spring of 2010, I journeyed to Haiti post-earthquake to volunteer with my friend and role model Alison Thompson at Sean Penn’s non-profit, J/P HRO. Many friends advised against it.

“It’s too dangerous,” they said.

But I remembered to “fear less,” took a deep breath, raised several thousand dollars in donations, and ventured onward. In the tent villages of Port-au-Prince, offering counseling, hugs, and smiles to people who had lost their health, homes, and loved ones, the completion of my mantra came to me loud and clear: LOVE MORE.

Now I recite this mantra to myself on a daily basis: LOVE MORE, FEAR LESS.

By giving to others, we heal our own wounds. We become happier, more fulfilled, and even live longer. So yes, fear less: take on your demons, push yourself past your limits, be brave and bold. But also, love more, starting with yourself. You are beautiful, unique, and totally loveable. You have so much to offer the world.

So remember to bring yourself and your loved ones back to the core purpose of the occasion: Expressing gratitude. Say a little prayer. Give thanks for all that you have.

Follow MeiMei Fox on Twitter:

www.twitter.com/meimeifox

via huffingtonpost.com

Ron Huxley’s Resonates: Although this blog post doesn’t directly deal with parenting, it does directly relate to life. If parents could fear less and love their children more than they would escape a lot of daily hassles. Think about it…Share about it too. What do you do to “fear less”?

November 21, 2011

How to shorten your holiday gift list

Now’s a good opportunity to knock off a chunk of your holiday shopping. But before you start working through your gift list, see if you can shorten it.

First, remove anyone who doesn’t really need a present. I’m not trying to stifle your generosity; I’m just inviting you to consider if gifts are the best way to express it.

Does every service provider in your life need a gift, or would a generous tip be more helpful? Might some of your giftees feel awkward if they don’t have a gift for you?

Next, ask yourself:

How about a handwritten card instead of a gift? Teachers, especially, appreciate this.

How about a donation instead of a gift? Good for everyone who already has everything they need and may even be trying to declutter.

How about one special present instead of multiples? If Santa visits, one gift plus a full stocking is plenty. For kids, especially, the initial WOW of piles of wrapped boxes often turns into overwhelm or lack of interest (and possibly, down the road, greed and entitlement).

How about a small gift instead of a big one? Some people feel uncomfortable when presented with extravagant gifts. It’s fun to make a big splash every now and then, but usually, the best gifts are small treasures that demonstrate how well you know someone.

How about an experiential gift? Membership to a local museum, theater or performance tickets, a massage, a night in a hotel?

Paring down your gift list will save you money and time, and will help you feel calmer during the holidays. But, most importantly, it will help you express your love and gratitude to friends and family in ways everyone will appreciate.

How do you keep your gift list from getting too long?

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While Amazon Associate fees are one of the ways this site supports itself, we only point out things we think are actually useful or worthwhile, and the discount is good enough to warrant your attention.

Related: Use Google Documents to share family gift lists

via parenthacks.com

Ron Huxley Recommends: Anything that shortens my shopping list and lightens my expenses, is a must for me…hopefully, this helps you as well. How do you deal with holidays on a budget?

November 16, 2011March 11, 2017

November is National Adoption Month

Adoption Awareness Month: Can We Heal?

Did you know that every November a Presidential Proclamation launches activities and celebrations nationwide to increase awareness around adoption?

It’s true.

Adoption is a huge deal in the U.S. with 125,000 children adopted annually according to the Evan B. Donaldson Institute.

As a two time adoptee, I join this national conversation to offer a unique forum of conversation–the live teleseminar–to discuss HEALING & THE ADOPTEE. Adoptees are too often shoved into a corner, most often a place we put ourselves. We are the silent sufferers and we are the adaptors.

Can we speak up?
Can we share our stories?
Can we transcend our adoptions?

Each conversation this month will take on these questions and more!

Schedule

Wed, Nov. 2 & 9 @ 1:15 p.m. PST to 2:45 p.m. PST
Featuring: Jeanette Yoffe, Trish Lay & Brian Stanton

Jeanette Yoffe, M.A., M.F.T., earned her Masters in Clinical Psychology, specializing in children, from Antioch University in June of 2002. She treats children with serious psychological problems secondary to histories of abuse, neglect, and /or multiple placements. She has specialized for the past 10 years in the treatment of children who manifest serious deficits in their emotional, cognitive, and behavioral development.

Trish Lay coaches & motivates people to make positive life change. As an adoptee, she has asked herself: “Who am I?” As she got older it turned to “What is life’s purpose for me?” Trish asks these questions of herself and poses them to others. She has been a force of motivation and inspiration for twenty years.

Brian Stanton wrote about his reunion and issues around identity in his original solo play BLANK, performed in L.A., NY, Kansas City, Dallas, and Orlando. BLANK has also been seen at national adoption conferences for the Concerned United Birth-parents & The American Adoption Congress. In March of 2012, Brian will bring BLANK to the Alliance for the Study of Adoption and Culture 4th International Conference in Claremont, CA.

Listen to the 1st & 2nd: Jeanette Yoffe, Brian Stanton and Trish Lay.

Watch an except from BLANK:

Sunday, Nov. 13 @ 11:00 AM & 12:30 PM PST
Featuring: Nancy Verrier, Speaker, Author & Therapist

As a licensed MFT (marriage and family therapist) Nancy Verrier has been practicing psychotherapy and counseling in Lafayette, California, for over 20 years. Her specialty is working with people affected by relinquishment and adoption. Her books include the groundbreaking The Primal Wound: Understanding the Adopted Child & Coming Home to Self: The Adopted Child Grows Up. Nancy and Jennifer will talk about issues that impact adoptees that last a lifetime. Nancy will take your questions during this call.

Sunday, Nov. 20 @ 11:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. PST
Featuring: John Sobraske, MA, Adoption Attachment Counseling
Linda Hoye, Writer, Editor & Adoptee

John Sobraske is an adopted person, a stepparent of adopted children and an adoption psychotherapist in private practice. His research interests include adoption-related history, anthropology, media and mythology; depth work with adult adoptees; and the use of natural medicine and psychoenergetics for healing.

Linda Hoye is a writer, an editor, and an adoptee. She has reunited with some members of her birth family but both of her birth parents had passed away prior to reunion. She is a member of the Forget Me Not Family Society, the Adoption Council of Canada, and the American Adoption Congress. She recently finished writing a memoir charting a course through a complex series of relationships stemming from her adoptive family and two birth families. Linda maintains a blog called A Slice of Life Writing

Wed., Nov. 30 @ 1:00 p.m. PST
Featuring: Marnie Tetz, President of the Forget Me Not Family Society (FMNFS) & Bernadette Rymer, Director & Newsletter Editor FMNFS

Marnie Tetz of the Forget Me Not Family Society, Vancouver BC In 2000, “The Post Adoption Registry in Alberta matched me with a brother who had also registered, the following year I paid for a search and my mother was found, the next year I was united with another brother and sister. I had started my search almost 20 years before. The Forget Me Not Family Society has been a life saver for me. I became a director, and then 2 years later Vice President. At the AGM in 2010, I took over the role of President.”

Bernadette Rymer: “My daughter and I have been in reunion for 18 years. Our first years were tough as we struggled with feelings and questions of how to develop a meaningful relationship. Things improved dramatically as we became involved in the Forget Me Not Family Society which was my first opportunity—after 38 years—to talk about the loss of my daughter and the trauma that had stunted my growth. Since becoming involved in the FMNFS a passion has stirred within me to reach out to others who have similar experiences, heartaches, struggles and successes in the reunion process.”

International Number provided for this very special call with our Canadian friends.

Do not miss these incredible conversations which will also be recorded and provided to those who sign up! Fill in the form below and I will send a confirmation of your registration for these events and details on how to join in the calls.

via jenniferlauckmemoirwriting.com

Ron Huxley Recommends: November is National Adoption Month and healing is at the core of my work with families. I encourage you to check our Jennifer’s website and her teleconferences on “healing and the adoptee.”

November 11, 2011

7 Skills for Teaching Your Child to Stand-Up to Bullies

Skill 1: Stay Connected

Bullies operate by making their victims feel alone and powerless. Children reclaim their power when they make and maintain connections with faithful friends and supportive adults.

Skill 2: Create Awareness

Sometimes kids feel like adults never do anything–so why even bother to tell them about incidence of bullying? While there are cases when adults fail to acknowledge the seriousness of a situation, it is more often the case that grown-ups are not aware of what is going on. Bullies use relational aggression to inflict their violence in subtle, socially acceptable ways that tend not to register on an adult’s radar. Teach your child that it is her job to create awareness. Be clear in teaching kids that telling an adult about bullying is not a mark of cowardice, but rather a bold, powerful move.

Skill 3: Re-define Tattling

My daughter came to me yesterday, worried that if she told the bus driver about a boy who was spitting on her, then she would be labeled as a “tattletale.” I told her that this is exactly what the bully wanted her to think! Isolation is a bully’s method of intimidation. In fact, it is only by telling an adult that kids can begin to re-balance the power dynamic. When a bully realizes that he will not be able to keep a victim isolated, he immediately begins to lose power.

Skill 4: Act Quickly

The longer a bully has power over a victim, the stronger the hold becomes. Oftentimes, bullying begins in a relatively mild form–name calling, teasing, or minor physical aggression. After the bully has tested the waters and confirmed that a victim is not going to tell and adult and stand up for his rights, the aggression worsens. Teach your child that taking action against the bully–and taking it sooner rather than later–is the best way to gain and retain power.

Skill 5: Respond Assertively

The more a bully thinks he can pick on a victim without a response, the more he will do it. That’s why an assertive response is so effective in countering bullying. Kids who master the skills of assertiveness are comfortable in the middle ground between aggressive comebacks that up the ante for the next go-round, and passive responses that invite further abuse.

Skill 6: Use Simple, Unemotional Language

Assertive kids use simple, unemotional, direct language to let bullies know that they do not intend to be victimized. Why should you teach your child to use responses that are “unemotional?” Indications that a person can be emotionally impacted signal a bully that he will be able to wield power easily. By encouraging your child to respond without anger or fear, you teach her how to portray confidence. The bully, in turn, detects less potential for wielding control.

Skill 7: Use Body Language to Reinforce Words

When coaching your child in the skills of assertive communication, it is helpful to practice using body language to reinforce words. Teach your child to employ these simple, non-verbal assertive strategies that indicate to a bully that your child means what she says:

• Maintain eye contact
• Keep your voice calm and even
• Stand an appropriate distance from the bully
• Use the bully’s name when speaking to him

Teach your child that emotional non-verbals, such as looking away, raising her voice, or shrinking back are all dead giveaways that the bully has gotten to her.

via psychologytoday.com

Ron Huxley’s Reasons: It is a sad state of affairs when we have to teach our children how to deal with bullies but that is exactly what so many parents have to do today. Without these skills our children can be victims in school settings. Share your thoughts on this topic with us!

November 9, 2011

Common Reactions to Being a Stay and Home Dad and How to Deal with Them

In one study published in Psychology of Women Quarterly in 2005, researchers from Yale University looked at the attitudes of our culture at large towards traditional and non-traditional families. The researchers defined traditional as a family with a working father and stay-at-home mother, and non-traditional families as families with a working mother and a stay-at-home father. The results of these studies were quite interesting, and they just go to show what some of the common reactions to stay-at-home dads are.

The researchers in this study found that people liked traditional families more, and that they expressed negative attitudes – usually very openly! – towards non-traditional families. Stay-at-home dads were somehow viewed as less-than by other people, and working mothers were not well-respected or well-liked unless they were working because of financial necessity rather than for personal fulfillment.

If you’re already a stay-at-home dad or have talked with people about the possibility of becoming one, this all probably seems like a no-brainer to you! It’s not at all uncommon for people to have a distinctly negative, know-it-all attitude towards stay-at-home dads. But then, of course, there’s the opposite extreme of those who paint you to be a hero just because you stay home with your kids. What’s a guy to do? Here are a few of the most common reactions to being a stay-at-home dad and what you can do about them:

The Hateful Reaction
When it comes to parenting, you simply can’t please everyone, nor should you try to. While every parenting decision from whether or not to breastfeed a child to whether or not to spank a child can come with hateful reactions from certain quarters, nothing seems to draw so many of these reactions as being a stay-at-home dad. (At least, that’s how you probably feel when you tell people that this is what you do!) Some people just don’t get it and never will agree with your decision.

The best way to react to this one is to ignore it! You don’t owe anyone else (not even your own mother-in-law!) a justification about why you’ve decided to stay home with your kids. If you’re getting a hateful reaction from someone you don’t even know, just walk away. In touchier situations – like when you’re dealing with family members – perhaps you can come up with a one-liner such as, “It just works better for us this way,” that you can throw in before you pointedly change the direction of the conversation.

The Effusive Reaction
On the opposite end of the spectrum, you have those very liberal people who think that being a stay-at-home dad makes you a hero. While it can be nice to be praised rather than vilified for your current career choice, it can also be quite annoying because you know you’re just doing what’s best for your family and yourself at this particular moment in your history.

Dealing with those who think you’re a total hero for taking care of your kids can be tricky. Of course, you don’t want to offend them purposefully, but you might also want to just change the subject yet again. Again, having just a little something to say about your role as a stay-at-home dad and then changing the subject can be helpful.

The Advice-Giving Reaction
Part of the problem with our world’s perception of the roles of men and women is that people assume dads don’t understand how to take care of children by virtue of the fact that they are male. This is, of course, no true. Some men are just as much “naturals” at caring for kids as some women are, and every parent has at least a little bit of learning curve, no matter what their gender!

Just because men can’t give birth or breastfeed certainly doesn’t mean they aren’t competent enough to care for a child.
With that said, as a stay-at-home dad, be prepared for more than your fair share of parenting advice. It will come from moms at the playground, your family members, people you know a little, and complete strangers in the grocery store. There are a myriad of ways to handle the advice-giving reaction to your role as a dad, and the option you choose depends on your personality, how well you know the advice giver, and your mood on that particular day.

You could, for instance, just let the advice roll off your back with a polite, “Thanks for the advice” and, of course, a quick change of subject if you’re stuck in an actual conversation with the advice-giver. You could also become a little sarcastic, which is especially fun when you’re dealing with those who have much less parenting experience than you (or, in many cases, who aren’t parents at all and just happen to be of the female gender). Of course, if the person you’re speaking with has a similar parenting style to your own and is genuinely trying to help, it can be helpful to listen and learn! It might eat at your pride a little to take unasked-for advice, but sometimes you really will learn something helpful!

Reactions to being a stay-at-home dad can be difficult to get used to and to deal with at first, and if your career had previously been a big part of your identity, things can be even more difficult. However, learning to deal with these common reactions in a way that is helpful for you and for the people involved otherwise is a good way to make your time as a stay-at-home dad more successful.

By Daniela Baker

Daniela blogs at CreditDonkey, a credit card comparison site. She blogs about family finance and as a mother of two, she firmly believes in the idea of having a bit of an emergency fund saved up just in case.

via diyfather.com

Ron Huxley’s Reaction: I love this post by DIY Father.com as it addresses some very common reactions to stay at home dads. I have known several families where the wife makes more money and has a more stable dad and this was the logical conclusion for their family. It seemed to work for them. I think it would drive me crazy.