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The Positive Parenting Newsletter Ideas & Inspiration for Parents - 2010 In this issue: Contribution Makes a Difference Teach Your Kids to Think! Success Stories Common Normal Annoying Behaviors Feature: Contribution Makes a Difference By Deborah Fox Recently a mom, Juliana, asked me if she could bring her 3 year old son E.J. over once a week to clean the horse corral. She explained that she didn’t have a lot of money, and that trips to the park were becoming mundane. Additionally, she felt strongly that the entire day should not just be about fun and play, but that E.J. should learn to work and contribute as well. I thought it sounded like a great idea, and definitely a win for me too, as it was one morning I didn’t have to clean up! They picked Tuesday mornings and have been showing up for about a month now. It’s been really fun to watch. The first day, E.J. wasn’t very helpful and just wanted to play. Juliana patiently and persistently encouraged him to help, role-modeling working hard the entire time. She also encouraged him with spending time feeding the horses carrots when they finished. Each week, he has become more and more helpful, happy and cooperative. This morning I went out to say hello, and he was pulling the big heavy wagon all by himself! I acknowledged his help and will add brushing one of the horses as a bonus for his hard work. I asked Juliana if I could share this story because I think she has done something quite unique and resourceful in these difficult economic times. Many parents have their kids in various activities throughout the week, gymnastics, soccer, piano, etc. But what do you do if the money just isn’t there, but your child still needs to be stimulated and learn about the world? What Juliana is doing is the best of both worlds, E.J. is learning something new and they are spending time together. Historically children learned to be valuable because they were! 50-100 years ago when we lived predominantly on family farms, children had to work very hard from a young age. A sense of value was never in question. Now, kids don’t have to do anything! They have much of the work done for them and aren’t expected to work or contribute. Parents find, when they ask their kids for help, that they hear complaints and reasons why they shouldn’t have to do anything because their friend’s parents don’t make them work! All this is a great challenge because we intuitively know are kids should be working and helping out around the house. Here are some ideas for encouraging your kids to contribute by volunteering together: · Go to a local elder care facility and cheer up a lonely old person · Go to a local humane society and volunteer to help out together · Go to the beach or park and pick up trash together · Notice when someone needs help, such as with their grocery cart, and offer to help · Call me and offer to clean up my corral once a week! Each of you has a routine, friends, family and work. Look in your environment and see how you can make the world a better place together. This commitment will role model a way of being in the world to your child that will impress upon them for their entire life. It is one of the best ways that you can be valuable to your children. Your children will grow proud with esteem and value for making a difference. Happy Parenting! Deborah has been teaching parenting classes for over 17 years. Her kids are 24, 20 & 18 and each are making a contribution to the world in their unique way. Briana, 24, is working on an organic farm in Massachusetts. You can read about it on her Blog, where she also reflects on how she was parented! Michelle, 20, is in college to become a kindergarten teacher. Michael, 18, is working and snow-boarding in Bend, Oregon and plans to enter the Navy as soon as the snow season ends. For encouraging words and tips on parenting and discipline, start your day off with a Parenting Pep Talk from Deb. top of page Special Feature: Thinking is Good! New Book! Teach Your Kids to Think!- Simple Tools You Can Use Everyday $16.95 By Maria Chesley Fisk, Ph.D. (Note from Deborah: I recently came across this book and found it to be very helpful. I received permission from the author to reprint two of the tips here. If you like what you read, I highly suggest getting a copy and I am offering a 10% discount if you buy it here! It’s written in a very parent-friendly manner, and each suggestion is only 1-2 pages so it’s easy for you to use. Enjoy these tips and thank you, Dr. Fisk!) From Chapter Two on General Tools for Teaching Thinking Skills: Say some more Follow a comment from your child with one of these thought extenders to encourage her to think more deeply: · Say some more about that—what else do you think? · What do you think about that? Why is it (good, bad, happy or sad, scary or not)? · What could happen next? What’s your prediction? · What part of this interests you most? Why is that? Extending and deepening ideas not only helps us think more carefully about the subject at hand, it can also encourage interest, creativity, and analytical thinking. Most importantly, asking your child to extend her thinking communicates that her thoughts and ideas are important and worthy of further exploration. From Chapter Five on Tools for Teaching Social and Emotional Thinking Skills: Our words and actions affect others Gently teach empathy and concern for others when working to communicate about and influence your child’s negative behavior. Explain that your child’s behavior affects the people around her, including you: · I am frustrated because you are not listening to me. · Look how sad she feels now. · He is upset because you took his toy. · Do you think Trisha feels hurt and left out because she wasn’t included in the phone call? Misbehaving, acting out, making poor choices-we refer to those inevitable negative behaviors in many ways. Be sure to talk about the undesirable behavior, not the child herself. “You are not listening right now” identifies the problem behavior as you see it. “You are a bad listener” labels the child, blames the child and is much more likely to shut down communication about the matter. Guide your child to think about how to be more careful with other people’s feeling the next time she encounters a similar situation: · Let’s think about how you could handle things differently next time. What are your ideas? · What can you do if you really want to play with the same toy another person is playing with? I am very grateful to Maria Chesley Fisk, Ph.D. for generously offering you these tools in this newsletter. Her website is www.thinkparenting.com. If you would like to order her book, you can order it in the Positive Parenting Bookstore. The publisher’s price is $16.95 and I will be selling it in my bookstore for the next 2 weeks for $15.25, order your copy today! top of page Success Stories Mom noticed the 6 year old Hunter and 4 year old Scarlett were starting to act up more often. She realized they were trying to get her attention, so she made a purposeful effort to do more GEMS each day with each child. Their behavior began to improve and now mom was feeling better. She started the day with singing directions to them to the tunes of silly TV songs (instead of yelling) and made it more fun. They were cooperative most of the day and at homework time, Hunter managed to do all his work without any fighting. Mom made sure to reward him with encouraging words and acknowledgement and 5 minutes breaks when he needed them. Great job, mom! -Rebecca, Thousand Oaks Dad was taking his kids to Ventura. One immediately called shotgun so the other one got upset, By the time dad pulled out of the driveway, they were fighting in the car. He left and the fighting continued to escalate to hitting. He realized that he usually threatened to pull over when they behaved like this. Instead of threatening & yelling, dad stopped and got out of the car and just waited patiently. Finally one of the boys said, “Dad! Why did we stop?” Dad replied, “Because when the two of you are fighting, hitting & yelling like that in the car, I can’t drive safely. I need you to behave appropriately so I can drive you safely to Ventura." The kids were silent. Dad got back into the car and the kids were good all the way to Ventura. Way to go, Dad! top of page Possible Annoying Normal Behaviors Possible Annoying Normal Behaviors 14 Years Old In public, he wants to be as far away as possible from you Picks at the way you dress or look Revolts at your old-fashioned ways Picks apart social systems: school, church, law enforcement, etc. May challenge cherished values Excerpt from the appendix of the "Redirecting Children’s Behavior" book, in subsequent issues, we will print through age 18 years. This book is available through the Positive Parenting Bookstore. top of page

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