Being there for your kids

More letters on parenting issues. My first mom is really concerned about her spiralling son whose senior year in high school is crashing because of the pandemic. Some thoughts, but also helping her consider getting him into therapy if things don't improve soon. Another letter is from "Freaked" who frets over balancing the needs and demands of her family, as they all stay-at-home. Encoourage detail...

A year has passed since the first coronavirus infections in the United States. We are all finding our "new normal." Many listeners have been emailing me with questions about adjusting to this new normal in our lives. Today starts a new series on my podcast, where I will be sharing with you some of these letters and my responses. Today, mom laments changes in how she will celebrate her 6 year old's...

Many kids feel banished to their rooms and not come out until that homework is finished "young man!!" Home schoolers can feel isolated throughout their school day. As parents, it is vital that your kids know that you are there for them as they struggle to complete assignments. Draw on and draw in other resources to bolster your child's homework and home schooling experience. As they find more crea...

Everybody who has failed, raise your hand. Yep, that's everybody. If your hand's not raised, you are lying :(  Interestingly, failure is a critical part of success. How can we know what's right, if we first don't know what's wrong? How you handle your failures provides a critical role model for your kids. How you help your kids deal with failure is a critical component in their building character....

Getting your child to embrace homework can be rough. Complaints, stall tactics, moaning and groaning can abound. After clearing the way with active listening and helping him get down to task, help him see and start with his strengths, what is shorter to complete, what he's good at. This strategy helps him build up a positive head of steam heading into the hard stuff. Find ways to break down the ha...

Everything happens for a reason. If your child is not getting down to task as you directed, try to understand the context for his stalling. Such questions as, "What else is going on?" and, "Why now?" are good starters for conversation. Use your active listening to help him lower his emotional fever, and then help him problem solve before redirecting him to task. Understanding the context for his d...

As important as the 3R's of schooling are, and adding to the list the fourth "R," the goal of parenting our kids through their school experience is helping them build character and develop a growth rhythm. That's what serves them best in being all they can be as an adult. Being a good role model, helping them make good decisions, teaching them about putting their energies into what's most importan...

What kind of home school teacher are you? It's tough bouncing back and forth between being parent and teacher to our child. How do you navigate that? It is critical in this context to embrace the 4th R of schooling. The original 3Rs are reading, 'riting, and 'rithmetic. Most important, however, and the best context within which to teach the first 3Rs is the 4th R, relationship. Of course, as the p...

When helping your child with schooling, balance your approach. As you can work with each other with mutual respect, the task becomes easier and quicker for each of you. Use your active listening to settle your child into task. Brainstorm options for task completion. Plan ahead and use a daily planner dry erase board so that your child knows what to expect each moment of each school day. Give clear...

You wouldn't start a DIY project at home without the proper tools, would you? Of course not. Some parents, however, just let their kids do homework and home school willy nilly, whatever. There's a saying that applies here: For anything worth doing, you get out of it what you put into it. To help equip your child for academic success, give him the proper tools to get the job done. To create the hab...

Quick changes in activity level tend to throw a child off kilter. While this might save time, such quick changes actually extend the fussing and delaying before getting into the rhythm of the activity. Double for homework and home schoolers. To make the most of difficult situations, active listen your child's foot dragging and frustration about doing schoolwork at home. Make sure ahead of time tha...

Having to deal with all of this pandemic stuff and we also have to help our kids stay on top of their schoolwork? Really?? Yep, that's a sign of our times. How you get started with this task will set the tone for how it's achieved. Use your active listening to hear your child's upset and frustration. When you see the emotional fever subside, start problem-solving. Plan ahead and stick to your plan...

So, you don't have enough to do? Now, with stay-at-home orders, you have to collar your kids to do their on-line schoolwork as well? Can we get back to normal yet? If you have these questions, you are not alone. I've compiled a list of my top ten tips for parents helping kids with schoolwork, whether its just homework, online, or full out home schooling. Keep these things in mind as you make the b...

Whew! We are all under the gun. This COVID-19 pandemic has each one of us scrambling to stay safe and trying to do our part. Stress management strategies are at a premium in these tentative times. As parents, we all need to model effective stress management and promote resilience with our kids. Included in this podcast are four suggestions for dealing with our current crisis. Also, remember, find...

Many of us, sadly, tend to live beyond our means. That's a problem for two reasons. First, it's an easy way to find trouble. Second, it's a poor role model for your children. If you start keeping a budget early in your marriage, then when kids come along, it's easier to keep the budget going. Kids learn to manage their money as well. To avoid living beyond your means, budget your needs first. Then...

News flash!! You don't have to do this parenting thing alone. Even if you are not lucky enough to have a village, even if you are a single parent, the buck may stop with you, but there are lots of options along the way. As you are able to expand your parenting resources, both you get relief and are able to manage your stress better, and also your children learn new things and experience new relati...

You know what? Stuff happens. It happens to you, to me, to your children. It's not the stuff, but rather, what we do with the stuff after it happens that matters. As parents, we are constantly teaching our kids about how to be good people. Most all of those lessons come from helping them turn failures into blessings in disguise. Many parents kneejerk their reaction to their child's pratfalls. Inst...

With the current stress of pandemic on all of our lives, and possibility for discouragement as our routines are disrupted, I'm breaking into my top 10 parenting tips to help out. Our new normal, shelter-in-place, can lead to parents and children going bonkers! Or we can adapt, do our part to stop the spread of this killer virus, and make the most out of difficult times. In this podcast, I give you...

That old parenting adage is true. What you pay attention to grows. If you focus only on the bad behavior, it will grow. If you reinforce the good behavior, it will grow. When helping your child get over the rough spots, use their strengths to help them overcome their weaknesses. Use your active listening to understand their feelings. Join with them where you can. Supervise their efforts. Some how...

Wouldn't it be great if we, as parents, could raise our children by ourselves, in a vacuum devoid of school and social influences on their lives? Yeah, well...uh, no. Our children's lives are so much more enhanced by their interactions and learning experiences with others. We are, however, tasked to give them a firm foundation, both in personality and in life. This gives them opportunity to naviga...

Parenting tip #6 for parenting success is this: Be aware of developmental stage influence. Parenting is tough enough without taking in all the extraneous variables. One of those variables is developmental stage influence. Throughout our lives, we are in one developmental stage or another. Sometimes, these stages collide with each other if the family. For healthy, positive parenting, know both what...

As parents, our lifelong task is to help our children build character. Through good times and bad, how can we do that? Three functions contribute to this outcome. First use active listening to help convey that you understand what your child is going through. Second, consistently use the Good Kid Chart to give him target behaviors to work on and reward and consequence based on his efforts. Finally,...

Kids tend to gravitate toward immediate need gratification. If it isn't "now," what's the point? While we all want need gratification, and the sooner the better, there is a place for advanced preparation in tackling life's challenges. As parents, we can help our children choose process over outcome in their decision-making. While at times, focusing on the process feels like swimming upstream and i...

While many families mistakenly believe that parental respect is a right and deserved regardless, such beliefs put that family at risk. Parental respect is earned by our words and actions. Many parents use fear to command respect from their children. However, we can use active listening, healthy boundaries, and direction to earn the respect of our children. When we fear and power to demand respect,...

Normal daily transitions for all of us include asleep/awake, to/from work or school, coming home, day/night activities, and awake/asleep. These and other unusual or specific transitions all can give us pause, if not trouble. In particular, children are susceptible to disruption around transition activities, unless you plan and prepare for the transitions ahead of time. Usually, a 5-10 minute trans...