2011 Parent's Top Ten List -- Tip #10

For almost a decade, Whole Hearted Parenting has released an annual Parent’s Top Ten List with ten items for parents to focus on in the New Year to promote peaceful conflict resolution, self-reliance, cooperation and assertive communication. The 2011 Whole Hearted Parenting Parent’s Top Ten List is now online here.

Beginning with tip #10, “Be clear on who owns the problem,” the Top Ten List is terrific to post on the fridge so parents can easily refer to it when things get off track at home. If there is conflict, being clear on who owns the problem can guide parents in deciding whether to provide assistance in problem solving (the child owns the problem) or to provide discipline – such as offering choices, setting clear limits, or using “I statements” – when the parent owns the problem. Providing support to a child who says he lost his homework (the child owns the problem) includes discussing how he feels and exploring his options for resolving the issue. Being clear on who owns the problem can also remind parents to avoid ineffective communication such as lecturing (“If you keep loosing your homework, you are going to fail your math class”), comparing (“Your brother never forgot any of his homework”), sarcasm (“If your head weren’t attached to your shoulders you would probably forget that, too”) or solving the problem for him (“I’ll bring your homework to you at school”).

One way of determining who owns the problem is to notice who is bringing it up. Your child is probably not bringing up the messy counter where he did not clean up after fixing his cereal for breakfast or the clothes left all over the bathroom floor! You are most likely bringing up these issues, and the problem belongs to you. If your child is bringing up issues, such as loosing his homework, being pushed by someone at school or being left off the invitation list to a party, he owns the problem and you can provide support.

When the problem is yours, speaking about how you feel is much more effective than talking about the behvior you would like your child to change. Be clear on how the problem influences you. For example, you do not like to cook in a dirty kitchen and someone might trip and fall while walking through a space with clothes on the floor.

Being clear and talking about how you feel are the first steps to resolving the problem.

Tune in next week for Tip #9!

Ways to Overcome Holiday Depression During and After Divorce

Many thanks to Rosalind Sedacca for this article. Whether separated, divorced, feeling that "empty chair" around the dinner table, or missing someone who has passed away, Rosalind's suggestions are up-lifting.

By Rosalind Sedacca, CCT

Thanksgiving, Christmas – most any holiday -- can bring up painful memories of happier times, especially if you are divorced and have children. But keep in mind that with the pain comes a choice. You can choose to acknowledge the past for what it was. You can value the good times you might have had together. Then you can choose to move on and let go.

If you don’t, you will likely get stuck tormenting yourself with the "shoulds." We should still be a family today. He should be ashamed of what he's doing to us. She shouldn’t be able to have the kids on Christmas Day. I should be over this by now. It should be easier for me to move on – but it isn't. You get the idea.

Use this holiday season as a marker for starting a new mindset for yourself. You are creating a future that will be as positive for you as you allow it to be. Close the door to what was so you can open the door to brighter tomorrows – for yourself and your children. This holiday season and the ones to come can be weeks of great celebration for you if you start planting the seeds in your mind today.

Here are some useful tips for creating a positive mindset for the holidays.

Be your own best friend:
Divorce and its related stressors can take its toll on your self-esteem. It’s easy to start falling into cycles of despair, fear, anxiety and depression fueled by messages such as “who’s going to want me now?” or “how can I cope with all this pressure in my life?” This can certainly compound over the holidays, which add another layer of stress to family life. Use this time to celebrate you and starting a new chapter in your life. Look ahead to reinventing yourself in ways you’ve always wanted – and acknowledging yourself for assets you have that can be further explored. Take time to laugh and indulge in some holiday spirit. It’s good medicine for you and the children you love.

Focus on lifting the spirits of others:
Gratitude is a mindset that reminds us of our blessings. Do you have a loving relationship with your children? Do you have your health, a roof over your head, the income to purchase a few holiday gifts? Many people are not so fortunate. Be grateful for your blessings, share a smile or kind gesture with others, volunteer for the less fortunate and you will be rewarded in ways you never expected – physically, emotionally and spiritually!

Integrate – don’t isolate:
Take advantage of this social season to circulate and re-connect with family and friends. Plan some small gatherings with those you care about and accept a few invitations to get out and meet other people. Limit your “pity party” time to an hour or two. Then pick yourself up and get back into life. You’ll be surprised by the support systems available to you. You will also find that you are not alone in the post-divorce emotions and challenges you are experiencing. Be receptive to help and it will come to you.

Initiate New Holiday Traditions:
Remembering holiday traditions of the past can set you into a downward cycle and negatively affect your children, as well. This is the time to develop new ways of celebrating the holidays that you and your children can cherish and enjoy together. Perhaps it’s a special trip, celebrating with new friends and neighbors, attending special holiday events in your community or place of worship. Encourage your co-parent to do the same when the kids are with them, so that they have something to look forward to in each home.

Use this time of the year as the emotional starting point for bringing into focus the “you” you’ve always wanted to be. Visualize the future you desire. Make commitments to positive changes in your thoughts, habits and actions. By doing this, every year to come around holiday time you will be re-energized with positive appreciation rather than brought down by sadness and despair. The choice is yours. Embrace this season as the start of wonderful things to come and you’ll have much to celebrate in your future!

Rosalind Sedacca, CCT, is founder of the Child-Centered Divorce Network and author of the ebook, How Do I Tell the Kids … about the Divorce? A Create-a-Storybook™ Guide to Preparing Your Children -- with Love! Please visit Rosalind's website for more information, free articles on child-centered divorce and her free ezine.

Consciously Created Holidays

On this last day of November, I invite you to consciously create the holiday season that you desire. Remember the “not enough” thoughts that trigger stress, such as “I don’t have enough help,” “I don’t have enough money,” and “I don’t have enough time”? I feel the most stressed when I think “I don’t have enough time to get everything done.” It is even hard to enjoy getting things done when thinking this thought! Each time you feel the clinch of stress – which walls off your enjoyment – remind yourself that you DO have enough time, help and money. Set aside things on your “to do list” for another time or another day, ask for help or reduce the number of things that you are doing, and plan how you wish to use the money that you do have or ways to raise money for what you would like to do.

We talked in the last post about Simon Sinek and starting with WHY. Get clear on your WHY for the holiday season. It might be about honoring your faith and connecting with the people you love. Begin with your WHY on December 1st and your level of joy will expand.

Each of us has twenty-four hours in each day. I invite you to savor every single one of yours.

For ideas on reducing your stress over the holidays and assisting your children to reduce theirs, please visit the following websites:

• http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-power-imagination/200911/7-holiday-stress-busters-kids

• http://www.stressfreekids.com/articles/stress-buster-focus-color-image-1-minute-kids/

The Why in Your Family

The It Takes a Village to Create Change Conference in San Diego over the weekend was phenomenal. Organized by the Indigo Village Educational Foundation, the one-day event was presented with immense love and grace. I felt privileged to be a speaker on the program, particularly after listening to Simon Sinek speak about Start with WHY, which is also the title of his new book.

Simon drew a target – which he calls The Golden Circle – with three parts. The bull’s eye at dead center is the WHY. The next layer surrounding the center is the HOW and the outside ring of the target is the WHAT.

The WHY is your purpose, your passion and your dream. The WHY is about leadership. “There are leaders and there are those who lead. Leaders hold a position of power or influence. Those who lead inspire us. Whether individuals or organizations, we follow those who lead not because we have to, but because we want to. We follow those who lead, not for them but for ourselves.”

The HOW is the strategy. It consists of “guiding principles or actions that inform the path you will take in pursuit of your WHY. They are the road map or the code of conduct to start to move a Why into something useful and tangible. They are, quite literally, the actions you take or the environment in which you work best.”

The WHAT is the execution. Simon quoted Edison who said, “Vision without execution is hallucination.”

The principles of The Golden Circle can be applied to any organization, and they can be highly beneficial to our first organization, our family. Just as we teach the value of disciplining our children so they develop their own inner direction in Redirecting Children’s Behavior™, Simon said to start from the WHY, from the center and from the heart. If we are clear on our WHY as a family, clear on our purpose as parents, centered as family members, nothing can lead us off course.

More on how Simon’s principles apply to families and parenting to come!

Public Tantrums and Self-Calming

Please visit Moms Miami for today's post on Public Tantrums and Self-Calming. You can also listen to this post as a podcast.

Good Night Moon

I first heard about Bedtimes are for Suckers from a colleague who posted a link on Facebook. She asked what people thought of this blog, which is billed as “a preschooler fed up with being exploited by her mom’s ‘mommy blog’ tells her side of the story.” The responses on Facebook were almost evenly split between people who thought the blog was hysterically funny or a reflection of their world and others who thought it was at best crude and at worst horribly wrong.

The first photograph you see at the site is a preschooler in large sunglasses with her arms folded across her chest and her feet firmly planted. She emanates the classic power struggle response, “I don’t want to and you can’t make me” or “just try and make me.” The next photo is the same young child holding up her left hand with the middle finger extended under the post entitled “5 Reasons I Don’t Want to Go to Bed (So Get Off my Ass)”. It is explained elsewhere that the gesture was photoshopped. Other posts include the following phrases in the titles: “Idiotic Parents,” “WTF is that on My Plate,” and “Mommy Put Down the Goddamn iPhone.”

Here is what I like about Bedtimes are for Suckers – The piece about moms and iPhones from the perspective of a child is brilliant in concept.

Here is what I don’t like about Bedtimes are for Suckers:
• The tone is hostile, sarcastic and manipulative. The language is crude. The purpose of the blog is to fight, so it does not create closeness or connection.
• If a parent envisions his child thinking or behaving like this, it will become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
• Thinking of children in these terms is not in the best interest of your relationship with your child.
• Children do not think like this. This is adult language, beliefs and attitudes being attributed to a child.
• Karen Deerwester, author of The Entitlement-Free Child and owner of Family Time Inc, said the blog is “a celebration of a precocious attitude that a child has learned.” The child has learned this behavior, and adults have permitted the behavior to persist.
• The blog feels pornographic to me in that a child is exploited even as the blog claims to be fighting exploitation. The child is not a fully consenting participant in this endeavor even though thoughts, behaviors, beliefs and attitudes are attributed to the child.
• There are no solutions to problems or improvements in the relationships. There is no desire for solutions or improvements in the relationships.
• Our children do what works, and mom does not take responsibility for her child’s behavior. The sarcasm is actually blaming the child for mom’s lack of leadership.
• Family life does not have to be this way.

I checked out if I had somehow left my sense of humor aside when reading the blog. A few lines did make me laugh. The presentation of a child and the relationship between a parent and child in such a corrupt light simply did not hold any humor for me and I’m OK with that.

Personally, I think bedtime is for everybody.

Goodnight room. Goodnight red ballon. Goodnight moon. Sleep tight.

The Feelings Behind the Words

One of the most helpful suggestions in the Redirecting Children’s Behavior™ course is to look for the feelings behind a child’s words and actions. When discovering and understanding the feelings are your top priority, it is easier to separate the “deed” from the “doer” so that your response is helpful, calm and non-reactive even when your child may be out of control. Your response is directed towards your child learning a different way of doing what he is doing rather than becoming a statement about his character. Your response honors your relationship.

Two triggers that can quickly escalate a conversation into an argument are “never” and “always”. The use of either of those words, particularly if they are describing someone else’s behavior – “You never clean up your room” – do not solve problems. Imagine a scenario in which you’ve said “no” to a request from your daughter to spend the night at a friend’s house. She responds angrily, “You never let me go anywhere!” If you were to quickly react, you might become defensive, seeking to provide evidence of how that isn’t true. You might prove how wrong she is by tossing out all of the times that you said “yes” to her requests. The interaction could easily become a heated power struggle with you thinking she is ungrateful for what you do and your daughter feeling like you do not understand her.

Instead, look for her feelings behind her words. She is striking out because she is disappointed and angry. Looking at her feelings behind her words allows you to respond lovingly and effectively. Your response can then be, “You sound very disappointed. You must have really wanted to spend the night at Lisa’s house.” That will not be the end of the conversation, and it can be the end of the power struggle.

The same holds true for “always.” Imagine that your child says, “You always tell me what to do. You are not the boss of me!” If you look at the feelings behind the words, you will see a classic power struggle in which your child is proving that you are not the boss of him. He may be feeling powerless or over-powered. Your response can then be, “You are right! I am not the boss of you. You are the boss of you.” Again, that will not be the end of the conversation, and it can be the end of the power struggle.