Tag: Parenting

By Kathy Slattengren. When you walk into an office, a store or someone's home, you immediately get a sense for that place. It might be warm and welcoming or cold and filled with tension. You automatically use all your senses to develop a feeling for a place.If you are a parent, you are a leader in your family. You have the primarily responsibility for setting the tone in your home. How does your home feel? Is it a warm, welcoming place for everyone in your family? A Home Filled with Tension One mom told me about all the stress in…

By Kathy Slattengren. Desiring happiness for their children is a goal shared by most parents. However, when parents focus too much energy on ensuring their children's happiness, they can unintentionally produce the exact opposite results. How can this possibly happen? What the Research Shows Although it seems that children who have their basic needs met plus enjoy many extras would certainly be happy, this appears to not be the case. The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention surveyed over 14,000 students in grades 9-12 in 2007. They reported "During the 12 months before the survey, 28.5% of students…

By Kathy Slattengren. Do you ever wish your children were more motivated in school, sports or playing an instrument? Many parents try hard to motivate their kids by giving rewards to encourage certain behavior or threatening punishments. Rewards and punishments involve external motivation which children often rebel against leaving parents feeling frustrated. Understanding Internal Motivation Ideas about motivation are changing as new research teases out some of the key elements. According to Daniel Pink’s latest book, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, trying to motivate children using external rewards and punishment is a mistake. The secret for motivating…

Consider the last time your everyone in your family was having fun and not feeling frazzled. What was happening that contributed to things going so well? Below are some of the things that come to mind for my family when things are going well. Everyone is pitching in with household tasks joining the family for meals acting respectful feeling supported and loved remembering to let the rest of the family know where they are and when they'll be home feeling like they have enough time and don't have to rush healthy, getting enough rest and exercise having some time for…

By Kathy Slattengren. How often are your children thinking negative thoughts about themselves? Sometimes you know their thoughts are negative because they blurt out something like "I'll never get this!" As they grow up, your children will be their own harshest critics. It is their own negative self-talk that they will hear most often. Everyone’s mind produces a steady stream of thoughts. When these thoughts turn negative, fear, doubt and frustration quickly sets in. Stopping negative thoughts isn’t easy and it starts with actually noticing those thoughts.What are your kids saying to themselves? What your children say out loud gives…

By Kathy Slattengren. Bossing children around tends to produce resistance instead of cooperation. How does the thought of being managed by someone else make you feel? Irritated? Angry? Rebellious? If you're like most, you react negatively to someone trying to boss or control you. Your children are no different. They also do not like when you try to control their behavior. You can test this out by watching their reaction to commands like “Hurry up!”, “Stop fighting!” or “Quit your whining.” The role of a parent is similar to being a boss, manager or leader. If you shy away from…

A few days ago I spent the morning with my friend Amy, a 45 year-old mom and her 12 year-old daughter, Sara. For more than an hour we talked about Sara's dream to be a recording artist when she's older. Both her mother and I encouraged her and told her that she could do anything she set her mind to. We supported her 100% with great enthusiasm. Interestingly enough, I asked Amy, the mom, about her own dream. Shyly, she told me that she'd love to be a writer and actually has a book or two in her closet that…