Mother’s Day

Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers out there!  Nobody loves us like our mothers, right?  The quote “A face only a mother could love” is a testament to the staying power of motherly love.  A mother’s love and nurturing are often taken for granted.  Remembering the significance of mothers in our society is a big reason that mother’s day was first established by Anna Marie Jarvis. She was a West Virginian by the way. Social research has studied the influence of mothers on child development.  Results show that if it weren’t for mothers, there would be no children!  All
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April 29, 2011 | by
Categories: Family and Holidays.
Tags: Children, Holidays, influences, and mothers.

The Gift of Acceptance

I see plenty of adults who are punishing themselves because they aren’t someone else.  Most of them started as children who felt punished because they weren’t someone else. This someone else they never were is not even a real person, it’s an ideal.  This ideal was communicated to them by their parents and it is an anachronism, a relic, based on expectations, dreams, and hopes that the parent had for their child.  Parental expectations and visions of the ideal child are formed before the baby is even born.  Every parent develops these hopes and dreams to some extent.  Mostly these
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July 2, 2008 | by
Categories: Parenting.
Tags: acceptance, Children, expectations, happiness, Parenting, and success.

Instilling Positive Values in Your Children

Every parent has a picture in their mind of how they want their child to turn out.  Most parents want their child to be honest, responsible, polite, loving, hard working, and happy.  Other values and virtues that parents try to establish in their children may include a love of sports, an appreciation for art or music, a love of the outdoors, faith in God, and community service. The list can go on and on.  These various values fit into three broad categories; 1) Attitudes towards others, such as being polite, 2) Character traits, such as honesty, and 3) Lifestyle choices,
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April 26, 2008 | by
Categories: Parenting.
Tags: Children, teaching, and values.

Successful Summer Traveling – The Road Trip

A road trip with school-age children requires planning and flexibility.  It requires realistic expectations.  It also requires good self-care for the parents, or you’ll feel like you need your own vacation after the family vacation.  To illustrate these points, let me tell you a story about my good friend Chadd. When Chadd was about fourteen, his family embarked on a trip to Florida from Indiana.  His mother, stepfather, and three younger siblings were ready to make the trip in their nice roomy conversion van.  The kids woke up early, waiting for the dad to return home from working the night
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June 2, 2007 | by
Categories: Family.
Tags: Children, discipline, expectations, Family, flexibility, teenagers, and travelling.

Traits of Healthy Families – Part 1

The summer season is entering its final stretch now.  Families will be trying to squeeze a few more valuable vacations in before school starts.  Sometimes August feels like “the calm before the storm” because the new school year often hits like a strong wind that scatters the children and blows apart the parents’ schedules.  I want to encourage you to take what time is left this summer to shore up your family relationships and overall functioning.  Now is the best time to change and improve things in your family, before the frenetic pace of school begins.  Rather than worry about
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May 3, 2007 | by
Categories: Family.
Tags: Children, communication, conversation, Family, Holidays, listening, Stress, and tv.

Unstructured Play is Really OK

Whenever I get together with other parents, conversation inevitably comes around to what activities their kids are into these days.  Some parents rattle off half a dozen activities in which their child participates; piano lessons, scouts, soccer, baseball, Odyssey of the Mind, dance, gymnastics, and the list can go on and on.  Add to this all the homework demanded by “No Child Left Behind” and you have a very busy child!  Don’t misunderstand; supplementing our children’s development with structured activities can be very beneficial.  However, too much structure can be harmful to a child.  If you, as the parent, feel
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May 3, 2007 | by
Categories: Parenting.
Tags: activities, Children, intentions, kids, play, structure, and success.

Use Consequences to Improve Your Child’s Behavior

Well-disciplined children become well-disciplined and responsible adults.  A great method for instilling responsibility and discipline in your children is to use natural and logical consequences.  Natural consequences are results of actions that happen as expected.  For example, when you eat too much you feel sick and have an upset stomach, when you stay up too late you are sleepy the next day, etc.  We learn a great deal from simply understanding that actions have certain predictable consequences.  Children learn valuable lessons from experiencing the consequences of their choices.  For instance, my 5 year old son is learning that when he
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December 4, 2006 | by
Categories: Parenting.
Tags: Children, communication, consequences, discipline, logic, parents, and responsibility.