Below is my excerpt of the week:

“Make Rules, then Enforce Them: One quick way to establish trust is to establish rules. Do this witht he imput of your children. It depends on their age, but sit down with them and let them know there are rules in your house, rules in their relationships. With their imput, establish those rules. Make sure the rules are clear and that everyone agrees to them. This is important: Let them know the rules are not a burden. Teach them that the rules are a bonus, a benefit……Your kids don’t need you to be the most fun parent or more fun than Mom. They need a parent who can guide them, a parent they can trust. Be careful what you say and how you live.”

This is just a small part of the chapter: “Say What You Mean and Mean What You Say”… I feel it is probably the most important chapter in the book regarding how your kids turn out!

~Len

Len :: Jan.19.2010 :: Disciplining Children :: No Comments »

I know that this is a very controversial topic for most parents.  I’m just going to go ahead and give you my opinion and you can do with it what you will!

It’s very simple, discipline is all about teaching your children that you are the boss.  You are in charge and they have to respect that.  You are the parent for a reason.  You have more experience and you are responsible for molding your children into successful, functioning adults.  I’m not saying that this always happens even if you do everything right, but I agree with the opinion that parenting has everything to do with how a kid turns out.

If you can teach your childrent to respect you before the age of four, your are well on your way.  Think of all of the things that we learn before that age.  We learn how to walk, eat, play, lie, etc… things we never forget.  If you get your kids on track before they are in school, it’s almost as if you implant on to their brain, that they need to listen to what you have to say.

Every child has different personalities, that’s for sure, so you need to figure our what type of personality that you are dealing with in your own child.  For example, when my oldest daughter was growing up, she was very concerned about my approval.  She hated if I was dissapointed in her.  I never had to spank her, because giving her a certain look what cease whatever behavior she was doing that I didn’t like.

My youngest daughter, Emily, was another story.  She couldn’t care less about my approval as a child.  If she wanted to to something, she didn’t care what anyone else had to say about it, including me.  When she was three years old I specifically remember telling her time and again to not climb up on the kitchen counters.  Everytime I turned my back, she would do it again, and again.  I didn’t know how to get her attention.  I did the time out thing, put her in the corner, would take away toys.  Nothing, Nada!  She kept going.  I finally resorted to spanking.  It worked with her.

Now it wasn’t like I beat her, but I would warn her once and then she would get a spanking if she continued to behave badly.  It corrected her behavior.  The good thing about this is that I don’t think I had to spank her beyond age four.  She had learned to respect me.  Both of my daughters developed very open communication and I think a lot of it is a result of disciplining them as little kids.  So find out what method works for your children and be consistent!

Len :: Jan.20.2009 :: Disciplining Children :: No Comments »

If you have small children, keeping them busy and out of trouble while you do needed things around the house if very difficult!  I know my daughter, Sarah , has two kids who are five and three!  She works from home and needs them to listen and occupy themselves for part of the day.  This is what she does. 

1.  Wear them out!  Play with them in the morning feed them a good lunch and designate “Quiet time” even if they don’t nap.

2.  Make room for a playroom in some area of your house where your children can be monitored, but aren’t directly on top of you.

3.  Be Strong!  If you tell your children that you need to do some grown up things and can’t give them your undividede attention, don’t feel guilty!

4.  Limit your time of working on other things to a couple hours a day. 

Kids are very adaptable and will be just fine as long as you develop a routine!  Stick with it and you will be surprised how well they can do!

Len :: Jan.15.2009 :: Caring for your Children, Disciplining Children :: No Comments »

Your kids worship you.  They are unaware of many of the details that life involves.  All they know is that there is this Big Person standing over them who radiates love toward them and they feel good being loved.
Sometimes your love for them assumes the form of stern insistence.  Sometimes your love for them creates balloon jump rides at birthday parties.  Sometimes your love for them points determinedly at the bathroom where their toothbrush lives that should be now moving up and down over their teeth before they go nightie night.  Sometimes your love sees them in a cute outfit and you just have to buy it.
Your love means that you keep your kids at the forefront of your thoughts night and day until they can take over that job for themselves.  One portion of your love is occupied with their becoming adults because you are the main influence on their lives.
I suffered with trepidations when my girls went off to school for the first time because I knew that I wasn’t going to be the only source of information for them any longer.  I knew that they’d bring home to me what they had learned and that I would remain the judge of it’s rightness or wrongness for them.  I’d have preferred they not experience wrongness, but they had to see life as it is, not as how I wanted it to be for them.
My influence on my kids ran it’s fingers through every aspect of their lives.  I was their chief cook and bottle washer.  I was their launderer.  I was their nurse.  I was their teacher.  I was their maintenance man.  I was the parent with the main presence in their lives.  It’s not uncommon in a divorce for one parent to be doing the real parenting - all the little stuff, day in and day out. Buying the groceries, helping with homework, monitoring their computer use, etc. And sometimes the other parent is mostly concerned with the big events. You know, being front-and-center for their birthday party; buying them jewelry from where they went on their latest vacation, and never buying them tennis shoes.
If you’re the Big Event Type, ask yourself if what you’re doing is for you or for your kids. Are you doing the showy things to make yourself look good and ignoring what really matters? If you are, I’ve got a newsflash for you – it doesn’t make you look good. Your fifteen-year-old doesn’t really need diamond earrings. It’s not a competition. There’s really only one question that matters. Are you contributing effectively to the upbringing of your children? If you really feel the need to do the showy things, go ahead, but make sure you also contribute in little ways. The stuff that really matters to your children are the things that no one sees when you’re doing them.
On the other hand, if you’re a divorced parent who is really conscience about parenting, good for you.  Keep it up. Don’t feel sorry for yourself. Being a good parent is truly its own reward. You are doing important work. It’s the most important job you will every have. I have clients that have tens of millions of dollars, but they cannot buy what you have with your children. So remember, you influence them everyday. Make it a point to teach them something positive each day.

Len :: Aug.21.2008 :: Caring for Yourself After Divorce, Caring for your Children, Disciplining Children :: No Comments »

When I was thirteen years old, my moral foundation was tested when my best friend called me all excited and said to come over to his house.  He lived in an old two-story house with a big attic that you could walk in.  He had been in the attic and found an old Playboy magazine with a photograph of a young model, staring into the camera not wearing a top.  We could see her bare breasts.  Moral behavior aside, other than National Geographic photos, it was the first time we had seen bare breasts.  

To us, this photo was a treasure and there might be more treasures down in the walls of the house!  Imagine these two thirteen-year-old boys, up in the attic, reaching down between the 2 x 4’s into the walls of this old house trying to find more pictures of naked woman.  

Everyone knows that is just about what you would expect from thirteen year old boys.  But back in that day, there was no cable TV and we watched shows like The Brady Bunch and Gilligan’s Island.  There was no Internet, nor were there magazines at the grocery store check-out promising you the top ten sex secrets to make your lover go crazy.
Neither my friend nor I turned out to be sex perverts, but we both had parents that gave us rules and they enforced those rules.  There weren’t many outside influences countermanding those rules.  Today, a child can get on the Internet and find pictures and even videos of people doing things we never imagined when my friend and I were thirteen years old.
As I grew older, I look back and realized that whenever I was facing different and challenging conditions, I had been blessed because I had been given a strong moral foundation. It was my parents and your parents’ role to give each of us a strong moral foundation.  Once we had that foundation, we could say no to all the negative influences in the world.  
It’s our role as parents now to give our children strong moral foundation.  If you can establish a strong foundation, your children will become successful adults and they will carry that foundation with them through whatever the future has in store. The scary part about today’s world is that there are more outside influences than ever and they have an influence on your children.  Again, every generation has its challenges. Here are the steps you take to establish your moral authority so that you can create young adults who have the same basic values you do. 

Five Tips for Establishing a Moral Foundation for Your Children.
     

1. You are the most important role model and influence that they have or ever will have.  They will model your behavior for years.  So, in colloquial terms, don’t just talk the talk, walk the walk.  Live the way you want them to live.  That’s the most powerful influence in their lives.  As adults, we’re always looking for cues on how to behave.  Children are especially looking for clues, and you’re the most important one, so live your life the way you want them to live theirs.  Be honest, treat people the way you want to be treated, make your decisions on love – not fear.  Give more than you receive.
     

2. Control their access to the Internet.  If they have their own computer it should not be in their room. It should be out in the open where they’re using it.  If there was an Internet when I was fourteen, and if I had my own computer, I would have spent an awful lot of time on Google looking for sex and naked women.
     

3. Communicate with your children but don’t be their best friend. They have lots of friends; if you’re their best friend, you’re on equal level with the other friends.  You need to establish more authority than just a friend.  Friends come and go.  Friends can be influential.  You need to be the rock that they can always count on, the compass that always points to true north.  Nowadays more than ever, kids need parents to be a parent, not a buddy.  The world is confusing and you need to point the way.
     

4. Establish your home as a safe place.  What I mean by that is you have to impose rules and consequences if those rules are broken, but they have to know they can talk to you about anything and that you always have their best interest at heart.  They have to know they can count on you when they make decisions that may not be popular with their friends.
     

5. Keep your finger on the pulse of their life.  Know who they are hanging out with, know what they’re watching on TV, and know what they’re listening to.  I don’t mean go through their drawers and snoop.  You won’t know everything they do; you can’t.  You’re not going to be standing next to them, but you can get a feel for what kind of friends they’re hanging out with.  Don’t let them retreat into a world of their own where they’re listening to their MP3 player all the time.  There is a lot of poison being sold under the label of music.  What are they watching on TV?  My kids watched MTV and sometimes I made them turn it off.  Other times, they watched things I didn’t care for.  Personally, I don’t think there’s anything worthwhile on MTV but ultimately they weren’t harmed by it because we had a balance.  You can’t protect them from everything, but don’t get so wrapped up in your own life that you aren’t aware of what they’re doing and who their seeing and how they’re interacting with people.

If you’re fortunate enough to have relatives nearby who can help mold moral behavior - grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins - they can also be a positive influence.  If you don’t have relatives, there are friends, neighbors, parents of other children, school teachers, community programs, etc.

It’s that old saying, “It takes a village to raise a child.”  You want to create that virtual village to surround your children as much as possible with positive healthy influences so you can establish a strong moral foundation.

Len :: Aug.21.2008 :: Caring for your Children, Disciplining Children :: No Comments »