Support Call 8-10-18
This Call Covers:
- Children peeing on their floor
- Having love for your children while correcting them.
- fixing irritable behavior
- Helping adult children accept role
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Family Culture
They’re Caught in the Moral Middle
Today’s children are caught in the middle of multiple moral battle zones. You could even say that children’s moral battles are divorcing them from their parents. One of the most common characteristics of a child with divorced parents is that the child feels pulled between the parents’ different values and lifestyles. It’s common for husbands
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What Children Think of Negative Consequences
I recently asked a group of 10-year-old children what kinds of negative consequences their families have. “At our house, we sweep the floor and clean,” said one boy. “Mom gets mad and goes into a bad mood,” said another boy. “Mom used to send us to time out, but we don’t do that anymore,” said
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Support Call 7-13-18
This Call Covers:
- Correcting not dropping the subject
- Bedtime emotional manipulation
- Calming down for the rule of three
- Disagreeing appropriately
- Staying calm during the rule of three
- Calming a child down during a correction
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Support Call 6-29-18
This Call Covers:
- Stoping stealing at home
- Stopping defiant behavior in teenagers
- Getting a non-motivated husband on board
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Look Up!
One morning I woke up with this list of things to do that day on my mind.Ok, I didn’t plan on one of my children throwing up, but the rest was planned.Before I even got my swimsuit on to leave for the pool, I felt this tight feeling in my chest and my head started to ache.I tried taking some deep breaths to calm myself down, but itdidn’t seem to work. I kept going and thought my workout might relax me.
What Will You Sacrifice?
Sacrifice is vital for happiness. Most people think the word “sacrifice” is bad and sounds like a hardship, not a joyful journey. Happiness sounds much better! But without giving up some of our indulgences, excuses and time wasters, it’s difficult to accomplish the things that bring the most happiness, like fulfilling our roles as parents
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Properly Prioritizing Our Time… Because It’s All We Have!
One night, many years ago, I was faced with a decision. Should I write my daily blog, or should I sit in my daughter’s room telling exciting stories to my children? We had friends in town staying with us, and it was a tradition in our home that when friends come to stay, I gather them together and tell them one of my famous choose-your-own-ending type stories. The children were all very excited for storytime. I couldn’t let them down by choosing to write my blog post instead of spending time with the children. Then the thought hit me, “Wait a minute! I’m trying to decide between writing a blog vs. spending time with the children?? How could I even consider letting them down! Why would I ever choose to lose this time with my children just because I didn’t take the time earlier in the day to write my blog?”
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Treasure the Little Ones
As I rounded the corner of a shopping isle at a local grocery store, I heard crying. Through tears a young girl, about 8 years old, said, “Tell me what it is Mom. Tell me what this is.” The moment I turned into this isle, the mother was in the middle of yelling, “Shut up
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What a Mother Wants Most!
It’s often said that “a mother’s work is never done.” There are multiple ways to see this sentiment. Either Mother never does her work, or Mother always has a task that needs doing, or perhaps that Mother is a mother no matter the age of her children. The first interpretation gives a negative and lazy
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The Battle Hymn of a Just Parent
“I like Dad better than Mom,” I said to my younger brother one sunny afternoon while sitting on the back of our rusty old Suburban. The moment I said that I knew that just a few weeks prior I was telling him that I liked Mom better than Dad. I knew I had changed my
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How Many Times Do We Have to Talk About the Phone?
No matter the amount of technology that’s developed to filter devices in order to keep children from viewing objectionable material, the mental, physical and spiritual risks of digital devices facing children have never been greater. Note: In this article I’m using the word “phone” liberally to mean all digital devices that are in regular use
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Support Call 3-13-18
This Call Covers:
- Helping younger children understand the TSG skills
- Dealing with children after daycare
- Helping a child to reconnect with the family
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Support Call 3-21-18
This Call Covers:
- dealing with cousins with different values
- helping a child who is prone to lots of touching
- giving reasons for corrections
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Trade Time for Anger: Find Calmness and Patience
“You never can tell with bees,” said A.A. Milne’s cherished character Winne-the-Pooh. This was Pooh Bear’s naive way of saying he didn’t understand why bees did the things they did. He made his best guesses, but he always seemed to guess wrong and find himself in a prickled gorse bush — instead of feasting on
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Support Call 2-16-18
This Call Covers:
- Helping someone parent children with autism/aspergers
- Determining if a child should play at another friend’s house
- Being consistent in the TSG implementation
- Do you have to know everything before you implement?
- Keeping a good tone all the time
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6 Tips for Making the Most of Your Car Time Together
Despite the fact that my parents worked very hard to provide for their growing family, some experiences were memorable in an uncomfortable way. I’ll never forget driving through Death Valley during the summer. It was 105 degrees in the middle of the night. We did our best to keep us all from roasting to death
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Support Call 1-26-18
This Call Covers:
- What to do when a friend’s family completely disrespects you in your own home.
- Helping out a stubborn child
- Dealing with laundry problems
- A computer addiction in a child
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Stopping Conflicts Before They Start
A friend of mine asked me what she could do for her teenage exchange student. This student was in the middle of a multiple, day-long teenage tantrum. The mother had told her exchange student that she couldn’t attend a sleepover because the family doesn’t do sleepovers. The teenage exchange student, in turn, became very emotional
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Grandparent Power for a Better Society
Over the years I’ve had a love/hate relationship with Disney. To be completely honest, recently I’ve been leaning more toward the hate side. That was until I saw the Disney movie “Cars 3.” On the surface, this movie looks like a typical Disney movie where the hero has to overcome a large obstacle to be
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