What Does It Sound Like? Read More »
Those voices all around me;
“You’re wasting time,” they say.
The yard,dishes,big project
If you are going to effectively learn how to govern yourself, you have to be assertive. Teaching Self Government is essentially teaching how to act assertively as oppose to agressively or passively. Are you assertive? Take this test. You are in line at a grocery store and someone steps in front of you in line. Do you think bad thoughts about the person but choose not to say anything because it would feel uncomfortable? Do you say, “Excuse me sir, but I am in line. The back of the line is over there. Could you move to the back of th
Are You Assertive? Read More »
Even after we teach our children how to follow an instruction or how to accept a NO answer, our children will sometimes forget that they can choose to say, “OK”. The other day I told my son that he needed to clean his room. I could tell that he didn’t want to do the task. His face started to pout. The second I saw this, I said, “Porter, say OK.” He looked right at me and said, “OK!” Then I praised him. It is alright to tell them exactly what to say. This helps them problem solve the very situation they are in. The child then gets the opportunity to see how easy it is to make the rig
Tell Them What to Say Read More »
I received a question from a mother who is struggling with her husband not being motivated or involved in family life. This is OUR response.
Dear Motivated Mother:
Fixing Things With Father Read More »
I want to share “The Haroldsen Family Song” that I wrote the night after the seminar. Our family talked about creating a mission statement, but since that is going to take some time, I wanted something ‘right now!’ to pull us into the right frame of mind. I penned these words to be sung to the tune of “America the Beautiful.” We sing it together often and it has even stopped a couple of sibling fights.
In the year 1998, my husband decided to make a career change which involved lower pay and additional schooling. We had already decided that I needed to stay home to raise our two children, so we didn’t exactly know how we were going to meet the needs of our growing family. I appealed to a higher power for direction and, by providence, was led to the Utah Youth Village in Salt Lake City, Utah.I had never thought of doing foster care before, but knew that at this time I wa
How Did I Learn Self-Government? Read More »