Parenting help

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The Potential Nutrition Cure for “Difficult Children”

When I started learning self-government principles years ago, I was foster parenting some difficult children, most of whom were on medication and had severe anger issues and terrible eating habits.As I started teaching them self-government skills, many of the children no longer needed their medication. Sometimes the anger issues stopped immediately, but in other children the issues re-surfaced later. With these youth I looked at another aspect of self-government: their diet.

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Interrupting Porter – Child Behavior Problems

Child Behavior

I don’t know a parent who wouldn’t say, “My child is so smart!” We all recognize the intelligence our children possess. But, what about when they just can’t stop themselves from blurting out all that intelligence when Mom is on a phone call, or when adults are having a conversation? Interrupting is a sign of a thinker. Smart people interrupt.

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Preparing For School With An Ex-Super Mom & My Homeschool Schedule

(This article contains Nicholeen’s daily home and school schedule for this coming year & a video of how she makes a yearly plan forthe family.)

We have all heard the term “super mom” before. Some people have a positive association with the term. They think, “Wow, that lady is amazing. I want to be a super mom like her.” And, some have a negative association with the term.

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Real Control! -Help For Parents

So many people ask me how to control their out of control children… A man I really admire named Jeffrey Holland said, “…the only real control in life is self control.” I couldn’t agree more. You can control the settings on your computer, and control the television choices that come into your home. You can control all the things on your Family Standard and you can control what your family eats for dinner, but you can’t control another person. No matter how hard you try and how much power you try to look like you have, the only person you can control is yourself. Since that is the case, we should capitalize on that power we have to control ourselves, or govern ourselves. If we

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Teaching Honesty: What About Gray Area?

“Just wondering what you do when a child denies doing something like this even though you know it was them or else they try to deceive you about it even though they know that no punishment will be given out for their mistake or wrongdoing if they are honest about it. How do you confront them and have them face up to their failures and take responsibility for their actions? My ds10 will get defensive whenever he does something wrong or makes a mistake he then will usually compound this by trying to lie or deceive his way out of it to save face. We end up punishing him for the lying and deceit when really it should have be a non issue if he had just been honest.””Any suggestions?”

There are three steps to handling this situation.

Step one; Make sure you are not accusing, but that you look and feel safe to talk to. 

Step two: Pre-teach the situation before you say anything………….”Right now _________ just happened. I am going to ask you about your actions. If you choose to be honest about your actions you will not earn any negative consequences. (or you could have a positive consequence in place for being honest) However, if you are not honest then you will choose to earn

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Family TV Watching: Parenting Tip

watching-television1“I came across your ideas on the LDSEHE website, and have been so inspired by all of it.  I’m starting to read your book, hoping to fill in a few holes.  I really like your idea for Friday family movie nights as your one source of TV.  How do you make selections for that night?  Do you have a list of movies you would recommend?”

You are right.  We have a family TV watching policy to help our family not get bound by television.  Our policy is that we don’t watch TV unless it is a movie on Friday family movie night.

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Depressed Teenager: Hope For Happiness

I have attended your classes at home school conferences and bought the mp3;s.  I am currently purchasing your book, however, I am in crisis.  I have a 17 rd old son that has  been homeschooled since fourth grade.  We originally took him out due to severe depression.  This is something he struggles with.  He has always done well in school.  He went to the public high school for his freshman year.  He was top of the class academically but he hated every minute of it and we allowed him to come back to home school for the past two years.  

About six months ago I could see that he was clinically depressed and we found a counselor to help us through that.  It turns out he was introduced to pornography at school and became addicted and the guilt has caused him to lose about a year of his life.  We are dealing with this issue and he is doing very well and continues to receive counseling with us.  

The crisis is that he cant make a decision about anything in his life and he seems to have no self control.  He wants us to tell him every little thing to do and takes no responsibility.  He takes 8 hours to do simple science due to the fact that if I walk out of his earshot he will immediately waste time doing anything else.  It is so frustrating that we have to literally babysit him and that he needs us to.  I am at my wits end with him and feel like throwing in the towel and sending him to boarding school.  Of course, my rational mind knows that I must clean up this mess with him and no one else.  
Can you please give me some direction on how to get this kid to take back his life and not put us in  the position of jailers.

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Family Meetings :Parenting Tips

Sometimes I get some stories sent to me which simply must be shared.  I would love to share one with you today.  This is a great family meeting success story which had me sweating for a few seconds:

We even had an emergency family council the
other day.  The kids didn’t really believe me that I was waiting for them to
come up with a solution.  I told them that I was pretty sure that the
situation wasn’t going to change because I was the one paying the price.  So
after I realized my mistake, I called the council to change that.  Finally
one of the kids said, “Well, ten lashes then.”  I asked for other
suggestions and there weren’t any

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“Mom is on the phone” ~Discipline Problem

 

“I do struggle and maybe you could give me some advice.  I spend quite a bit of time with my kids in the morning going over little activities like school workbooks and story time and exercising together.  Yet the minute I get on the phone or sit down to nurse the baby, the three boys are arguing or fighting or taking toys from each other or something of the sort.  I have tried to get them to color or do a certain activity together, but that only lasts so long.  It’s hard to discipline when you are nursing the baby.
 
        I know I have a bit of post-pardom and always feel like I am always nursing the baby or disciplining my children.  I have felt discouraged with my 3 boys behavior and realize some of their actions comes from mom spending so much time with the new little one.  Do you have any tips or suggestions for me on how to best help teach my boys and solve the problems.”

 

 

J You hit a common discipline problem right on the head.  I would like to meet a mother who can have a 30 minute phone conversation and not have things fall apart a little bit.  My one hopeful thought to you is that as they grow, they learn to live without you for 30 minutes, or more.  😉

Nursing a baby is also a hard one.  I have been there too. 

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The Dreaded Attitude Problem

As I go around the country teaching parenting seminars and trying to help parents make healthy changes in their family relationships, I notice there are two things which get asked the most.

1.  What do you do for attitude problems?

2.  How do you stop tantrums? 

      I an not going to expound on tantrums today, but I will say that attitude problems are just tantrums at a different level.  The difference between the two are that tantrums usually happen when a person is small and they often include uncontrolled body movements and crying, and attitude problems are usually mostly verbal with abrasive body language.  Attitude problems are usually more controlled than tantrums.  Both tantrums and attitude problems are signs of frustration, anxiety and lack of healthy communication skills.

     I am pretty confident talking about attitude problems, because I was the attitude problem queen of my house when I was in my teen years.  I think my poor parents earned all their gray hairs during my attitude problem years.  Luckily, I had a very insightful young women’s leader who saw my problem and wasn’t afraid to tell me how to change.  

Great Advice

     One day I was at her home telling her daughter that my parents wouldn’t let me go to a youth party because they

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