Friday, December 21, 2012

Making New Years Resolutions with Kids

For many of us, the New Year means it's time to take stock of our lives and fix what we don't like.  We not only benefit from New Year's resolutions; our children can also learn a lot about self-discipline and the value of making goals. Here are some tips on how to help your kids benefit from making resolutions.

Make It a Family Activity

The best way to teach your children the importance of New Year's resolutions is by making it part of the family tradition. Sit down each December and reflect on the past year, discussing your accomplishments and goals, as individuals and as a family. In your resolution conversation you can each talk about what worked this year and what didn't.
Resolutions for the entire family might include taking a monthly hike, playing board games twice a month or committing to more volunteering activities. Try to limit the number so they are more doable and more meaningful. "A list of 100 things is impossible," Siegel says. “It should be based on things that are doable without economic hardship." You can make a master list to hang in a public spot, like a bulletin board in the kitchen or making a resolution box, in which each family member can drop in his or her resolutions, then pull them out at a later date to review them.

Different Resolutions for Different Ages

What your child needs to work on depends on your child. If you are concerned about his diet, then encourage healthier eating habits for him as well as the whole family. If your daughter's room is a mess, try to help her commit 10 minutes a day to cleaning it. As your child ages, he can be more active in coming up with goals, which will mean more to him when he achieves them.
For preschool-aged children, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends resolutions that focus on cleaning up toys, brushing teeth and washing hands and being kind to pets. However, parents who consider these behaviors part of their regular expectations may want to provide resolutions that focus on higher goals.
Clarke-Pearson suggests preschoolers be encouraged to work on listening and helping skills. A resolution could be "I will be a better listener when Mommy or Daddy asks me to do something" or "I will help out more when Mommy or Daddy asks me." If you keep it simple, your child is more likely to understand the concept as well as succeed.
As a child reaches age five and up to age 12, he or she is more able to comprehend a resolution and participate more in the process of picking one. The AAP suggests this age group commit to drinking more milk and water on a daily basis, wearing a seat belt and being friendly to all children. What your child needs to work on is very personal, so work with your child to come up with areas for improvement. Is she having trouble with a certain subject at school that needs more attention? Is he oversleeping and nearly missing the bus most mornings?
When your child gets into adolescence, the AAP recommendations focus more on the child taking more responsibility for his actions, including taking care of his body, dealing with stress in a healthy way, talking through conflict, resisting drugs and alcohol and helping others through community service.

Serve as a Role Model

No matter what age your child is, he or she is more likely to understand the value of goal setting if you take the lead. Just as with everything else you do, your child is watching. "Parents should be reflective about how they wish to be in the coming year," Siegel says. "It's a good opportunity to promote good mental and physical health."
Think of how you can include your child in your resolution. "I'm going to drink more water this year, because water is good for me. Do you want to join me?" If you are finding yourself checking your e-mail when you should be spending time as a family, consider incorporating that into a goal. "I'm going to turn off my phone when I get home. Can you remind me and also remember to keep your computer in your room until after dinnertime?"

Rewards Are Long Lasting

We all know the feeling of meeting a goal, whether it be losing five pounds, quitting smoking or putting in extra hours to earn a promotion. Children also relish that thrill of accomplishment, especially when their parents are acknowledging it. As you go over the family list of resolutions each month or quarter, take time to acknowledge the successes, along with reinforcing the resolutions that need more attention. "Children will benefit by having the parent praise them, which will improve their self-esteem," Siegel says. "This will help them with self-regulatory behaviors that they can integrate into being a healthy adult."
When you sit down to review resolutions, this is not time for punishment, however. It's important to be flexible and understanding, especially if the child is making the effort. "You don't penalize if you don't fulfill a resolution," Clarke-Pearson says. "The resolution is not written in stone. It's a guide."
However your family arrives at resolutions, the best part is that you're doing it together and learning how to manage your role not only in the family but also in the larger world!

Sunday, December 16, 2012

Praise vs. Encouragement

 Rudolf Dreikurs taught, “A child needs encouragement like a plant needs water.” In other words, encouragement is essential. Children may not die without encouragement, but they certainly wither.
Since encouragement is so essential, it would be good for parents to know what encouragement means and how to do it.

Dweck found that praise can hamper risk taking. Children who were praised for being smart when they accomplished a task chose easier tasks in the future. They didn’t want to risk making mistakes. On the other hand, children who were “encouraged” for their efforts were willing to choose more challenging tasks when given a choice.  As Dreikurs said, “Encourage the deed [or effort], not the doer.” In other words, instead of, “You got an A, I’m so proud of you,” try, “Congratulations! You worked hard. You deserve it.” A subtle difference, but it will change the perception of your child.

 Encouragement is helping your children develop courage—courage to grow and develop into the people they want to be—to feel capable, to be resilient, to enjoy life, to be happy, contributing members of society, and, as Dreikurs said, “To have the courage to be imperfect;” to feel free to make mistakes and to learn from them.

The successful use of encouragement requires adult attitudes of respect, interest in the child’s point of view, and a desire to provide opportunities for children to develop life skills that will lead to self-confident independence from the negative opinions of others.

Sunday, December 9, 2012

Great Homemade Gifts Kids Can Make



Although it is hard not to get caught up in all the glitz and glamor that is the holiday season, it is always nice to remember that the best gifts are those from the heart.  Creating gifts with your children not only reduces the need to shop for the holidays, but provides an opportunity to spend positive time together and teach your child the satisfaction of creating a personal gift.

1. Stuck on You
It's hard to believe that I Love to Create's adorable photo magnets are simply made from just recycled bottle lids. We love this idea for a holiday gift and truly believe that one can never have enough magnets; especially personalized ones! See below for directions.

2. Bees Wax Beauty
Fun in My Backyard (FIMBY) gives an excellent pictorial on how she made these beautiful beeswax candles with her children two years ago for their advent celebration.
FIMBY lists many reasons why making beeswax candles is a really neat kid-friendly activity, including the fact that it's super simple (no 'crafting' experience necessary!), they smell wonderful (and help clean the air!) and of course, because they're absolutely gorgeous. FIMBY also suggests keeping little hands away from the boiling water and making sure to put down plenty of newspaper, as this project can potentially get a bit messy. But the best projects are always those that are a little messy... Right?

3. Early Bloomers
Maya*Made shares a great and simple holiday gift suggestion for planting paper white bulbs and giving them as presents to family and friends.
Keep in mind that these bulbs take about 4-6 weeks before they bloom into beautiful flowers, so you may want to speed up your process at the beginning of the month. But, boy, do these flowers ever turn out to be gorgeous! Check out the rest of Maya's tutorial for tips on how she created this lovely gift, including photos of how the flowers will look once they've bloomed!

4. Patchwork Pretty
Jazz up a plain notebook with some cute patches of patterned paper and voila -- you've got a personalized journal that is perfect for a thoughtful gift for friends and family.
iHannah's Blog gives a great tutorial on this quick and easy kid-friendly project. And we have a feeling that the writer or journal-keeper in your life will love getting one of the beautiful patchwork notebooks as a Christmas gift! That is, if you can part with them yourself!

5. Christmas Cookie Cheer
Some of our all-time favorite homemade gifts that we've received in past years have been recipes in jars. We've gotten lentil soup mixes, breadmaking ingredients, and even a fruit cake once -- from a toddler! (Best present ever.)
Needless to say, we love the Food Network's idea for making a super-chunky Christmas cookie recipe in a jar... Just look at the ingredients! Simply find a cute jar, have your child help you measure and add ingredients, and pin a cute card with the recipe onto the jar with a festive ribbon or string. So absolutely

Sunday, December 2, 2012

Parenting the Perfectionist Child

We often find that parents in classes are not wanting to be the "perfect parent," rather struggling to raise their perfectionist children!  The folks at Focus on the Family recently released a great article that address the challenges, and provides some strategies, for dealing with those often tricky kiddos.

Many years ago, I watched Little Shop of Horrors, a humorous musical about a nerdy florist named Seymour who raises a house plant named Audrey that feeds on human blood. When Seymour accidentally pricks his finger, he discovers that Audrey needs blood to survive. What Seymour doesn't know is that the more blood Audrey receives, the larger and more demanding she would become.
As the musical progresses, Audrey grows into a deep-voiced, obnoxious, palm-sized plant which screams, "Feeeeed me!" A few drops of blood from Seymour's fingers couldn't sustain Audrey any longer, so she eats him.
Having a perfectionist child can be a lot like dealing with Audrey. Without realizing it, parents can encourage idealistic tendencies in their children by "feeding" their perfectionism. The result can be a child that grows out of control, and, like Audrey, is very demanding.
Here are five ways to tame the perfectionism in your child and recover your sanity.

Don't feed perfectionism

Perfectionism grows when it's encouraged. If your perfectionist daughter will not eat dinner because it's not arranged the "right" way on her plate, let her know that she'll either eat it as it's served or she won't eat at all. To a permissive parent, this may sound mean. But by not bending to your child's demands, you keep from being controlled by her. And you won't be so wiped out at the end of the day from being pushed around by a perfectionist kid.
If your child throws a temper tantrum because her shoes are the wrong color and don't match her dress, don't feed her perfectionism by cajoling her or reasoning with her. Instead, step over her as she is wailing, and go on with what you were doing. She'll learn that to function in life, she has to bend — a skill that all successful and confident people need.

Recognize a firstborn's tendency to be a perfectionist

Dr. Kevin Leman, author of a number of excellent parenting books including Have a New Kid by Friday, says that firstborn children are often perfectionists because parents tend to treat their firstborns differently from their latter-born children. You may have heard the joke that a mother sterilizes every pacifier for her first born. But by the time the same mother is on child number three, if the pacifier falls into the dirt, mom brushes it off and sticks it back in her child's mouth. Naturally, because parents are more structured with their firstborns, those children generally desire more structure.
In a conversation with MSNBC, Dr. Leman said, ". . . children are like wet cement. It's true that they are much more moldable in the first six or seven years of life. It's one of the few things you'll get psychologists and psychiatrists to agree on. You are not going to change the perfectionistic nature of a driven firstborn. But you know, you might round off the edges."1
The good news is that many CEOs and presidents of companies are firstborns. It's no wonder. If they were in charge at home over younger siblings, it's a no-brainer for them to be in charge at work.

Take a personal inventory

If you are a firstborn, you'll need to do the best you can to "round off your own perfectionistic edges" if you want to help your kids become more flexible. Amy, a firstborn mother of two small children says that she often wondered why her firstborn child was so picky about the smallest things. Then she learned about Dr. Leman's analysis of firstborns and realized that her child was demonstrating what she herself had modeled. Not surprisingly, a perfectionist child and a perfectionist parent will butt heads because when each doesn't have their own agenda met, there will be fireworks.
If you suspect that you struggle with perfectionism, ask yourself if less than perfect is OK in some instances. Is it OK for you not to feel in control if your child doesn't pick up every toy before she goes to bed at night? Is it all right if she misses her back teeth when she is brushing now and then?
When you can embrace your own imperfection, your child will realize that less than perfect is acceptable. This will help her develop into a secure, confident and flexible adult. If you struggle with extreme perfectionism, remember that there are trained counselors who can help you with your challenges.

Use humor

There is nothing like a little humor to lighten a tense moment. When your perfectionist child feels like life is falling apart, a little joking, teasing or acting silly will send a strong message to your kid: Imperfection is not the end of the world.
Granted, it can be a challenge sometimes to find the light side of something that seems like a disaster, but it can be done. Additionally, when you can laugh at your own mistakes, your child will learn to laugh at his, too.

Tell a story from your own experience

In moments when humor is not appropriate, you can tell a hopeful story from your own experience to encourage your son or daughter. When Robert's son Mark was angry at himself because he missed a free throw that caused his team to lose a basketball game, Robert pulled a story from his past out to share with his son. He talked about the time when he missed a touchdown pass in overtime. He was also able to tell Mark that by the next game his team had forgotten what happened, and he did much better.
Story telling about your own experiences can help you bond with you child, but it can also help your son or daughter see that survival is possible after failure.
"Rounding off" the perfectionist edges in your child will help him become more successful and secure in his mistakes.