Archive for category: Parenting

Valentine’s Day is here. Sometimes we assume that if you’ve celebrated one or twenty Valentine’s days with your honey, the preparation will be the same, and you’ll know exactly what your spouse expects. The reality is, we may find ourselves year to year still wondering if what we’re doing for our spouse is actually fulfilling or satisfying their needs. You may do and get things for your spouse based on what advertisers say you should do, or what you think you would like if you were in the other’s shoes. But do we really know? Have you asked for clarification? Do you tell your spouse what makes you feel fulfilled?

If we are feeling the symptoms of an empty nest AND one or more empty love tanks (we have ten) at Valentine’s, then it may take all of our energy just to summon up the effort to recognize the value our spouse brings to our marriage. Forget a card or flowers, or even the thought of a romantic evening. This may have all stopped long ago. Some of us may merely be throwing money or words at our relationship, and think it is still working, but our hearts hardened a few years back. And now, in addition to the kids leaving home, we are faced with the dilemma of staying in the same car with our spouse or looking elsewhere for a new car to make us feel young or in control.

However, if you think back on all of the Valentins you’ve celebrated with your partner, you may discover it is like looking at a scrapbook of snapshots depicting the state of your marriage as you celebrated this day each year that screams, “Be romantic or else!” Trying to remember where and what you and your spouse did for each of the past Valentine’s may be a fun way of reconnecting, laughing, and returning value to the time you’ve spent together raising yourselves.

If you have been like every other busy family in past years slogging through work and a myriad of after-school activities, sports practice, work related social functions, chores, fitting in workouts, running errands, and paying bills—when your kids get ready to or have just left home to pursue their interests and make their way in the world, the house can feel empty all of a sudden. You wake up looking at your partner, and you don’t know who you are let alone who the other person is anymore. Sometimes this wake-up call even occurs before your kids graduate from high school! Realization dawns that all of the time you spent lavishing unconditional love and support on your kids as you grew them into the young adults they are today—all that time is about to become available again.

This free time can be unsettling, exhilarating, terrifying, or all three, because now you have a chance to re-focus on yourself and your needs. This also means getting re-acquainted with your spouse if in years past you were busy raising your child(ren). An easy way to re-focus on how you and your spouse will continue to grow together on Valentine’s is a romantic candle-lit dinner. Sometimes a special dinner at home—get take out if possible so no one has to cook—with the lights down low is cheaper, but more intimate than driving, making it on time to the reservation, and conversing in a crowded restaurant. Now is the perfect time, over a candlelit dinner, to ramble on about those unfulfilled dreams and wishes, and re-evaluate how you and your partner can make action plans by chunking your dream into bite-sized goals to help make each other’s dreams a reality.

How we decide to cope with this new-found freedom can either make our marriages stronger or break them apart. Using Valentine’s day to your advantage, by rekindling romance and talking about how to make both of your dreams a reality is the initial solution to becoming comfortable with the kids being away from home. The second part is checking-in with ages and stages, to see if you’ve been hitting the milestones. If you have an empty love tank, then chances are you’ll need to figure out what the needs are that were not met in previous stages of development, so you can start filling those love tanks and get back on track. Attending a Mars Venus workshop or reading one of Dr. John Gray’s books (author of Men are From Mars, Women Are From Venus) that explains ages and stages in an easy to understand format with The Ten Time periods are efficient ways to begin work on the long-term solution of living a fulfilled life.

The Mars Venus Coaching Workshop: Children are From Heaven, tells us that children are a gift. But with school letting out for summer in just a matter of weeks, some parents might beg to differ. Do you ever feel overwhelmed by all the time you are responsible for filling with fun, structure, and learning opportunities for your kids? Even though summer is a fun time for the beach, pool, and family vacations, as parents, we also have to make sure our stress levels stay low so we can keep our cool with our kids. In order to raise healthy and cooperative children and teens, sometimes it’s helpful to revisit our parenting skills. The following ideas are adapted from Dr. John Gray’s book, Children Are from Heaven: Positive Parenting Skills for Raising Cooperative, Confident, and Compassionate Children.

If we want our children to be able to survive, thrive, and compete in today’s world, we need to prepare our children by using the most effective and modern approaches to parenting. Positive parenting may or may not be something your parents did when they were raising you. As a parent, you do this by doing the following five skills in the left-hand column entitled “do” daily. The more you can interact with your children using these skills, the more your kids will be thoughtful, respectful, conscientious people.

DO:

1. Ask
2. Listen and nurture
3. Offer rewards
4. Command or assert leadership
5. Give time-outs to maintain control when

DON’T:

1. Order
2. Fix it
3. Punish or shame
4. Demand, yell, become emotional
5. Spank or hit emotions overwhelm

This article focuses on how you can improve communication and minimize resistance by concentrating on the first two skills: asking and nurturing, so you can inspire your kids to cooperate. When summer begins, and the kids are at home, a whole host of chores crop up just due to extra traffic in your home. Accidents, spills, and breaks happen when little feet are under foot (even if they’re your teenage son’s size 10 feet!). Negotiation skills start during the toddler years, and they continue into adulthood.

Asking

For the first skill, asking, phrase your requests in a way that will minimize resistance. When you make requests use “will you” and “would you” rather than “can you” and “could you” (particularly with boys) (and men!) . Why? Well, when you use the phrase “Would you please clean up this mess?” you are making a direct request that requires a thought process of “hmm, will I or won’t I”. However, when you say “Can you clean up this mess?” you are actually, technically asking a question about someone’s competence to do the task.

Nurturing

For the second skill, nurturing, remember different children need to be nurtured in different ways depending on their temperament. Sensitive children need to be listened to and understood. Active children need preparation and structure to do well. Responsive children need distraction and direction to be cooperative. And receptive children need ritual and rhythm to bring out their best selves.

Improve Communication & Minimize Resistance

Children typically resist for one of two reasons. Either:

1. Children don’t feel heard or seen, or
2. They are not getting what they need or want.

Minimizing Resistance

You minimize a child’s resistance by doing two things:

1. Consistently setting boundaries.

   Expect there to be challenges—this is not undermining your authority, they are just learning and testing the parameters you are setting. Life is dynamic, so while rules may change based on the circumstances, your boundaries change in regards to their developmental level.

2. Listening and asking questions to draw out feelings.

If we have trouble controlling our own emotions, just think how much harder it is for your children to even identify what emotions they are feeling. Childhood is a time for exploration, and part of this is helping your children find words and explanations for their feelings so they can learn to use them constructively.

Parents can minimize resistance by validating their child’s emotions of anger, sadness, or fear in a calm, warm way. You can also reaffirm boundaries and redirect attention when you find your child resisting your requests. Teaching delayed gratification also helps children understand that their needs are heard, but you also teach patience and consequences as you help them reason through why now you aren’t able to fulfill their need, but you can if they do such and such first.

Inspiring Cooperation

The easiest way to inspire cooperation is to ask instead of order or demand. Remember you do this by using: would/will you, instead of could/can you. The more direct you are in asking for help, the easier it is for a child to make a yes or no decision. When you eliminate rhetorical questions, and give up explanations and lectures you are able to meet them at their reasoning level according to their age. Getting down and talking to kids at their eye level, also let’s kids know that what they have to say is important too. And, remember don’t use feelings to manipulate, because this is not a behavior you’d like your kids to use on others when not in your presence. The magic word is “let’s.”

If you’re interested in learning more about positive parenting, you can find Mars Venus Coaches in your local area, and inquire when they’re next Children Are From Heaven will be presented so you can ask questions and take part in group exercises. Or, if time’s a constraint, you can do the eWorkshop version, which let’s you learn the material from the comfort of your own home and on your own time! Remember consistency is key.

Lyndsay Katauskas, MEd
Mars Venus Coaching
Corporate Media Relations

One of the best feelings in the world is when a child’s eyes light up in recognition, and they run at you, throwing their little arms around you for a big hug and cuddle. I remember promising myself when I was about ten years old and dealing with my father’s death that I would never lose that innocence, and wonder and joy for life. John Gray’s book Children Are From Heaven reminds us how precious our responsibilities are as adults to grow and raise children to not just be resilient in life, but to thrive. So how do you curb your tongue, focus on the positive, and be in joy to raise the kids in your life? As a mother myself, I cherish this promise I made to myself as a young child.  It impacts everything I do and say around our child to guide and grow his spirit, rather than stamping the light out.

When it comes to raising kids, I like to remember simple, yet effective truths to keep me focused on joyfully raising kids.

Negative response attracts negative behavior

Positive response attracts positive behavior

Children naturally gravitate toward wanting to please and cooperate. In our family, we choose to use positive parenting because we believe that the behaviors we focus on are the behaviors we are teaching our children to reproduce.

If they are doing something that is not appropriate, then we redirect and model the behavior we’d like them to do instead. We choose to motivate our children with rewards. When adults are stressed out, sometimes what comes naturally is yelling or punishing the negative behavior. If we want our children to be empathetic and logical when reacting to undesirable behaviors, then we have to model this so our actions and words are their models.  We do not use food or toys to bribe; we use words of affirmation and physical touch. When I engage with any child I immediately acknowledge and praise what they did right. We reward them by praising them with:

• verbal affirmation,
• a hug,
• a smile, or
• a high-five

The only time we use the word “no” is for dangerous situations. Such as darting into the street, touching a hot stove, or jumping into a pool without an adult in the water, etc. The less you use this word, the more powerful its effect when it’s needed in an emergency. Every adult our son has come in contact with marvels at his politeness, his manners, his ability to look people directly in the eye while talking, his ability to share, and his compassion for others. He’s not even three years old.

What this does is take the focus off of giving children consequences for negative behavior. Instead we provide consequences when they engage in positive behavior. We let them know when they’ve done a job well, when they’ve attempted to do something helpful, and when we’d like to see more of that behavior. Therefore we use positive outcomes to motivate children rather using a negative outcome.

Children are born wanting to please and cooperate with their parents. John Gray’s program taps into returning the power to parents to guide children to learn how to make the right choices. When we give children the choice to choose, and give them options for acceptable behaviors, we do not stamp out their quest for independence. Instead we provide structure for them to make choices based on their developmental levels. This starts as soon as they can crawl. The more choices we give them, the more opportunities we give children to exert their independence and feel successful at navigating their way through life.

The more often we are able to parent using techniques based on love and mutual respect, rather than fear and guilt, the more time we have to play together. We all make mistakes, so remember to be gentle with yourself too. Raising kids joyfully and guiding with compassion are the greatest gifts we can give our children so they grow into happy, well-adjusted adults.

Lyndsay Katauskas, MEd
Mars Venus Coaching
Corporate Media Relations