3 Things Parents Should Never Do: Part 3

Three Things Parents Should Never Do When Communicating with Teenagers

Part 3 Never Blame

There are three things a parent should avoid when communicating with their precious minds full of mush (teenagers).

1. Never seek agreement
2. Never justify your actions or words
3. Never blame

Blaming can often been seen as a hierarchal struggle for survival in a family, from the oldest sibling down to the youngest child. In our family the dog is in play and some years ago, blaming escalated to such a level that Cheri and I discovered a resident ghost named Ralph causing all sorts of mischief in our home.

Three Things Parents Should Never Do – Part 2

Three Things Parents Should Never Do When Communicating with Teenagers

Part 2: Never Justify your Actions or Words

There are three things a parent should avoid when communicating with their precious minds full of mush (teenagers).

1. Never seek agreement
2. 2. Never justify your actions or words
3. Never blame the teenager for something you don’t approve

One definition for justify is to fill a space evenly or form a straight edge. To align with a true line.

Are Your Kids Getting Bad Grades in School? It Could Be Stress

Are Your Kids Getting Bad Grades? It Could Be Stress

Have you ever wondered why your children struggle in school? Or better yet, how is it they do well for a season and then fall apart? Studies have shown that stress is a huge factor in school grades.

Consider the three ingredients driving stress and how they are found in your home.

1. Emotional intensity
2. A strong dislike or aversion
3. Lack of control

When was the last time you and your spouse had an argument? Did the children witness your argument?

Searching for Agreement in School and in the Home

Searching for Agreement in the Classroom and in the Home

During my High School years, whenever we had a substitute it was another way of turning the dogs loose. We tore the teacher to pieces. That is unless the substitute carried boundaries into the classroom. Pity the poor teacher that started class trying to be nice and friendly. That’s like dangling a bleeding lamb over a starving den of lions.

Parents of toddlers find themselves torn between wanting to surrender to the cuteness of their offspring and knowing that the word “brat” is another name for a child raised with no discipline. Not only do brats create stress in others – they themselves are unhappy.

Would You Two Stop Arguing?

Who’s the Adult: the Parents or the Child?

Sunday afternoon while Cheri was cooking dinner, I joined her in the kitchen for a discussion. We had some difficult decisions to make and needed to work through some misunderstandings we had at the office a few days earlier.

The discussion was quite involved and both of us were searching for a solution. I was pacing back and forth setting the table, filling the glasses with water and ice, just trying to keep moving as the intensity level of our discussion steadily rose.

I Hate You Dad

“I Hate You Dad!”

Sometimes we, as a society, use judging terms meant to offend, displace or remove responsibility. It usually occurs out of guilt or shame for doing something we know we shouldn’t.

Have you ever heard a child complain to his/her mother and by saying: “Hey mom, stop freakin’ out” when they get caught doing something outside the appropriate behavioral boundaries of the home?

Here is a suggestion on how to handle such offspring.

When children use terms that judge: “Mom stop freakin’ out!” First, have them clarify what the word freakin‘ means.

3 Things Parents Should Never Do When Communicating with Teenagers

Three Things Parents Should Never Do When Communicating with Teenagers

Part 1: Never Seek Agreement

There are three things a parent should avoid when communicating with their precious minds full of mush (teenagers).

1. Never seek agreement
2. Never justify your actions or words
3. Never blame the teenager for something you don’t approve

When communicating, the #1 rule is that you are 100 percent responsible for gaining understanding, not for being understood. There is a difference. It is not incumbent upon your child to decipher your words and meaning.

The Spirit of Christmas

The Spirit of Christmas

Christmas has a unique spirit. The air tastes different. The songs are different and people treat each other differently. What makes this season so magical? The spirit of Christmas has the capacity to change men.

Charles Dickens in his A Christmas Carol said of Scrooge:

“Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them laugh, and little heeded them; for he was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at which some people did not have to have their fill of laughter in the outset; and knowing that such as these would be blind any way, he thought it quite as well that they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins, as have the malady in less attractive forms. His own heart laughed: and that was quite enough for him.”

Are You Listening?

Are you listening?

Our sense of hearing is a remarkable system. There is so much noise going on around each of us that it is impossible to listen to everything. We hear it all, but listening is different.

Listening means you are present for that moment in time. Energy in the form of thinking exists which is an activity practiced less and less. Thinking is a requisite to problem solving.

Stuck

Your family has a big problem! Your kids are misbehaving and your marriage is strained with the recession, too much debt, and the breakdown of communication (an exchange of understanding) with the kids.

As a result of the stress, the two of you don’t talk much any more. Sure, you might yell a little, throw a few blame jabs, coupled with some justification jargon, but as for communicating, that happened in the good ol’ days.