 When my oldest child was four years old, she had the run of the household. Everyone knew it but me! A friend invited me to a parenting class called "Becoming a Love and Logic Parent". I soon began enjoying parenting much more--and my new parenting choices gave my kids a better start in life!
That oldest child is now 17 years old. Recently she said to my husband, "I want to know how you and Mom raised me so that I turned out the way I did, instead of like some of the other kids at school. I want to raise my kids that way, too." That is truly the highest compliment I ever received! I give much of the credit to the principles of Love and Logic as we applied them to our home. I took that class three more times before becoming a facilitator. I still love learning from this class as I am facilitating it! Beginning October 6, 2014, from 6:30 to 8:30 pm, I will be leading "Parenting the Love and Logic Way" for six Monday evenings. The multimedia class will be held in the Fellowship Hall of Unity Northwest Church, 259 E. Central Rd, in Des Plaines, IL, near the intersection of Rand and Central Roads. Cost is simply a free-will offering, received each class, plus a $10 fee for the Love and Logic Parent Handbook. This class will teach you how to:
This parenting program is designed to give you practical skills that can be used immediately! I hope you can join me and other parents who are committed to positive, healthy parenting! Click on the image and register today!
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 With Father's Day arriving in less than a week, here's some good advice for dads (and moms): Ask your children, "Am I the dad/mom you need me to be?" Kids' perceptions of how their parents behave make more of an impact than the actual behavior.
Think about how your parents raised you. Even if your mom or dad was kind and loving, if there was a behavior from a parent that you perceived as too much or not enough, wasn't that the thing that bothered you most when you were growing up? How true is this for you? Often in therapy (or in any work we do within ourselves) we deal with the behaviors that went missing or were overbearing from our parents. This especially shows up in our intimate relationships. Checking in with our own history, and making peace with it, helps us be better parents and have the courage to ask the question of our children: "Am I the parent you need me to be? How can I support you better?" Here's a link to the interesting study that explored the impact of dads across cultures: Study Suggests Fathers Should Ask Kids: 'Am I the Dad You Need Me to Be?' Bottom line is that the emotional engagement of dads is important. How securely moms are engaged is important, too--it's just that often this is more natural for moms than dads. Additionally, there is an innate sense of males as authority figures, so when the men in a child's life are healthily interactive and supportive, the child grows up with a more balanced sense of authority, and therefore of him- or herself. Thanks, all you engaged dads, and happy Father's Day in advance! (For a special gift for Dad this year, let him know how important his input is by giving the gift of parenting support! Sign him up here for Love and Logic with Lynn!)  Greetings, Parents!
Well, it is that time of year. Slowly we are creeping into our new routines before and after school. This is a great time to check in with ourselves to see if we are working too hard for our children's success in school. I've already had to bite my tongue, sit on my hands, and walk away to keep myself from helping my children adjust to their new school starting time (7:30 a.m., really?), time management, homework load, organization and extracurricular activities...That pretty much covers it, doesn't it? Here is a great article from Empowering Parents on learning the balance between being a responsible parent and "helping" too much: Learned Helplessness: Are You doing Too Much for Your Child? My favorite highlight of the article is: Stay in your own box: We must learn to distinguish what is our responsibility as a guiding parent, and what is our child's life lesson. How do we do this? 1. Recognize when we are helping too much. Usually, if we are stressed or worried about our child's “something” getting done, we are totally in their box. You know the feeling: tense stomach, clenched teeth, hands all over their backpack and school work. What can you do to get out of his or her box, and back into your own? 2. Expect resistance to our retreat. Whenever we change parenting behavior, we can expect that our children won't like it, especially when we are not "helping" them (read: "doing things for them") as much as we were before. Signs that you are getting resistance from your child: Whining, thrashing about, "I can't do it," "I'm not smart enough," "I'm too tired," maybe even some yelling and stomping. This is when we really have to stick to our parenting guns. 3. Expect resistance to our retreat. No, that isn't a typo. I did repeat #2, except that #2 is about our child's resistance to change. This one is about our own resistance to changing. We don't like to see our children fail. Ever. It is hard to stop ourselves from reminding our children about the importance of sleep, protein for breakfast, their need to manage their time wisely, and on and on. For awhile, we might be biting our nails, walking away, hand over mouth, trying to be calm and detached when asking, "So, you got that assignment done, right...? And it's in your backpack, right...?" Then stopping ourselves from running to the backpack and double checking. 4. Stay in our own box! As we consistently remain in check with our responsibilities versus our children's, they will figure out how to accomplish tasks on their own, and we will figure out how to let them. We can support our kids in managing their time and responsibilities so they can learn those life skills that we had to learn as kids. At the same time, we are lowering our stress level by not adding our child's responsibilities to our own long list of "to-dos." Enjoy the routine of the new school year, and may you have many opportunities to remain free and clear of what is your child’s to do! |
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