Blogs

Raising optimistic kids isn't difficult when you use these parenting skills. Our parenting expert, Janet Coppola, is the founder of Express Yourself. Let's find out her 5 strategies.

1. Display and maintain a positive approach and always tell them you love them.

Janet's positive approach is important. Nobody likes being yelled at, especially kids.

Telling children that you love them, why you love them, and using love notes can be very effective in raising optimistic kids. Smiling a lot helps too.

2. Allow children the opportunity to see that we all make mistakes at times as we are human beings.

I like Janet's advice especially if you have sensitive perfectionist kids.

One of my son's hated making mistakes, like spilling his glass of milk. I told him, "Everybody makes mistakes. Just clean it up." I handed him the paper towels.

He needed more. So I asked him to draw a picture of everyone in our family including cousins, aunts, and uncles. He loved drawing so this was fun for him.

Then in big letters I asked him to write, "All People Are Mistake Makers." We posted the picture with the words on the refrigerator. Then we discussed it. It helped him relax when he made a mistake and to fix it if he could.

Now his children tell me, "It's just a mistake, Grandma, " as they fix their mistakes.

3. Show them that we are all afraid of something and explain to them the importance of tackling their fears.

I like Janet's advice here because my 4-year-old granddaughter fears bugs. To get over this fear we look under big rocks for bugs and save them in a container to observe. The other day she let a couple of ants crawl on her hands and felt fine. Teaching kids to tackle fears is an important step to becoming optimistic by feeling confident.

4. Promote children's thinking skills and encourage independence from an early age.

Asking kids thinking questions is often better than taking over and doing something for them. "How do you think this works?" is a great question to ask. Then congratulate them for trying to figure it out. This promotes independence too as they become "I can" children.

5. Be honest with children even when they ask difficult and sensitive questions.

Janet is right. But we have to use common sense with this one. Telling kids more than they need to know about issues like sex could worry, confuse, or entice them to act on what we say.

On other issues when we fib and they find out, they loose some of their trust in us. Most of the time it's easy to be completely truthful. But when we're not sure of what to say, it's perfectly OK to say, "I need some time to think about it."

Raising optimistic kids isn't difficult when you think about it. The trick is to think before we speak and keep it positive.

Let's give Janet a big "THANK YOU" for her fine ideas. To connect with Janet go to her Express Yourself website at http://www.xpress-yourself.co.uk/ where she promotes children to express themselves.

Join Jean's Blog at http://www.ParentingSkillsBlog.com You will find many Linkedin parenting professionals featured. Maybe you'd like to be featured too.

If you ask me, it's hard to imagine that certain people could actually get any more messed up in their thinking than they already are- but it happens, everyday. Like France's recent announcement that they'll be banning ketchup in their schools in order to "preserve their heritage." Okay, but as a student of history, I don't think that's a nice message to send to all the tomato paste producing countries that actually saved your a$$ during WWII, allowing you to preserve a culture that isn't, well, German. And what about the American school banning chocolate milk, claiming it's the evil cousin of Soda Pop? Was that an actually study, or did someone come up with that while drinking a Yoo Hoo? And let's not forget the Scottish for banning Father's Day cards in their schools, leaving an entire township of well deserving dads wondering why they only got the tie this year because the school board didn't want to make a handful of kids without fathers feel bad.


Who are these people, and when did we give them the right to be our moral compass? Did we not learn anything from "Footloose?"

Look, when I say I believe it takes a village to raise a child, I don't mean Shirley Jackson's village. But, if you ask me, I believe he who casts the first stone to start banning anything and everything from hugs, to dancing, to the dictionary (I kid you not) in our schools should actually get to be next in line to be stoned himself.

What, we told people they couldn't burn books anymore so jump rope became the next logical thing on their hit list? When does it stop? It's one thing to make our kids walk through a metal detector to search for guns, but now our kids are being strip searched at the door for Pogs?- and they're not even popular anymore. But what really gets me- the thing that makes me so angry that I want to take a yard stick and shove it so far up some one's arse to remove whatever obstruction (or pickle) is up there- is when people take the fun out of childhood for our kids. So when I hear Halloween costumes are being banned in our schools because it's viewed by some as a "religious holiday" (source article: The Huffington Post) I want to find Mr. Weatherbee and tell him to grow a set of (big ones) at the next P.T.A. meeting.

If Halloween's still a religious holiday then witches still exist and we should be able to bring them to trial for these kinds of sadistic acts against our children. Because if you believe Corporate America is a religion you shouldn't be heading up a child advocacy group- you should be getting your f-ing head examined (it's the Devil, duh). Cancel Halloween? It's a bunch of kids running around the halls enjoying them selves and playing make-believe for Christ's sake. It's not a Pagan ritual (anymore).

Do I have the right to be upset? You're damn right I do! Children used to have choice (or at the very least, their parents did). But somewhere, somehow, we relinquished all our rights to the so-called "experts" and the advocacy groups and the politicians and the loudest, most obnoxious people in the room because we just couldn't be bothered to look up from our computer screens, or smart phones long enough to see that we were giving these people the power to make all our choices for us.


Well here's a thought... tell these people and their asinine ideas to go (expletive deleted) themselves; to leave our kids alone, and go and take a good long look in the mirror to figure out what the hell is so wrong with them that they need to destroy all the fun of being a child (and for that matter- being a parent) for the rest of us. Let them sit at home and think about it while the rest of the world, myself included, take our kids out for the most magical night of the year- then steal half their candy.

Happy Halloween!


For original post (with video) please check out: http://theevilthatyouknow.blogspot.com/2011/10/fodder-of-week-halloween-edition-it.html

It’s one of those Mondays…about an hour into the new work week and already I have had to reschedule a meeting, cancel an order, find a new trucking company, I’ve lost my temper (twice), and spilled my coffee…

As mop off my desk on the verge of tears, I decide that this day is shot and my only option is to go back to bed, sleep off my funk, and hopefully wake up on the “right side” when I start over.

I begin to daydream of burying myself under the covers when I hear my 10 year old son having a meltdown in the other room, so I go to investigate.

Of course, what I find is the typical end of summer scene for moms of siblings all over the planet…my oldest has been teasing his little brother with everything from the TV remote to the kitten, his breakfast and apparently, underwear! I walk in to the chaos with the grace of an angry bull and send each of them to their own corners where I can interrogate them separately in order to ascertain the “truth” of what happened.

Max (the oldest) is of course completely innocent based on the mere fact that he is older and was doing whatever he thought was best for his younger brother…and I should appreciate his desire to “help me” while I was having a bad morning.

Alex (My aspie) is totally out of control, but completely logical as he throws the remote in the direction of Max’s head while telling his brother “it makes me angry when you change the channel and touch my food!”

Hmm, both have valid arguments, where to start?

Violence gets the attention first so I ask Max to leave because he is the catalyst at the moment.

In typical family situations, once the irritant has been removed, the chaos usually resolves itself…but if you’ve ever spent time with an Aspergian, you know that “typical” is not all that common and de-escalation can take a Really. Long. Time… Too often when our children get out of control, our first reaction is to scold them or chastise them for their bad behavior but for kids like Alex, that reprimand is just one more reminder of their difficulty to “be normal” which typically results in an even bigger, angrier reaction.

Too often when our children get out of control, our first reaction is to scold them or chastise them for their bad behavior but for kids like Alex, that reprimand is just one more reminder of their difficulty to “be normal” which typically results in an even bigger, angrier reaction.






Thankfully our family has been through some amazing trainings and have learned some useful techniques along the way; one of them being this really cool process called “errorless compliance”. The process involves praising him for doing what we ask, even if the request is as simple as asking him to put his head on the floor as he is actively lying down, or asking him to punch as hard as he can while he is actively hitting the couch.

By changing his focus and letting him realize success, we help him to understand that when he is calm and he is following directions, he is in control and things more easily flow in the direction he would be happy with.

We use this process when Alex is so escalated that we can’t even get him to see straight, not to mention listen to us, and we need to help him relax so we can communicate.
I know it sounds a bit silly…but when a child like Alex is completely overwhelmed and at the height of frustration, the most calming thing we can do for him is to inundate him with success.

Once Alex and I had worked through his frustration, I came back to my office and noticed my desk was still covered with cold coffee. With a fresh perspective, I finished mopping my desk. I then sat down and in the spirit of “errorless compliance” I made a new to-do list for my day.

1. Break up Kid fight
2. Spend 20 minutes with Alex
3. Clean desk
4. Make to-do list for the day
5. Spend 20 minutes with Max
6. Make coffee
7. Write blog…

WOW! 5 things checked off my list already! This is going to be an amazingly successful day! And I didn’t even have to go back to bed…

So the lesson my kids taught me today is this: The next time you are feeling stressed, frustrated, defeated or just plain sucky…give yourself a well deserved do over. Make a new to-do list, and on the first five tasks, be sure failure is NOT an option.

Here's a link to my personal blog where I share how I'm living outside my comfort zone and changing my self, my life and my appreciation for others. http://siobhanshaw.com