What Trips You Up as a Parent?
As a parent, there are auto-habits that we develop in response to getting through the day. What starts as a firm voice to get the kids to do their homework leads to yelling and suddenly, oh snap, you’re a “yeller.” Or perhaps you controlled a little too much when your child was a toddler and now, oh crap, you’re a control freak. Or maybe you realized, darn it, I’m acting more like a friend than a parent but I just don’t know how to stop this cycle.
No matter who you are, you probably have one or two habits that you’ve thought to yourself, “gee, I’d really like to stop doing that” but every time the kids do X, Y or Z, I resort right back. It’s a hang up – a trip up- a screw up that you’ve seen play out over and over. If you’re ready to back away from the rope that’s strung between two trees, under the brush, just waiting for your foot to snag it and watch you fall on your face, start here. Learn to avoid those situations by following the next five blog posts!
Today, in order for you to even begin the process, you’ll need to know what trips you up. SO, take a moment think of you when you’re parenting from your best. Write down what makes you feel like you’re on the right track.
It could be anything like:
-
• Calm voice
• Eye contact
• Mutual respect
• Humor
• Affection
• Listening
• Back and forth conversation
• People on task
• No arguing
• Minimal interference
• No resentment etc.
Then, think of you parenting from your worst. Write down the biggest doozies you find yourself resorting to. Here are some ideas to get your mind thinking:
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• Yelling
• Bribing
• Perfectionism
• Sarcasm
• Getting Angry
• Shutting off
• Being inconsistent
• Being too “nice”
• Controlling
Great. Now keep your list nearby. The next blog will be helpful in learning what exact tactics you employ when you start to get tripped up. So, keep thinking and stay tuned!
Posted in Discovery
Five Tips to Make Lunch Packing Easier for your Kiddo
As we said before, packing a lunch is a very useful and “real life” habit that will help your child develop responsibility, time management and confidence. It’s also a nice way to send the message that you trust your child with decisions that affect her life.
Here are 5 ways to help you make this process smooth and simple so that you can walk out of the kitchen and trust they can handle it.
1. EASY REACH: USE LOW STORAGE FOR SUPPLIES
The kitchen is where we keep all the necessities for packing lunches and making meals. Unfortunately, we often keep the clingwrap, napkins, bread and other essentials up high. Open your cabinets and open the low drawers- can your children use these items for making lunches? Or, is it stuff that can be put up high until it’s needed. You can even bring your dishes, bowls and cups to a lower height to make this easier for meals at home. In order to help your child’s independence, put anything and everything your child might need like straws, napkins, lunchbags, and so on. within easy reach.
2. GET YOUR LIDS & BOXES TOGETHER
Nothing says frustration like searching for containers and lids that don’t match. Stock one drawer, bin or cabinet and make sure that they can find matching lids and containers without needing you to “help” by digging through three buckets of plastic for them—it’s a pain. Set them up for success with matching storage containers / jars, etc. This includes drink bottles and screw tops as well!
3. PLAN AHEAD AND STOCK UP
If you have to, spend Sunday nights stocking the kitchen so the mornings are smooth and hands off. Stock one bottom drawer in the fridge with a week’s worth of juiceboxes, or other choices they can grab and pack themselves. Fill the other drawer with fruit or “healthy” options like yogurts, cheese, apple slices, premade “pbj” circle sandwiches, or applesauce, and so on. Stock the pantry or lower cabinet/drawer with a variety of snack, they can be crackers, graham crackers, or chips depending on what you’re committed to. Then tell the kids to choose one snack, one fruit and one dairy and they can choose the rest, or whatever your guildelines are. The most important part is to let THEM CHOOSE. If you’ve stocked it, it’s fair game!
4. MAKE THE SNACKS WIN-WIN
Yes, they will want cookies and junk over healthy stuff but you can set the tone for a healthy lunch by offering “treats” you can live with. This will get them excited to pack their lunches – even if you HATE those fruit rolly things they ask for every time—if they agree to pack and eat other healthy options as well, let them have some sort of “exciting” lunch food they’ve been asking for – just choose something you can live with, vs. something that will eventually make you step in and say no. Kids are willing to balance their own lunches if they can have some say in what goes in there! So, again, stock a space and set a limit (there are five days, five roll ups, and if they eat them all by Tuesday, well, then, they’re out and they’ll have to choose something else). But, if they want one everyday, they’ll have to pace themselves. The point is, your kids are practicing real life skills. You can’t expect a 13 year old to make skillful choices if they haven’t been making them for 10 years. So provide opportunities for the kids to learn.
5. AIM FOR 3 of 5 DAYS TO START
Don’t set out on this change in habit without setting some realistic goals. The first week might go great, but then everyone will fall off. Just know this will happen (it might not, but plan for it). Then, once you’ve gotten an idea of how you’d like to see the mornings go, aim for three days of the five. If you only hit two, well, it’s better than nothing. Keep going until your children trust you’re not even thinking about their lunches anymore! It takes time and it’ll never be perfect. Remember to invite them into the kitchen when you are preparing meals, this will help them feel more comfortable and practice outside of a morning or bedtime routine. Let yourself have a little room to make mistakes and it’ll be much easier to stick with it.
Posted in Parenting Strategies
Why Your Kid Can Pack Her Own Darn Lunch!
There’s something more delicious than a PBJ or bagel with cream cheese in your child’s lunch—something sweeter than a fresh baked cookie or chocolate milk. It’s CONFIDENCE. 100% pure confidence and responsibility…that is, if your daughter packs her own lunch, all by herself without any interference from you.
Maybe your child is already doing this and that’s terrific. But, perhaps she doesn’t – and you’re the one up early every morning, folding and zipping balanced foods into a Spongebob shaped lunchbox. If you are, the good news is you don’t have to do this and you don’t have to feel bad about quitting the job! Here’s the deal: by doing this task everyday for your child, you’re forfeiting a PERFECT opportunity to give your child some choice and real world decision making experience.
It may sound like no big deal, but a kid who packs his lunch is making decisions, testing his judgment (I can’t tell you how many times a kid has over packed or under packed, only to come home and admit they need to adjust the portions). They are practicing time management- everyday, before they leave they have to be sure they have food for the day. If they fall behind or forget, they have to figure something else out (like get the emergency lunch offered at the lunch line). When a child packs her own lunch, she realizes that she’s in charge of her decisions and is more willing to eat what she puts in there.
The biggest benefit to handing off this “chore” is that you’re saying to your kid, sure, I trust you to make a decision and stick to it. I also trust that you can do it.
Again, if packing lunch seems too simple a task to teach this valuable life lesson, I urge you to think about why you are hesitant to even consider the idea. You’ll be late. They’ll make bad choices! You don’t want to deal with the mess, and so forth. All the reasons why you “just take care of it” are the exact reasons, this is an awesome habit that will give your child some real world responsibility.
Yes, this effort will take some time and some planning, but don’t write it off, even if you fail a few days or weeks in. Try again and you’ll see that once you commit to giving it over to your child, your child will commit to taking care of it.
Posted in Parenting Strategies
Got Values? Get Some (And Decision-Making will be Easy this Year!)
“It is not hard to make decisions when you know what your values are.” –Unknown
The new year is a chance for parents to reflect on the successes and failures of the previous year, gather information that will help in making thoughtful and intentional change in the coming year and it can be a time of inspiration and excitement when we envision what we will do differently and the benefit to everyone in the family
Instead of worrying about slipping up and preparing to simply face each parenting dilemma as it comes why not keep your fresh mindset by setting yourself up for success. Here is what I do each January when it’s time for a serious inventory of where I’ve been, where I want to be and what it will take to get there in terms of my life as a mom (although I use this exercise in every aspect of my life).
- Find 30 minutes of quiet
- Bring a journal and pen
- Instead of wasting time judging, criticizing or feeling guilty about your parenting slip-ups, identify the value you were stepping on when you treated your children in a way that left you feeling crappy inside and a bit ashamed of your behavior
- Write down that value and think about how you go about living it in your daily life. Identify the roots of this value how it brings meaning to your life and helps you determine your decisions, actions and attitudes.
- Now write down all the ways you may be inadvertently stomping on them and what the cost is to you, your kids and your family at large. Be really honest here. It can help you live your value with more integrity and thought which will have an impact on your every day living.
Here is an example: My number one value is Radical Faith. When one of my kids calls me with a situation that I think has the potential of ending badly I am at choice as to how I will respond. If I live into my value, then I may just listen, ask question, and be ready when the phone next rings with a story of how badly things turned out. If, on the other hand, I lose site of my value, it’s reasonable that I will lecture, coax, guide, micromanage, bully my kids into taking the “appropriate” action ensuring that the situation ends as I think it should.
Now here is the really crazy thing – when I stomp on my value and interfere, it isn’t long before I feel like a louse of a mom and feel the need to apologize to my kids by picking up the phone, sending them a text or a message through Skype and apologizing for my behavior. I remind them that I believe in them and trust that whatever they decide to do is preferable to anything I might have suggested (or forced on them). I am back to my value through the back door only after causing all of us some unneeded angst.
It takes time and training and a commitment to make living your value a part of daily life – and cleaning up your mess when you stomp on it – but the rewards are numerous.
Take some time this week, before everything is in full swing and it’s suddenly summer break and get a clear picture of what your top 3 or 4 values are, how they influence your life, how you might better live them, and how they might help you create a more peaceful, respectful and rewarding life with your kids.
Posted in Discovery
Three Reasons your Tween is Acting Like a Pain in the A%$
As parents, sometimes we hit a wall. We find ourselves wondering, how did I get here and who is this aggressive child that used to be so sweet and loving? After 20 years in parent education, I can give you three good reasons why your child is no longer willing to cooperate.
1. Your relationship is injured.
Somewhere in your daily dynamics, the child who once respected you or showed you affection, has been exposed to a rip, snag or tear in the fabric of its foundation. There is something far deeper than a power struggle over taking out the trash at play. How to fix and injured relationship is similar to fixing an injured leg – time and patience and relearning how to communicate. You might have to swallow some pride– somewhere along the way, the relationship got stuck– wiggle out delicately or you’ll only injure it further.
2. The Kid is Bored Out of her Gourd
And I don’t mean the kind of bored where he is idle and needs to find something to do. The kid is bored socially because she’s not involved in community, arts or something meaningful. Even if her calendar is penciled in through 2020, she could be completely disconnected to what she’s doing. Think of adults who get stuck in dead end jobs – they go stir crazy because nothing has meaning and they feel as though life is slipping by. Kids sense this as well! Keep trying to connect a child with something that has meaning, including jobs, community service, foreign language, music and more. Now think of the happy adults you know – they’re probably contributing to their community and feel largely connected to the people around them.
3. He Thinks you Don’t Trust him
Perhaps you’re meddling, doing-for, nagging and correcting how he does this, that and everything in between. If a kid is really on you at every interference, try backing off! Maybe, just maybe he wants you to expect more from him. Here’s where contributions and self regulation can help you out. He can do his own laundry and so he should. He can make his lunch, choose his clothes and decide when to get his homework finished. These are the tiny restraints we layer on our children that cause anger and rebellion. Shift away from the back and forth over tiny details and step back to see what happens.
Bottom line? Tweens are testing boundaries and making their place in the world. Their behavior is simply a reflection of how they got here and whether or not they feel confident, secure and capable. If they’re acting out, they’re telling you something loud and clear!
Posted in Parenting Strategies
Five Reasons to Quit Your Job as The Maid in 2012
I remind parents in nearly every workshop I teach, that in order for them to get their family on track and in a direction that will benefit them (and the world), mom and dad, MUST QUIT THEIR JOBS AS THE MAID. This means taking the time to unlearn the tendency to hit the auto-pilot button and do everything for everyone all the time.
Here are FIVE solid reasons you could, you can, and you will enjoy this experience:
1. Hamper Heaven: They Can and Will Do their Own Laundry
Nothing says easier mornings than a kid who washed his own clothes and brought them up to his room last night. No looking for his socks. No yelling, “Mom! did you remember to run the dryer!?” and no meltdowns over a missing supply of jeans. Once they do their own, they won’t ever want you meddling in their way again.
2. Drink Your Coffee While THEY Make Lunch in the Morning
Yes, it’s a task to train them, but it only takes a few days. Then, they’re up and taking care of their own nutritional needs while you relax a bit and chat as they decide whether to make another PBJ sandwich or a bagel with cream cheese. This is a chance for you to kick your feet up and watch as the mornings become a symphony of smooth systems and confidence builds (for everyone in the family) with each successful lunch session.
3. Family Time Matters, A Spotless House Does Not
Once you have permission (I’m granting you permission right NOW) to say, “screw it, who cares if the house is a a tad-bit messier or if the dishes have to wait on the counter for an extra 10 minutes”, you can let out the head pressure of trying to keep an eternally clean house (the neat freaks are gasping, I’m sorry) and put your focus back on what really matters, connecting with your kids. This intentional and thoughtful decision to stop the cleaning and auto-straightening and check-listing, frees up time and energy to emotionally be there for your children and stay tuned into the relationship.
4. To-Dos: Delegate and Appreciate
Once the family has worked chores, or as we call them “contributions” into the daily schedule, you can begin to let go of tasks that you’d normally be whizzing around trying to fit into the daily grind. And you don’t have to go in and re-do the second rate vacuum job your 7 year old attempted before school. Instead, you can support the kids and encourage them as they practice until they master this easy task and it becomes a part of their repertoire. It’ll take time but baby steps will guide you into a communal contribution system. This is something I guarantee you WILL appreciate!
5. Grow Confident, Together
When you decide to quit your job as the maid, you allow your kids to participate more fully in family life. That means making more decisions and taking on more responsibility. You also accept more mess, which to a child can mean wearing backwards clothing he picked out himself or cleaning the bathrooms when it’s convenient for her (not you). This naturally opens up a new energy, a sense of ownership and accountability that children carry with them into the “real world” and into future relationships. As a parent, by learning to let go, you discover the house doesn’t fall apart but instead, little people show up and keep their part of the system in check. Is everything perfect every time? No. Will you end up helping them with laundry or have to pack a lunch sometimes? Yes, but if you make the effort to consciously reduce the amount of “tasks” and to-dos on your list, you’ll find that the entire family benefits, PLUS it sure feels nice to quit that thankless job!
Posted in Parenting Strategies
Parents, Are You Pulling a Purple Controller?
I recently read the article, “Dear Customer Who Stuck Up for His Little Brother” and while this scenario is a true act of courage, I realized that it plays out more often (and with far less intensity) everyday in families across the country. I wanted to take a minute to spotlight the parent’s role in this situation. For the child and his brother, it IS a mighty tale of courage, acceptance, love and the ability for one young person to stand up for another young person and for what is right – the freedom to be who you are. For the parent, it was an intense display of disapproval, and the over–reaction to something he was trying to change about his child.
In the scenario, the father is blatantly telling the young boy he’s not acting in accordance with his gender – in other words “man up kid”. Based on the response to this post, many agree this is not only a harsh attitude, it completely belittles the child’s identity. I shudder to think what daily life must be like for this young boy. He doesn’t need to go to school to experience bullying, it’s happening at home.
Here’s where the thought connects to parents everywhere. What if the child were uncoordinated and not interested in sports? Or the child was bossy and had difficulty navigating social situations? Or a writer not willing to put down the pen? Or a child who spends time building with Legos(R) vs. playing with his peers?
The words, “just suck it up and play on the team” or “stop bossing those kids around” or “would you put that damn book down and do something else?” or “it’s good for you to play with other people” sound exactly the same as “you can’t have a purple controller” –they all say the same thing – be different because who you are – isn’t good enough.
In short, let this purple controller be a reminder for US to control our need to interject and “steer” and manipulate our kids lives. Accept kids for who they are and we’ll see amazing things in the future.
Posted in Discovery
Instructions for Happiness with Our Kids
As we start the year, here’s a little list by the Dalai Lama to copy, paste and print off. Put a flyer in your bathroom and one in the kids. (If you have any graphic skills, you could snazz it up a bit). Notice numbers 12, 19 and 20. A loving atmosphere is the foundation to your life, not a judging, nagging, reminding, checklisting, yelling and zero patience atmosphere. Just love – even for the kids who act at times like brats, whiners, noodlers or angry, grouchy, dramatic and complicated offspring. Remember, if you stop and show love for a child who’s “pushing your buttons” and is about to send you into a tizzy, it will build the foundation for a better future.
Similarly, if you want those around you, including you, your spouse and your children, to be happy, you must practice compassion. We cannot expect behaviors we don’t model for our children. We cannot demand they do things our way and we cannot overlook the very real factors that influence their lives, even if they’re “just kids”. We have to show up, take risks and move it forward. Otherwise, we just might end up feeling frustrated, angry and disconnected. These life lessons can be applied and shared within our families, for a happy and satisfying experience with our kiddos. Muah!
Instructions for Life by The Dalai Lama
1 . Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.
2. When you lose, don’t lose the lesson.
3. Follow the three R’s: – Respect for self, – Respect for others and – Responsibility for all your actions.
4. Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.
5. Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
6. Don’t let a little dispute injure a great relationship.
7. When you realize you’ve made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.
8. Spend some time alone every day.
9. Open your arms to change, but don’t let go of your values.
10. Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.
11. Live a good, honorable life. Then when you get older and think back, you’ll be able to enjoy it a second time.
12. A loving atmosphere in your home is the foundation for your life.
13. In disagreements with loved ones, deal only with the current situation. Don’t bring up the past.
14. Share your knowledge. It is a way to achieve immortality.
15. Be gentle with the earth.
16. Once a year, go someplace you’ve never been before.
17. Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other.
18. Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.
19. If you want others to be happy, practice compassion.
20. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.
Posted in Parenting Strategies
Start the New Year with NEW Thinking
It’s that time of year again when everyone is ready to start fresh, clean the slate and feel passionately inspired to change their lives. People everywhere, big and small & young and old, are determined to “get it right” and lose the weight, find the time, stop the madness, make amends, be kinder, and so on. Folks are ready to conquer their fears, live their bliss and identify what keeps tripping them up in life, so they can find a new way that leads to happiness.
Usually this fire in the belly attitude is nothing more than a fresh motivation pumped into previous perception. There’s 100% genuine intent – people are committed, no doubt. But then, just as inevitably as the resolutions are made, they start to crumble. I’m not saying resolutions don’t happen – that change doesn’t come to those who try, but when change does happen, there’s something far more powerful than motivation, inspiration and drive leading the way—the change is fueled by NEW THINKING.
This year, try changing your thinking first and watch as your actions follow you in a new direction. Here is how I do it. In order for me to experience significant change (I am not going to yell at the kids any more!), I first have to identify what I’m doing that isn’t working (yelling doesn’t really work all that well or for all that long) and accept that I did the best I could (no beating myself up) and then challenge myself to look at my actions in a new way. First I identify what trips me up: I yell when I am at my wits end and I don’t think anyone is listening to me and well – in all honesty – my feelings are hurt. Yes, under all the manufactured anger, I feel hurt. Then, if I had any doubts at all, I would look at whether my yelling actually worked. It doesn’t. It never did and it never will. Oh sure, I can get my kids to hop to it when I reach 10 decibles, but that’s not the same as saying “yelling works”. It doesn’t. So if I want to change, and I know the yelling isn’t working – what’s tripping me up? Why can’t I just “let it go”?
Because somewhere in my feeble little mind, I still believe that
• I have the right to yell when I want to
• That if I keep yelling, one day it will work
• That my kids are deaf and I must yell
• That things will get worse if I start talking to them like I talk to…
Hey, wait a minute. What would happen if I started to talk to my kids the way I talk to my friends and my co-workers? What if I absolutely could not, under any circumstances start screeching at my kids any more than I could at my co-workers?
Bingo – I have begun the journey to a new way of thinking. If I spend another 24 hours thinking about this, I find that I like the idea. I’m drawn to it. It provides an improvement in my life. I haven’t done anything yet. I’ve just let my brain absorb this new way of thinking. I kick it around to make sure it can stand the test. I try out scenarios and I notice that I am open to the possibility that this might actually work. After all, I would be more inclined to cooperate with people who spoke to me respectfully, than those that yelled at me. Maybe the same is true for my kids (I know this of course, but I am letting the new thinking grab hold and sniff out anything that might get in way when I put it into action).
Can you see that what I am doing is deconstructing the way I looked at the yelling? Nothing complicated. After 24 hours, I am ready to “try” it – just once, to see how I feel when I do it. I’m not basing my decision on how the kids respond, but on how I feel about myself when I choose NOT to yell. Oh, I like this. It means that I am in control. I like control. So I pick a time or a situation, where I am usually reduced to yelling. I am aware. I have my brain on and I’m not parenting from auto-pilot. And just this small shift changes everything. Because I am thinking, because I know that I am in control, because I have allowed the thinking a chance to grow small roots in my otherwise barren brain, I am excited about doing something different. And so I do. I do something different.
What I do isn’t nearly as important as what happened before the doing. Most parents find themselves spending too much time on the “doing” and not enough time on the “change my thinking”. If you know me, you know that I am, by nature, lazy. And I do not like to waste my time on crap that doesn’t work. If this didn’t work, do you think I would be using it? Fat chance. I would continue to yell and screech.
So this year, let your thinking be your guide. Don’t like where you are headed, cop a squat, breathe a bit, and then challenge your thinking. By the time you stand up, you’ll have a new path to travel and you just might find your bliss on the road to “screech free parenting”.
Happy New Year!
Posted in Discovery
Holidays with Tweens
It’s the tweener week here at the Hoefenways, that’s blended for Hoefle & Hemenway, a name the kids came up with years ago when Iain and I met. Christmas is behind us. The presents are put away. The decorations are down. Three kids are home, one is due in on the 4th from Spain and another one arrives on the 6th from San Francisco.
I am holding steady as they say. This is the week that defines the holidays for us. It’s a time to celebrate life with children, who are more adult than anything else. It’s my time to dive into each of them and to re-establish contact in a new and meaningful way. Let’s face it, they aren’t the same people they were last year at this time.
I marvel at how smart, how funny, and how mercurial they are. I am awestruck at their humor, their insight, and their commitment to “showing up in their lives.” I am touched by their comments to me which include “you look hot in those jeans mom” by my 17-year-old daughter and “every kid should have a mom like you” whispered in my ear by my 15 year old, six-foot-tall son.
So here’s to the teens and the tweeners in our lives. These wonders of light and love.To my own children I say thank you. Thank you for inviting me into your world, and sharing your thoughts, your aspirations, your fears and your dreams. Thank you for sitting on my lap, for letting me braid your hair, and sharing a quiet moment of reflection. Thank you for sticking with me through all my painful parenting faux pas.
Thank you for teaching me the Wii and encouraging me as I learn to hit a ball and almost wet my pants doing it. Thank you for giggling with me and not at me, as I learn that you don’t have to actually “play” tennis, in order to “play Wii” tennis.
Thank you for loading my iPod up with all new songs and for making me my own Taylor Swift CD. Thank you for trying on the dorky pants I bought you and not calling me “stupid head” because I got the wrong style, size and color.
Thank you for loving each other. For cuddling up together during The Grinch and letting me get a glimpse of you as small children, even if just for a moment. Thank you for fixing each other french toast and eating together around the table, something that happens less and less these days, as kids grow and some move out.
Most of all, thank you for choosing me as your parent.
For all you parents out there, who wonder what the world is like with five teens in the house – there is only one word to describe it – MIRACULOUS!
Do not waste a single moment with these magical beings. Before you know it, they will have moved on and you may find yourself trying to carve a spot in their new and exciting lives. Take a few moments, and look beyond the external expression of who they are and look into the hearts, the minds and the spirits of these young people.
There is much joy to be found in those sparkling eyes.
Happy Holidays!
Vicki
2009
Posted in Vicki's Journey