Thank you for persevering and completing curriculum guides for your major classes.  You have all done a professional job.  It is great to see in print the fine work you are doing in the classroom.  I am proud to work with you all.

Beth

Pete

Brian

Beth Plutte

Beth

Pete

Delana Woodward
Community Based Mainstay

Delana Woodward
Community Based Mainstay

Grateful for where I work,
Jenna

Denise

Pete

Beth Plutte definitely deserves a High Five. She has been helping me develop a system to chart behavioral data for the students I provide counseling for. She has been verrrrrrry helpful and given me great ideas and resources.

Jane MacNeill

Denise

Anita

We don’t have a video of the inservice day with Kit’s debut at Lakeside School but the attached video, recorded at a Nets game, will give you a glimpse of the extent of his talent.

Thanks Kit for sharing your giftedness and your joy.

Kathy

Caroline

Naki

Kathy, Brian- the organization of this was terrific!  You were all over it!  From the groups to the sheet to think ahead of things, to even the small details of snacks!  I was thinking yesterday just how grateful I am that you would think to “fuel us up” when a whole day inservice can be a little overwhelming sometimes! I didn’t feel that way at all!  In fact, I have to tell you how often we, Mainstay Community, ask for opportunities to just talk together about cases collaboratively!  We got over 2 hours to do this yesterday and it fed my soul and my caseload will benefit! THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! What a blessing.

Jenna,  you organize so many details and you do it and make it look so smooth!  I know how hard you work to make things great for the staff and I just wanted to say how amazing it all was.

Once again, I hope you heard just how much our staff values one another, the grace-based leadership and our kids.  That’s because it starts at the top and gets trickled down from Directors, to Supervisors, to leaders etc. Hope you know we appreciate you all!

Kristen J. Veacock

There was one family last week that was particularly intense and time consuming with their questions.  They had not yet made the decision to send their child to Lakeside.  When we entered the gym, Wes was amazing. He was so pleasant, enthusiastic, friendly and outgoing.  The family had a ton of questions and he took the time to tell them about gym class, military fitness class, and the basketball team.  Thanks Wes for taking the time to talk with this family.

When we were passing Mark’s class during his prep time, the family asked if they could speak with him.  Mark graciously took the time to answer their questions.  He spoke about sculpture, art, all the different projects and showed the family the projects students were working on.  Mark answered all of their questions and was so kind to them.  Thanks Mark.

And then I stopped by Ken’s class.  Ken saw us peaking in and opened the door, introduced himself, showed the classroom and spoke about all of the art designs.  Talk about graciousness!  Ken initiated and welcomed us without hesitation.  The students were in there so it was a bit risky.  The parents asked the students questions and the students were appropriate in their responses.  This was not planned, it was spontaneous and Ken was so wonderful to take the time and the risk to subject himself to this in the middle of a class.  It went beautifully.  Ken you have such a kind and welcoming presence and your students exemplified it. Thanks.

All three of you went above and beyond the call of duty. This family was so impressed on this tour that they actually came back later in the day asking for another tour.

Meredith

Naki

Amanda

Brian

I want to offer a few words of appreciation for the great therapeutic work you do with our students. Your willingness to take on the most challenging cases and to step in where needed has been a huge help and a blessing.

With a grateful heart, dr

I want you to know that I notice and appreciate the numerous times you have gone out of your way to take care of things that are not necessarily outlined in your job description. For instance, last week I saw you mopping up a spill in the cafe. What’s most amazing is the positive attitude you maintain no matter what task I see you working on. You are a spot of encouragement to others.

dr

Naki

Pete

Brian

LGA students receive “Kudos” cards for work well done..

Quite a few should go to you Angie,

Thanks and Bless you!

Allison Martinez Program Director, The Girls Academy

Thanks, Pete

Liz Kruzits

We are heading into the last week of September and as we transition fully into fall, I want to commend you all for your patience, committment and tenacity. The work we do may not always be physically taxing, but it sure does put a strain on brains, emotions and hearts! I see how much love you all have for our students and how much you impact them daily in a positive way. You are amazing, as individuals and as a group. Thank you for believing in these young women and for making growth possible.

Bless you all!

Allison Martinez The Girls Academy

I especially appreciate the warmth and caring expressed by Kathy, Brian and Gerry who often are “down in Administration” where I have my office, who bring their playfulness, their joy in living and serving others, their spirit of caring to all of us each day in those moments when we have the chance to exchange a few words or do a little processing around the water cooler.  They never seem too rushed to stop and talk, to smile, to offer words of encouragement.

The leadership of Lakeside sets the tone for the whole organization and I think that tone is right on the mark.  Many thanks to all of you.

Brian

Brian

Brian

I would like to express my appreciation for the many ways you ladies have stepped up in the last couple of weeks. It is a privilege to work with women of such strength and character. You have each shown leadership, offered help, sacrificed, been flexible and supported each other in a time of transition that could have been very difficult. You have put the needs of our students and other staff members before your own. I don’t know I don’t tell you enough how incredible you are…you teach me every day!

Caroline

Pete

I appreciate all your hard work supervising and assisting teachers.  You are all a great help to me in making our educational program successful. You all pull together with great teamwork and are willing to step up and help out when different needs arise.  You are a great team to work with!

Denise

I just wanted to say thanks on behalf of the behavior management team for the great job you’re all doing with our students this year.  As Katie and I are spending time with our interns they are shocked when we tell them what kind of traffic we had in our rooms during this time last year!  In fact, new students and veterans are saying the exact same thing.  We have no doubt that you are all working harder and smarter as a team to be involved in behavior management with our students, and it shows in the decreased volume we have in the Resolve Rooms.  Our students are certainly doing a good job as well, but we want to make sure that you all know that we appreciate your efforts.

Be encouraged and keep up the good work!

Thanks,
Adam

Jenna

Naki

Ivenette

Tom and the entire Everly family

Gerry

Gerry

Gerry

Gerry

Gerry

Thanks in particular to Jeri and Amanda for the two years of long hours you have been putting in to get the Vantage Academy at Upper Merion started and running well. Beginning a new program with relatively new staff at a new district has been a huge challenge. Thanks for your courage in taking on this challenge and for your unwavering commitment throughout the last two years. You both are highly gifted leaders and all you have done and are continuing to do is very much appreciated. Kathy

Of course, thanks to those who have never left as well

Kathy

Then when I did a similar presentation at Upper Merion Vantage, BILL TAYLOR did the exact same thing. I have been thinking about this since that time and wanted to thank you both. It’s odd at times what things stick out to you as meaningful. For me, on these days what you guys did for me was huge. Thank you.

Healthy rules and structure provide children with a secure world.

Consistent, healthy limits on behavior and fair, reasonable boundaries, expectations and demands provide healthy structure for children so that over time they gain impulse control and self-discipline.

With appropriate rules and structure in place, discipline is easier to enforce.

The IPED (Institute for Professional Education and Development) approach to effective discipline assumes that parents need to accept a position as the authority in the lives of their children until their children are mature enough to assume responsibility for themselves.

Effective discipline is NOT synonymous with punishment, and a consequence is not the same as punishment. Effective discipline is NEVER about harming, humiliating, degrading, purposely hurting, embarrassing, mocking, shaming or disrespecting the child.

The thrust of effective discipline is that you can parent with confidence, calmness and clarity. It is an assertive teaching role that promotes your child’s learning self-discipline.

Though the “discipline” hat can be a challenge for parents, it is a necessary skill of emotionally healthy parenting. The kind of discipline that considers the needs of both you and your child is likely to be most constructive.

The two roles of a parent in effective discipline

Because of your child’s needs, your role in effective parenting is divided.

The role that cares, protects and nurtures is called the caring or nurturing role. The role that provides structure, rules, values and behavioral expectations is referred to as the executive or in-charge role.

A balance between these two roles is essential for healthy parenting.

Your strength in these roles helps provide the controls and sense of security that ensures your child’s safety and self-esteem. Your confidence as a parent comes when you deeply believe that your request is valid and reasonable, regardless of whether or not your child wants to comply.

The crucial element here is that your expectations should be appropriate to your child’s age, maturity level, developmental stage and temperament as well as the situational factors that may be at work.

You will also need to adjust your disciplining as your child grows and changes.

Always pleasing your child is not part of your job!

It is okay if your child resists or protests when you determine that a behavior must be stopped or started.

You are not being abusive or wrong to need to change a diaper, insist on shoes being worn in the winter or declare that passengers must be safely secured when you drive.

Consequences teach an effective lesson in discipline

Consequences set clear limits and encourage the building of trustworthiness and a sense of responsibility. They can empower a child with information and provide the opportunity to make amends and regain status, privileges and appropriate power.

Consequences can be either natural or imposed.

A natural consequence is something that happens as a result of your child’s action or inaction. For example, if your child flies his new kite after you tell him not to because the wind is too strong, and the kite is ruined as a result, that is a natural consequence.

An imposed consequence involves an assertive response from you. For example, if your child breaks a window because he ignored the family rule about throwing rocks, you may decide his allowance for the next week will go toward fixing it. It is important that the imposed consequence require a child to be responsible and make amends that makes sense regarding the situation.

Time-outs and grounding

Correctly used time-outs are meant to give a child who has lost control a chance to calm and regroup by temporarily removing him from a situation.

A time-out should feel accepting, gentle and firm, not punitive. If you use a time-out, a healthy message to send is:

“I see someone who needs a little time to calm down and get collected. I insist that you take a break to let yourself cool off, but you’re certainly welcome to come back. If you need it, I’ll sit with you while you take this break.”

The same principle is true for older children where time-outs are usually called grounding. Grounding should say to children that they need time to reorganize and get themselves under control.

The parent is also assuming authority by refusing to let a child overstep certain boundaries or act irresponsibly.

The most effective grounding allows the child opportunities to “earn” back trust and make amends as the condition for the discontinuation of the grounding rather than imposing a set amount of time for it.

Using natural or imposed consequences helps your child appreciate the value of trust and trustworthiness. It places responsibility where it belongs and keeps your child accountable to make amends and rebuild the trust that has been broken.

PARENTING ACTION STEPS:

1.         Define the problem

2.         Determine who owns the problem

3.         Assume an assertive in-charge stance

4.         Set limits, enforce rules, determine and impose appropriate consequences

Expert information from IPED

This information is brought to you by Lakeside Educational Network’s IPED Program. The Institute for Professional and Educational Development Program informs, equips and inspires educators, counselors, early childhood practitioners and human services professionals dealing with many difficult and complex issues each day.

Our exclusive curriculum, available directly from Lakeside’s IPED, is comprehensive in topics that promote emotional and relational health in children and families. Successful outcomes consistently occur as a result.

With more than 50 years of outstanding service through its many programs, Lakeside is proud to be an international advocate and resource for kids and families.

© All rights reserved, Diane Wagenhals, IPED, 2009.

If you would like to subscribe to our parenting tips, please follow us on Twitter at GerryatLakeside

If you’d like to learn more about our professional development training and CEUs, please complete the form below.

I-Messages communicate your feelings and perspectives in a respectful, less challenging way when:

• your child’s attitude or behavior is unacceptable to you
• you are trying to modify another’s behavior or attitude
• you own a problem involving another person

The 6-step formula of an effective I-Message

The most effective I-Message is clear and specific.

• State the specific, objective facts…no generalizations or zingers.

Example:

We agreed last week you would feed the dog every night by 5:00. Last night she did not get her dinner until after 8:00.

• State your feelings without attacking, judging, criticizing, or ascribing motives.

Example:

I feel disappointed when I discover the dog has not been fed. I feel sad for her.

• Describe the actual or potential negative impact.

Example of actual impact:

As a result, I don’t feel like I can trust you to feed her. I don’t like feeling this way about you.

Example of potential impact:

When you tell me you will feed the dog and then don’t do it, it makes it hard for me to trust you the next time you make a promise.

• Provide a fair request; describe the behavior that would correct the situation, making sure the request is reasonable for this specific child. Be clear and specific.

Example:

I expect you to feed her by 5:00 every night, and for the next week I would like you to tell me when you have fed her so there is no question in my mind.

• Describe a positive impact.

Example:

Once I know you can do this every night on time without a reminder from me, I will be able to trust you more for this and other times you make a promise.

• Request feedback; Listen respectfully and appreciate perspectives. Accept explanations, challenge excuses.

Example:

Would you like to tell me how you feel about this?

Example of responding to an explanation:

I hear that the time just got away from you and that you are really sorry that you did not carry out your commitment.

Example of challenging an excuse:

I understand that people sometimes forget to do things they promised to do, however when that happens, they need to correct their mistake and accept responsibility for making it.

I-Messages work better with reasoning of older children

As you can see, an I-Message is used within consideration of the age and stage of development of your child.

So, a toddler who does not yet have the capability to reason would not be the target of an I-Message that expects him to change.

The perfectly normal yet difficult to cope with behaviors such as impulsive and aggressive hitting, biting and throwing of objects may need more limit-setting responses from parents than the use of I-Messages.

Since in an I-Message  you state what you are thinking and feeling, a father experiencing frustration over a toddler’s age-appropriate negative behavior can use an I-Message to vent without expecting that the toddler change. “I am so annoyed that I cannot be on the phone for even one minute without you touching things that are dangerous because I can’t finish my phone business.”

You-Messages

Destructive “You” messages are used by the speaker to put-down the child or control him. “You never listen,” or, “You should have set your alarm to remind you,”  can diminish self-confidence and the health of the relationship.

These messages do not build your child’s Iceberg.

On the other hand, in your executive role as parent, it is often appropriate to use a take-charge message. Therefore, for reasons of your child’s safety, or when you assume the role of disciplinarian and speak from authority, a “you” message may be appropriate.

“You are going to do this my way now because I am the parent, and this is not open for discussion or negotiation at this moment.” This stance of being in charge is healthy and appropriate when a child needs help through an external control.

At times you may use you-messages with the teaching hat. This kind of message becomes appropriate when you provide information or explain values.

Such interactions are appropriate and valuable for you and your child. It is also both reasonable and necessary for you to convey, in a non-threatening way, the potential consequences of your child’s behavior: “If you pull the kitty’s tail, I will take her out of the room because in our family, we do not hurt our pets.”

PARENTING ACTION STEPS:

1. Define the problem
2. Determine who owns the problem
3. Consider the desired outcome
4. Communicate your perspective without attacking, blaming, accusing or taking control

Expert information from IPED

This information is brought to you by Lakeside Educational Network’s IPED Program. The Institute for Professional and Educational Development Program informs, equips and inspires educators, counselors, early childhood practitioners and human services professionals dealing with many difficult and complex issues each day.

Our exclusive curriculum, available directly from Lakeside’s IPED, is comprehensive in topics that promote emotional and relational health in children and families. Successful outcomes consistently occur as a result.

With more than 50 years of outstanding service through its many programs, Lakeside is proud to be an international advocate and resource for kids and families.

© All rights reserved, Diane Wagenhals, IPED, 2009.

If you would like to subscribe to our parenting tips, please follow us on Twitter at GerryatLakeside

If you’d like to learn more about our professional development training and CEUs, please complete the form below.

Questions can help to clarify, help process information, or communicate interest and involvement.

Yet, most people are unaware of the potential subtle impact of some questions to blame, shame, intimidate, accuse or create power struggles.

Consider not only the effect of any given question but also the impact of the number of questions being asked in any given conversation. Although each individual question may be benign, the overall impact of asking many questions can be intimidating in itself.

Even the best questions can begin to feel like probes when there are too many of them.

To some extent, any question implies power. When someone asks a question of another, there is some degree of directiveness on the part of the questioner. Asking questions is also a way to take control of a conversation.

When you want to be clear

When questions are necessary it is important to be clear about your intentions. It is legitimate for a question to be used to clarify something. For example: “Did that happen to you yesterday or last week?” The less challenging the question is, the less defensiveness it will cause.

It is important to consider the following to determine appropriate questioning:

1. What is the purpose of asking?
2. Is it clear?
3. Did you avoid questions that intimidate, accuse, advise or are rhetorical?
4. Is it open-ended?
5. Is it relevant?
6. Is it useful?
7. How free is the responder to refuse to answer?

Appropriate and healthy questioning

In order to ask sincere, helpful questions, you need to be:

• Genuinely interested in the child’s perspectives or opinions
• Want to encourage her to explore and discover something
• Are tuned in to the situation
• Conscious of tone of voice and body language
• Sensitive to the overall context in which the question is asked.
• Timing is also important. (The same questions may be threatening in one situation but welcome in another.)

A question is appropriate when it promotes an effective, fair dialogue.

Questions are often used when wearing the teaching hat. For example, the person teaching might ask, “Why do you think that is the case?” in order to encourage learning.

Questions can be a part of effective discipline. For example: “How can you change the way you said that to be more respectful?”

Questions are a major part of the problem exploration hat as a person brainstorms a variety of lists. For example: “What might each person be feeling?”

Questions can be a part of sharing. For example, “How was your vacation?”

So, with four of the 7 Healthy Hats of communication often involving questions, questions can serve a healthy purpose.

PARENTING ACTION STEPS:

1.         First use Active Listening.

2.         Consider your child’s age, stage and temperament.

3.         Consider the impact and timing of your question.

4.         Participate when ready.

Expert information from IPED

This information is brought to you by Lakeside Educational Network’s IPED Program. The Institute for Professional and Educational Development Program informs, equips and inspires educators, counselors, early childhood practitioners and human services professionals dealing with many difficult and complex issues each day.

Our exclusive curriculum, available directly from Lakeside’s IPED, is comprehensive in topics that promote emotional and relational health in children and families. Successful outcomes consistently occur as a result.

With more than 50 years of outstanding service through its many programs, Lakeside is proud to be an international advocate and resource for kids and families.

© All rights reserved, Diane Wagenhals, IPED, 2009.

If you would like to subscribe to our parenting tips, please follow us on Twitter at GerryatLakeside

If you’d like to learn more about our professional development training and CEUs, please complete the form below.

Awareness is the first step in avoiding inappropriate RESS-Q.

Replace RESS-Q with Active Listening–the powerful tool that grows your child’s emotional health.

“RESS-Qing” the child from disclosing painful feelings, or causing her to express peace and happiness as a result of pain, fear, or struggles because these feelings are too uncomfortable for the parent to hear curtails communication from your child and leaves her with negative feelings and frustration.

It takes practice not to use RESS-Q

First, allow yourself time to increase your Active Listening skills. The more you use Active Listening, the more natural it will become for you to use when needed in everyday situations, and subsequently, the easier it will be to stifle inappropriate RESS-Qing.

When you trust and allow Active Listening as your first response, you will get a “feel” for if and when other forms of communication will be appropriate.

Preventing a RESS-Q response means you do not:

• Reassure
• Explain
• Solve
• Share
• Question

Why? A potential negative impact exists for each form of RESS-Q. See why…

REASSURE

This form of communication may send the message that the child should be fully capable of handling the situation and suggests it is time to move on.

Examples:

• It’s going to be all right; I’m sure.
• You can handle this.
• Things like this happen. You’ll feel better tomorrow.

EXPLAIN

This form of communication places the focus on the situation and suggests the person consider things at an intellectual level rather than a feeling level. It also tells her she should consider why things are this way in order to encourage her to give up on her feelings about it.

Examples:

• The reason this might have happened is…
• You must learn to turn the other cheek.
• Maybe the other children were having a tough morning.

SOLVE

This form of communication denies the importance of venting feelings. As with explaining, it directs the person to think rather than allowing her to feel. Unsolicited suggestions almost always feel like a criticism. It may tell her she is not capable of handling the situation.

Examples:

• A way to handle this is…
• Have you thought about trying to…
• The first thing you do when a fight is about to start is…

SHARE

This form of communication shifts the attention from the person speaking to the person who was supposedly Listening, changing the focus and the flow of conversation. It can then be difficult for the speaker to shift back to talking about himself, so he may stop authentically sharing and processing.

Examples:

• I know just how you feel. That happened to me…
• It certainly would make me feel upset. I know I’d want to make sure something was done about it.

QUESTION

This form of communication shifts the control of the conversation from the speaker to the listener. It can interrupt the process in several ways: it makes the speaker accountable to the listener, it can change the direction of the conversation, and it can make the speaker move from a feeling mode to a thinking mode.

Examples:

• Why did you do that?
• How do you feel about that?
• Why didn’t you avoid them in the first place?

Note that each part of RESS-Q is a healthy hat of communication. When something other than Listening is needed, there are appropriate times to Reassure and affirm, Explain or teach, Solve or suggest, Share as a way to connect, and ask Questions to invite someone to explore.

The value of being heard

There are infinite responses to most situations. The Listener’s job is to focus on those responses that will be the most meaningful and helpful to the speaker.

RESS-Qing is much less effective in allowing the speaker to feel heard, understood, accepted and appreciated. So you can see how you benefit from knowing RESS-Q in order to do Active Listening well.

When you send messages of acceptance and availability to your child, your relationship with her has its best opportunity to develop and grow.

PARENTING ACTION STEPS:

1. First use Observer Role to become aware of your inner pull to solve or quickly cover your child’s pain
2. Be clear about the five potential RESS-Q responses you need to avoid
3. Determine which type of Active Listening is needed
4. Allow the child to own her feelings without having to solve an immediate problem

Expert information from IPED

This information is brought to you by Lakeside Educational Network’s IPED Program. The Institute for Professional and Educational Development Program informs, equips and inspires educators, counselors, early childhood practitioners and human services professionals dealing with many difficult and complex issues each day.

Our exclusive curriculum, available directly from Lakeside’s IPED, is comprehensive in topics that promote emotional and relational health in children and families. Successful outcomes consistently occur as a result.

With more than 50 years of outstanding service through its many programs, Lakeside is proud to be an international advocate and resource for kids and families.

© All rights reserved, Diane Wagenhals, IPED, 2009.

If you would like to subscribe to our parenting tips, please follow us on Twitter at GerryatLakeside

If you’d like to learn more about our professional development training and CEUs, please complete the form below.

Active Listening is a specific and refined skill of communication. It is more than simply hearing what the speaker (your child or another adult) is saying. It requires hearing at a deeper level and sending back clear, fully attending, nonjudgmental messages that are a legitimate expression of the speaker’s feelings and experience.

Besides creating more complete communication between people, it promotes trust and raises the self-esteem of the speaker and the listener.

Appreciating the power of Active Listening

In Active Listening, the speaker is allowed to release stored emotions constructively. If these stored feelings are not adequately released, they can block the speaker’s ability to see a situation objectively or discern how to solve problems.

When allowed to ventilate feelings in a climate of validation and acceptance, often the speaker’s feelings will lose their intensity and become less overwhelming. Catharsis occurs without reassurance or advice on the part of the Listener, just through the Listening process itself.

The story example below illustrates the power of the “container” type of Active Listening:

At age five, my daughter was at a neighbor’s house one morning and was taken by the neighbor to her racquetball club and left with the babysitter there.

When my daughter came home, I only needed one look in her eyes to see that something had happened to her. After my neighbor left, she burst into tears. My daughter spoke through choking sobs as I cradled her in my arms.

In the playroom, she had climbed onto a bench. The bench tipped and she fell off it. Then the babysitter yelled at her. Frightened and hurt, she had run to the bathroom and closed herself inside. For an hour or more, she was in a strange place taken there by another mother. She was left alone with some new lady who yelled at her at a time when she was frightened and scared, and she had no idea how long it would last. No wonder she was so upset!

As I held her, I echoed back what I heard. More facts and feelings came tumbling out. “The other kids were climbing on the bench too…They didn’t get yelled at. Only me! I was scared and hurt when I fell…It was dark and smelled bad in the bathroom…You weren’t there…I was afraid the lady would find me…I could hear the other kids playing…I didn’t want anyone to hear me crying…I was so scared…I couldn’t call you.”

My acknowledgments freed her to let out more and more. I reflected her feelings as I repeated her story, “You felt so alone…You wanted me to come…” and her perceptions: “It was smelly and scary…You didn’t want to be found out.” “I wanted YOU to come and you didn’t!” she yelled at me. “You are angry that I couldn’t come to you.”

Internally, I was preparing to give her advice (“Maybe you should have…”) or reassure her (“It’s not such a big deal, Honey; everyone has scary experiences.”) I wanted to explain away the babysitter’s behavior (“Maybe she has a naturally loud voice.”)  Stifling those thoughts took some effort, but I was determined just to listen.

We talked until my daughter seemed to be finished spilling her feelings.

It was time for her to get ready for kindergarten. I wondered if she would be too upset to separate again, but she left without a word of protest.

I waited anxiously for her return, wanting to “be there” for her.

She bounced in later, bubbling about her afternoon. I was astounded! Was this the same child who had sobbed so pathetically just a few hours before?

I asked her how she was feeling. “Fine, why?” she asked. “I mean, about this morning.” She paused, as if trying to figure out what I meant. “Oh, that.  I’m okay now. It was pretty scary, but it’s okay now.”

THAT is catharsis.  Be prepared when it happens, it can be awesome!

The 5 types of Active Listening

There are five major processes of Active Listening. One or more may occur during an Active Listening interchange. The following object images may help you picture each of the 5:

Movie Ticket:

The Listener behaves as though watching a movie: observes attentively, responds nonverbally using attentive body language, and notes details without giving specific comments back to the speaker. (Nodding and saying, “hmmm,” for example.)

Mirror:

The Listener acts as a mirror to help the speaker see himself and his situation more clearly. This mirror also has the power to telescope to see the bigger picture and to microscope to see things in fine detail. (“So, what happened first…”)

Container:

The Listener figuratively holds out a container and collects whatever the speaker wants to unload, providing a safe place to discharge feelings. (“This was very painful for you to watch…”)

Computer:

The Listener acts as computer processor by organizing, sorting, arranging priorities, identifying values, needs, feelings, issues, or expectations. (“While you were unsure, you were also trying to clarify your role…”)

Little Book of Wisdom:

The Listener states a principle or truth that reflects the speaker’s issues, needs, feelings, values, expectations or perspective. (“Sometimes it is very hard to step back and allow natural consequences to take place…”)

Acceptance is the heart and soul of Active Listening.

Acceptance does not necessarily mean you agree with what you are hearing, but rather, it expresses a nonjudgmental attitude. Your acceptance of what is being heard is conveyed through words, relaxed body language, appropriate eye contact (sometimes people want constant eye contact, sometimes, none at all) and facial expressions.

Once you experience the speaker’s catharsis, observe that he or she will likely be ready to move on to something else.

The speaker’s feelings may be about a problem situation, but could as well be about something exciting or happy.

In either instance, Active Listening is an intimate and trusting experience for both the speaker and listener.

Try these sentence starters when using Active Listening. These sample statements underscore a myriad of possible responses for listeners:

• You wish…
• It hurt you…
• You didn’t expect…
• It bothers you that…
• You’re worried/concerned that…
• It seems unfair that…
• You can’t understand…
• You don’t know…
• You are working to…
• You think the other person is feeling/ needing/ worrying about/ trying to /expecting…
• The tension seems to be coming from…
• What you think might happen because of this is…
• If things could be different, you’d feel…

PARENTING ACTION STEPS:

1. Determine which type of Active Listening is needed
2. Take the time and give the attention
3. Respond appropriately with nonverbal messages and verbal Listening statements
4. Allow each person the freedom to share and process freely

Expert information from IPED

This information is brought to you by Lakeside Educational Network’s IPED Program. The Institute for Professional and Educational Development Program informs, equips and inspires educators, counselors, early childhood practitioners and human services professionals dealing with many difficult and complex issues each day.

Our exclusive curriculum, available directly from Lakeside’s IPED, is comprehensive in topics that promote emotional and relational health in children and families. Successful outcomes consistently occur as a result.

With more than 50 years of outstanding service through its many programs, Lakeside is proud to be an international advocate and resource for kids and families.

© All rights reserved, Diane Wagenhals, IPED, 2009.

If you would like to subscribe to our parenting tips, please follow us on Twitter at GerryatLakeside

If you’d like to learn more about our professional development training and CEUs, please complete the form below.

When used appropriately, these seven hats have the potential to promote and preserve self-esteem to build emotional health and strong relationships between parents and children.

The “trick” is to wear the right hat at the right time.

For example, a parent puts on the Listening hat when a child needs to be heard and accepted, in an almost magical way, the communication becomes healthy and effective.

It is important to remember that your response might be quite different from that of another parent even in a similar situation because parents have different styles, perceptions, values and expectations. Therefore, there may be more than one healthy response.

The ultimate evaluation of the appropriateness or effectiveness of the interaction is the degree to which needs were met; emotional health was promoted for all; and fairness, safety, and trust were maintained in the relationship.

The 7 Hats

1. Active Listening Hat:

Active Listening promotes self-esteem and emotional health and healthy relationships through messages that show attention, awareness, acceptance, appreciation, and acknowledgment. Active Listening statements reflect a person’s experience, feelings, perspectives, or other messages, communicating that the speaker is aware, interested and respectful.

Examples:

• You sound very worried about that.
• You aren’t sure what to do next.

Use Active Listening when your child has a problem, exhibits intense feelings, or would benefit from an opportunity to feel heard and appreciated. Active Listening helps your child feel accepted, understood, appreciated, respected, capable and valuable—powerful messages.

2.      Affirming Hat:

The Affirming Hat provides reassurance, safety, nurture and praise. Affirmations nurture a child by verifying and validating her innate character, an accomplishment, the value of her intentions or potential to do well. Caution: used too soon or without sufficient Active Listening, affirmations can be ineffective. Inappropriate affirmations can also be experienced as put-downs if they are said at the wrong time.

Examples:

• You are doing that so well by yourself.
• You have followed the directions step-by-step and now it is almost finished; congratulations!

Use affirmations when your child would benefit from having her core belief system built up with positive images. The result is your child’s sense of self is clarified and she develops an improved sense of rights, respect for her needs and permission to be self-accepting.

3.      Teaching Hat:

The Teaching Hat encourages new awareness and understanding, promotes a sense of connection, feelings of power through knowledge, a sense of capability, and the ability to develop personal values. Teaching provides relevant information to guide your child so he can better understand the world and the family values you wish him to adopt.

Example:

• When you walk through the grass in our bare feet, you can accidentally step on something sharp and get a cut.

Use teaching when your child needs information about the world, principles, relationships, values, priorities and help of expressing himself. The result is that your child can feel more empowered, clear, included, trusted, and encouraged to process his own ideas and to think about the world. Caution: used too soon, teaching can sound like criticism, nagging or a lecture.

4.      I-Messages Hat:

Use the I-Messages Hat to clarify your point of view and perceptions for your child, model self-respect, give your child a way to give back and keeps lines of communication open. I-Messages provide you with a way to share your perspective, needs, feelings and concerns with another. Your child can benefit from understanding the impact she is having on you. Caution: used without Active Listening or nurturing, an I-Message can make the child believe that her needs are not of much importance.

Examples:

• When you throw the ball in the house, it upsets me because I’m afraid something will get broken. I expect you to throw the ball outside.
• I felt so proud when the teacher told me you had been very kind to the new child in the class. That shows that you can be very caring.

I-Messages are used twofold: when you own a problem and are finding a behavior to be unacceptable, and, to praise specific behavior by sharing your perspective.

Through I-Messages you are better able to clarify feelings and expectations. In addition, your child gets the opportunity to work on remedying the situation and learns a healthy way of expressing her own feelings.

5.      Disciplining and Limit-setting Hat

The Disciplining and Limit-setting Hat provides structure, sets and enforces limits and rules and healthy compliance to authority. Healthy discipline involves establishing rules and limits to promote a safe environment where needs feelings, perspectives and rights of others are preserved and respected. As a result injuries (physical, emotional or relational) are prevented; or, if they do occur, are managed fairly.

The ultimate goal is for your child to become self-disciplined.

Examples:

• The rule is no hitting.

 Use discipline and limit-setting when your child needs outside limits. The result is that your child feels safer having his impulses controlled and knows that your rules promote stability and fairness for everyone. Caution: Used too soon or without some form of nurturing and support, discipline can make your child feel ignored, unloved and unfairly treated.

6.      Problem Exploration Hat:

The Problem Exploration Hat promotes connection, healthy power and creativity. It is a wonderful tool for children to learn to use on their own.

Example:

• We have a problem here. Let’s sit down together and look at it in as many ways as we can.

Problem exploration is a chance for you and your child to figure out together what caused the injury and how to prevent more in the future. Caution: If the process is started too soon, the child will not be ready to concentrate on it and will not feel his needs are being attended.

Use problem exploration when it would be helpful for both of you to get a broader and clearer picture. The result is that each of you can clarify perspectives and experiences and feel important.

7.      Sharing Hat:

The Sharing Hat promotes connection. Sharing is a way for you to tell your child about your own similar experiences. Use sharing when your child would benefit from and enjoy connecting through stories, experiences, play or work. The result is that each of you feels connected and bonded.

Example:

• This reminds me of when I first went to school. I can remember how scared I was when….

Playing with your child is an extremely important form of sharing interaction because much of your child’s learning and expressing occurs during play. Caution: If done too soon, your child will feel ignored and unimportant, as though the focus of attention is on you.

The hat trick:  switching from hat to hat

Although it is important to understand that these 7 Hats are distinct, it is also important to see that they can be blended.

For example, you could say:

“It can be very frustrating to want to go out on a nice day like this and then to be told you have to put this basket of laundry away first [Active Listening]. You can do a very efficient job because once you decide to do something, you are able to do it well [affirming].  The rule is, however, no playing outside until the laundry is put away [disciplining]. I remember wishing we had a maid who would just do all the jobs around the house that I hated to do [sharing].  I’ll be back in a few minutes to check on you and when it is done, you can go out” [disciplining].

Using the 7 Hats takes some practice, but will build your relationship with your child and make her Iceberg strong.

PARENTING ACTION STEPS:

            1.         Become familiar with the variety of communication Hats

            2.         Learn the healthy uses of each Hat

            3.         Change to the appropriate Hat as necessary

            4.         Be aware of the timing as you choose to use each Hat

Expert information from IPED

This information is brought to you by Lakeside Educational Network’s IPED Program. The Institute for Professional and Educational Development Program informs, equips and inspires educators, counselors, early childhood practitioners and human services professionals dealing with many difficult and complex issues each day.

Our exclusive curriculum, available directly from Lakeside’s IPED, is comprehensive in topics that promote emotional and relational health in children and families. Successful outcomes consistently occur as a result.

With more than 50 years of outstanding service through its many programs, Lakeside is proud to be an international advocate and resource for kids and families.

© All rights reserved, Diane Wagenhals, IPED, 2009.

If you would like to subscribe to our parenting tips, please follow us on Twitter at GerryatLakeside

If you’d like to learn more about our professional development training and CEUs, please complete the form below.

Children’s core belief systems develop through a complex step-by-step process. They receive messages, analyze them with the rudimentary tools they have available, categorize them, and eventually use them to make basic decisions about themselves, other people, and their world and life in general.

It is in the core belief system that each child determines how okay he or she is: how lovable, capable, trust-worthy, unique, powerful, connected, and worthwhile. Here children hold their attitudes about the world and the value of life and about how safe and predictable others are.

A positive core belief system is essential to the foundation of each child’s Iceberg.

If children are told that they are much loved just because they exist in a family, that their needs are okay, and that they can take their time to grow, a pathway is formed that over time allows similar healthy messages easily to travel down and be integrated in the core belief system.

If children are able to believe that they are worthwhile, deserving people because they exist, then they eventually have a permanent roadway that allows similar messages to enter and be absorbed.

Conversely, if a child has consistently received and absorbed negative messages and then is suddenly offered affirming ones, his negative pathways may not permit the affirming messages into his core belief system. Negative messages deep within his being can block affirming, nurturing messages throughout his life unless he receives consistent believable messages that build a new pathway to block the old, toxic beliefs.

Self-fulfilling prophecy

Just as your child is regularly absorbing his complex set of messages, his core belief system sends messages to the rest of the world. He will transmit positive, healthy messages if those are the kind of messages he has received.

However, it is difficult to stop unfair or untrue outgoing messages if the pathways allow easy passage of unhealthy messages.

The destructive process of having received primarily negative, unhealthy messages produces stronger and stronger pathways over which such messages travel in and out. The process itself becomes its own self-destructive and self-fulfilling prophecy.

A critical goal of healthy parenting is to intentionally build a healthy core belief system with corresponding pathways, promoting rapid transit of healthy messages within and without your child—a strong, healthy “message-transit system” he will carry into adulthood.

PARENTING ACTION STEPS:

1. Appreciate that your child is gradually creating an inner core belief system that will guide him as he moves through life
2. Appreciate that you, too, operate from a core belief system
3. Use your awareness of your Whole Child, using ADUMS and MRS PIES to guide you in building a healthy core belief system
4. Intentionally transmit healthy messages

Expert information from IPED

This information is brought to you by Lakeside Educational Network’s IPED Program. The Institute for Professional and Educational Development Program informs, equips and inspires educators, counselors, early childhood practitioners and human services professionals dealing with many difficult and complex issues each day.

Our exclusive curriculum, available directly from Lakeside’s IPED, is comprehensive in topics that promote emotional and relational health in children and families. Successful outcomes consistently occur as a result.

With more than 50 years of outstanding service through its many programs, Lakeside is proud to be an international advocate and resource for kids and families.

© All rights reserved, Diane Wagenhals, IPED, 2009.

If you would like to subscribe to our parenting tips, please follow us on Twitter at GerryatLakeside

If you’d like to learn more about our professional development training and CEUs, please complete the form below.

Understanding your child’s temperament helps you respond better to him especially during challenges.

By understanding how your child interacts with the world, you are better able to accept your child and be relieved of unfair guilt regarding his behavior that is temperament-driven.

What is temperament?

The term temperament refers to the behavioral style or manner of the child. Temperament traits may be divided into three categories and occur in varying degree: 1) the easy child, 2) the slow-to-warm child, and 3) the spirited, more challenging child.

1. The temperamentally easy child is generally positive in mood and reaction to new stimuli, is fairly adaptable, mildly reactive and has regular biological functions. This child quickly develops regular sleeping and eating patterns, takes to new foods easily and smoothly makes transitions to new situations.
2. The temperamentally slow-to-warm child is more moderate in mood and reactions. Mainly, this child has slow adaptability and is often considered shy or cautious. This child can evoke frustration in unaware parents or teachers; however, when given enough time to adjust and adapt to new situations and changes without undue pressure, the slow-to-warm child can show quiet and positive interest and find safe ways to engage.
3. The temperamentally spirited or more challenging child is characterized by a combination of extremes in temperament, such as irregularity in biological functions, a strong withdrawal response to new stimuli, poor adaptability to change, a predominately negative mood, high levels and a high intensity of positive or negative response. It is important to remember that these traits are difficult for your child as well as for you.

Goodness-of-fit: accepting your and your child’s temperament traits

Parents may have a natural tendency to place greater value on certain temperament characteristics. Then, when parents’ expectations and a child’s temperament traits do not mesh, it can be difficult for both parent and child to accept one another.

A goodness-of-fit between a child and his parents occurs when his temperamental characteristics and capacities mesh well with his parents’ temperamental traits. Parents more easily embrace who their child is temperamentally. This good fit usually results in healthy emotional development and functioning. For parents whose temperaments differ from their child, acceptance may require more understanding and intentionality.

How you interact with your child is affected by your and your child’s temperaments. For example, highly active parents may not even be aware of the high activity level of their child. The goal is not to change the child’s temperament but to minimize stress and develop coping strategies for traits that are more challenging.

PARENTING ACTION STEPS

1. Know the characteristics of your child’s age and stage of development, using ADUMS and MRS PIES
2. Use the Observer Role and reframe as necessary
3. Strengthen your child’s Iceberg
4. Establish fair and appropriate expectations using your assessments.

Expert information from IPED

This information is brought to you by Lakeside Educational Network’s IPED Program. The Institute for Professional and Educational Development Program informs, equips and inspires educators, counselors, early childhood practitioners and human services professionals dealing with many difficult and complex issues each day.

Our exclusive curriculum, available directly from Lakeside’s IPED, is comprehensive in topics that promote emotional and relational health in children and families. Successful outcomes consistently occur as a result.

With more than 50 years of outstanding service through its many programs, Lakeside is proud to be an international advocate and resource for kids and families.

© All rights reserved, Diane Wagenhals, IPED, 2009.

If you would like to subscribe to our parenting tips, please follow us on Twitter at GerryatLakeside

If you’d like to learn more about our professional development training and CEUs, please complete the form below.

Understand Your Child’s Temperament to Help You Nurture and Discipline

By understanding how your child interacts with the world, you are better able to accept your child and be relieved of unfair guilt regarding his behavior that is temperament-driven.

Understanding your child’s temperament helps you respond better to him especially during challenges. Children do not choose their temperamental blueprints. Temperament is born as part of your whole child.

What is temperament?

The term temperament refers to the behavioral style or manner of the child. Temperament traits may be divided into three categories and occur in varying degree: 1) the easy child, 2) the slow-to-warm child, and 3) the spirited, more challenging child.

1. The temperamentally easy child is generally positive in mood and reaction to new stimuli, is fairly adaptable, mildly reactive and has regular biological functions. This child quickly develops regular sleeping and eating patterns, takes to new foods easily and smoothly makes transitions to new situations.

1. The temperamentally slow-to-warm child is more moderate in mood and reactions. Mainly, this child has slow adaptability and is often considered shy or cautious. This child can evoke frustration in unaware parents or teachers; however, when given enough time to adjust and adapt to new situations and changes without undue pressure, the slow-to-warm child can show quiet and positive interest and find safe ways to engage.

1. The temperamentally spirited or more challenging child is characterized by a combination of extremes in temperament, such as irregularity in biological functions, a strong withdrawal response to new stimuli, poor adaptability to change, a predominately negative mood, high levels and a high intensity of positive or negative response. It is important to remember that these traits are difficult for your child as well as for you.

Goodness-of-fit: accepting your and your child’s temperament traits

Parents may have a natural tendency to place greater value on certain temperament characteristics. Then, when parents’ expectations and a child’s temperament traits do not mesh, it can be difficult for both parent and child to accept one another.

A goodness-of-fit between a child and his parents occurs when his temperamental characteristics and capacities mesh well with his parents’ temperamental traits. Parents more easily embrace who their child is temperamentally. This good fit usually results in healthy emotional development and functioning. For parents whose temperaments differ from their child, acceptance may require more understanding and intentionality.

How you interact with your child is affected by your and your child’s temperaments. For example, highly active parents may not even be aware of the high activity level of their child. The goal is not to change the child’s temperament but to minimize stress and develop coping strategies for traits that are more challenging.

PARENTING ACTION STEPS

1. Know the characteristics of your child’s age and stage of development, using ADUMS and MRS PIES
2. Use the Observer Role and reframe as necessary
3. Strengthen your child’s Iceberg
4. Establish fair and appropriate expectations using your assessments.

Expert information from IPED

This information is brought to you by Lakeside Educational Network’s IPED Program. The Institute for Professional and Educational Development Program informs, equips and inspires educators, counselors, early childhood practitioners and human services professionals dealing with many difficult and complex issues each day.

Our exclusive curriculum, available directly from Lakeside’s IPED, is comprehensive in topics that promote emotional and relational health in children and families. Successful outcomes consistently occur as a result.

With more than 50 years of outstanding service through its many programs, Lakeside is proud to be an international advocate and resource for kids and families.

© All rights reserved, Diane Wagenhals, IPED, 2009.

If you would like to subscribe to our parenting tips, please follow us on Twitter at GerryatLakeside

If you’d like to learn more about our professional development training and CEUs, please complete the form below.

Understand Your Child’s Temperament to Help You Nurture and Discipline

By understanding how your child interacts with the world, you are better able to accept your child and be relieved of unfair guilt regarding his behavior that is temperament-driven.

Understanding your child’s temperament helps you respond better to him especially during challenges. Children do not choose their temperamental blueprints. Temperament is born as part of your whole child.

What is temperament?

The term temperament refers to the behavioral style or manner of the child. Temperament traits may be divided into three categories and occur in varying degree: 1) the easy child, 2) the slow-to-warm child, and 3) the spirited, more challenging child.

1. The temperamentally easy child is generally positive in mood and reaction to new stimuli, is fairly adaptable, mildly reactive and has regular biological functions. This child quickly develops regular sleeping and eating patterns, takes to new foods easily and smoothly makes transitions to new situations.

1. The temperamentally slow-to-warm child is more moderate in mood and reactions. Mainly, this child has slow adaptability and is often considered shy or cautious. This child can evoke frustration in unaware parents or teachers; however, when given enough time to adjust and adapt to new situations and changes without undue pressure, the slow-to-warm child can show quiet and positive interest and find safe ways to engage.

1. The temperamentally spirited or more challenging child is characterized by a combination of extremes in temperament, such as irregularity in biological functions, a strong withdrawal response to new stimuli, poor adaptability to change, a predominately negative mood, high levels and a high intensity of positive or negative response. It is important to remember that these traits are difficult for your child as well as for you.

Goodness-of-fit: accepting your and your child’s temperament traits

Parents may have a natural tendency to place greater value on certain temperament characteristics. Then, when parents’ expectations and a child’s temperament traits do not mesh, it can be difficult for both parent and child to accept one another.

A goodness-of-fit between a child and his parents occurs when his temperamental characteristics and capacities mesh well with his parents’ temperamental traits. Parents more easily embrace who their child is temperamentally. This good fit usually results in healthy emotional development and functioning. For parents whose temperaments differ from their child, acceptance may require more understanding and intentionality.

How you interact with your child is affected by your and your child’s temperaments. For example, highly active parents may not even be aware of the high activity level of their child. The goal is not to change the child’s temperament but to minimize stress and develop coping strategies for traits that are more challenging.

PARENTING ACTION STEPS

1. Know the characteristics of your child’s age and stage of development, using ADUMS and MRS PIES
2. Use the Observer Role and reframe as necessary
3. Strengthen your child’s Iceberg
4. Establish fair and appropriate expectations using your assessments.

Expert information from IPED

This information is brought to you by Lakeside Educational Network’s IPED Program. The Institute for Professional and Educational Development Program informs, equips and inspires educators, counselors, early childhood practitioners and human services professionals dealing with many difficult and complex issues each day.

Our exclusive curriculum, available directly from Lakeside’s IPED, is comprehensive in topics that promote emotional and relational health in children and families. Successful outcomes consistently occur as a result.

With more than 50 years of outstanding service through its many programs, Lakeside is proud to be an international advocate and resource for kids and families.

© All rights reserved, Diane Wagenhals, IPED, 2009.

If you would like to subscribe to our parenting tips, please follow us on Twitter at GerryatLakeside

If you’d like to learn more about our professional development training and CEUs, please complete the form below.

Without being articulated, understood or even realized, your underlying issues can color your relationship with your child and can affect her behavior.

Underlying issues typically are the result of chronically unmet needs or deep unhealed wounds that spill out onto other areas of life.

Diffusing underlying issues

Underlying issues usually exist as combinations of issues. For example separation may be tied to rejection, sexuality to communication, and anger to power.

When you become aware of feelings arising from issues that are being triggered for you, you are in a much better position to monitor your reaction and acknowledge that you are dealing with more than just the present situation. This awareness can diffuse the intensity of the reaction and free you to deal with the underlying issues.

Some basic underlying issues parents may face

• Abandonment
• Abuse
• Attachment
• Attitudes
• Balancing
• Boundaries
• Clarity
• Communication
• Competition
• Confidence
• Control
• Credit
• Criticism
• Decisions
• Discipline
• Exhaustion
• Expectations
• Fairness (Justice)
• Family of Origin
• Feelings and Emotions
• Guilt
• Hyper-vigilance
• Images versus Reality
• Isolation
• Loyalty
• Magical Thinking
• Marital Conflicts
• Maturity
• Needs
• Privacy
• Rejection
• Respect
• Responsibility
• Self-esteem
• Separation
• Sexuality
• Temperament
• Territory

PARENTING ACTION STEPS:

1.         First use the Observer Role

2.         Consider possible underlying issues and needs

3.         Reframe as necessary

4.         Strengthen your child’s Iceberg

Expert information from IPED

This information is brought to you by Lakeside Educational Network’s IPED Program. The Institute for Professional and Educational Development Program informs, equips and inspires educators, counselors, early childhood practitioners and human services professionals dealing with many difficult and complex issues each day.

Our exclusive curriculum, available directly from Lakeside’s IPED, is comprehensive in topics that promote emotional and relational health in children and families. Successful outcomes consistently occur as a result.

With more than 50 years of outstanding service through its many programs, Lakeside is proud to be an international advocate and resource for kids and families.

© All rights reserved, Diane Wagenhals, IPED, 2009.

If you would like to subscribe to our parenting tips, please follow us on Twitter at GerryatLakeside

If you’d like to learn more about our professional development training and CEUs, please complete the form below.

To parent most effectively you need to recognize the many dynamics associated with your child’s growth and development. Seeing your child’s blueprint helps you understand the relationships of growth dynamics to your “whole child.”

How is this viewpoint helpful?

• You gain a fairer view of your child by considering the multi-dimensional perspective of development, uniqueness, environment and maturity.
• Your expand awareness and understanding when you take into account that your child is developing in many areas simultaneously.

ADUMS

To appreciate your whole child, be aware of the following five major areas

A = Ages and stages,

D = Developmental tasks

U = Uniqueness

M = Maturity levels, and

S = Situational factors (ADUMS)

MRS PIES

For each of the five areas of ADUMS, parents can consider their child:

M = Morally

R = Relationally

S = Spiritually

P = Physically

I = Intellectually

E = Emotionally, and

S = Socially (MRS PIES)

Ages and Stages (the “A” in ADUMS)

Certain children’s behaviors are characteristic of specific ages. For example, many toddlers become fearful about being sucked down the drain when the water goes out of the bathtub, an intellectual (the “I” in Mrs. Pies) aspect of an age and stage.

Parents can learn more about predictable age-related stages, including the ways children cycle in and out of equilibrium and disequilibrium and being more inward-focused or more outward-focused, by reading some of the many books on child development.

Developmental Tasks (the “D” in ADUMS)

Developmental tasks are the broader jobs of childhood, during which children are propelled into learning life skills.

Each of these can be considered in terms of MRS PIES. (This list of the developmental tasks for the ages between birth and adolescence is adapted from author, Dorothy Corkhill Briggs, Your Child’s Self-Esteem.)

Tasks of the early years (ages 2 to 6):

• establish separateness and autonomy
• gain achievement and recognition
• develop attachment to opposite-sexed parent

Tasks of the middle years (ages 6 to 12):

• form preference for and identification with others of same sex
• extend mastery and autonomy
• define self through reflections of people outside the family
• take adult role models of the same sex
• form a conscience

Tasks of the adolescent years (ages 12 and up):

• establish final independence from family and age mates
• learn how to relate to the opposite sex
• prepare for an occupation
• establish a workable and meaningful philosophy of life

Your child’s uniqueness

Your child’s unique inborn temperament, learning style, brain dominance, and other qualities will affect how she behaves moving through various stages and working on various tasks. Each aspect of MRS PIES will reflect your child’s uniqueness.

Maturity levels and MRS PIES

Maturity represents how motivated and capable a child is with regard to a task.

As children move through their Ages and Stages of growth (Morally, Relationally, Spiritually, Physically, Intellectually, Emotionally and Socially—MRS PIES) and work on completing their developmental tasks with their many unique qualities, and are influenced by life’s situational factors, their levels of maturity in each aspect will impact how easily they accomplish tasks.

For example, a child with a high level of social maturity will find it easier to build peer relationships than a child who is less socially mature.

Situational factors

Situational factors are the many circumstances that occur in a child’s world:

• birth order
• dynamics of rules and structure of the child’s family
• the family’s socio-economic situation
• a child’s neighborhood
• accidents or illnesses
• people who influence him or her

Situational factors will touch each aspect of a child’s MRS PIES growth process.

What it means to appreciate the whole child

Children tend to grow in bursts or spurts. If you look at your child at any given moment considering ADUMS and MRS PIES and growth spurts, you get a true picture of your child at that moment: quite amazing and complicated!

With this understanding of your “whole child,” you are in a much better position to decide what an emotionally and relationally healthy response might be in a given situation. You are more equipped to help keep your child’s Iceberg strong.

We encourage parents to remember that the description of any child will change over time. This knowledge and appreciation for the whole child also can help lessen your sense of disappointment or frustration for challenging behaviors that really are not intentional on your child’s part.

A word about brain development

Strong and healthy brain wiring appears to occur when children receive abundant love from those who are caregivers. It is influenced by genuine responses to a child’s needs and being surrounded by trustworthy, caring people. We need to create environments for children that are “brain-wiring friendly.”

PARENTING ACTION STEPS:

1. Become more aware of the characteristics associated with your child’s age and stage of development using ADUMS and MRS PIES
2. Remember that change takes place over time in the context of relationships
3. Use the Observer Role and reframe responses as necessary
4. Appreciate why your child behaves as he does so you may nurture and strengthen his  Iceberg
5. Establish fair and appropriate expectations using your assessments

Expert information from IPED

This information is brought to you by Lakeside Educational Network’s IPED Program. The Institute for Professional and Educational Development Program informs, equips and inspires educators, counselors, early childhood practitioners and human services professionals dealing with many difficult and complex issues each day.

Our exclusive curriculum, available directly from Lakeside’s IPED, is comprehensive in topics that promote emotional and relational health in children and families. Successful outcomes consistently occur as a result.

With more than 50 years of outstanding service through its many programs, Lakeside is proud to be an international advocate and resource for kids and families.

© All rights reserved, Diane Wagenhals, IPED, 2009.

If you would like to subscribe to our parenting tips, please follow us on Twitter at GerryatLakeside

If you’d like to learn more about our professional development training and CEUs, please complete the form below.

]]> http://www.lakesidelink.com/parenting-tips/2009/12/865/feed/ 1 http://www.lakesidelink.com/parenting-tips/2009/12/858/ http://www.lakesidelink.com/parenting-tips/2009/12/858/#comments Fri, 11 Dec 2009 15:01:18 +0000 rjacoby http://www.lakesidelink.com/?p=858 The ability to recognize needs in your child, yourself and your relationships is a valuable tool for a parent.

Behavior is need-driven. Therefore, if you can figure out the need behind a behavior, you are better equipped to understand, modify or change that behavior. Conversely, when you do not see the need behind the behavior, it is easier to become frustrated, critical, or disappointed.

Getting needs met straight

Much of parenting involves learning to apply the key principles of needs.

You can become more aware and effective when you step into the Observer Role to consider what needs are being reflected in displayed behaviors so you can better understand how to respond.

For example, young children experience minor needs with the same intensity as major ones, and they are not able to understand that other people may have needs at the same time as they do. Because parents may realize young children are not yet ready to modulate or be empathetic, they can shift their expectations and responses to be fairer and more reasonable.

It may take time to observe and recognize which needs are operating at a given time, and even then some needs may remain unclear. However, when you can reframe behaviors that seem unreasonable or difficult as a manifestation of an unmet need, you are often in a better position to relax, calm and regroup. Then, you are better prepared to uncover the real needs.

Sometimes needs require prompt attention, even if they can only be treated symptomatically. If a need does not get met “straight,” typically, it will bet met “crooked.” Straight is always better.

Children use certain behaviors to signal a need. The more aware you are of the nature of needs, how they might be expressed and how to meet them in healthy ways, the better prepared you are to assess and understand your child’s behavior.

By focusing on understanding your child’s need, you are guided in how to interact and respond to your child’s behavior in an emotionally healthy way. In an environment that appreciates the value of needs, more appropriate behavior is likely to result.

Your child may have several needs occurring simultaneously. The strongest need will win; and once a need has been satisfactorily met, it no longer strongly motivates the child’s behavior.

If a need is blocked, the child may try to meet the need by developing some form of coping behavior. For example, a child who is frustrated in efforts to get his mother’s attention may “accidentally” create a spill to receive at least negative attention (this is how a child’s need gets met “crooked.”)

When a child’s needs are consistently met in predictable and healthy ways, the child will be calmer and less demanding, more able to focus. She will grow in self-esteem and trust. Because her Iceberg’s emotional and relational layers are strengthened, behaviors are more positive.

Unmet childhood needs and need deficits

Need deficits can easily spiral.

You may have come into adulthood with significant needs unmet and feel sadness or pain sometimes in dealing with your child. These feelings may be a product of your unresolved childhood experiences.

Consider that a toddler is predictably very needy physically, emotionally and socially almost all of the time. His mother has extra needs herself during this time. She needs

• lots of insight into her child’s behavior
• recognition for the important job she is doing
• a good night’s rest
• ways to fulfill all of her in-home and outside-home responsibilities, and
• some time alone

Under so much stress, she may have trouble fulfilling her role as caregiver and may not have energy left to appreciate other familial relationships. The stress created from these feelings of apparent neglect can intensify and negatively impact everyone in the family.

She, too, deserves support to adequately meet her needs. Mothers and fathers both deserve to have needs met, and their relationship also has its own needs as well!

PARENTING ACTION STEPS:

1. First use the Observer Role
2. Be clear about needs vs. wants
3. Identify underlying needs
4. Meet your child’s needs in straight, healthy ways

Expert information from IPED

This information is brought to you by Lakeside Educational Network’s IPED Program. The Institute for Professional and Educational Development Program informs, equips and inspires educators, counselors, early childhood practitioners and human services professionals dealing with many difficult and complex issues each day.

Our exclusive curriculum, available directly from Lakeside’s IPED, is comprehensive in topics that promote emotional and relational health in children and families. Successful outcomes consistently occur as a result.

With more than 50 years of outstanding service through its many programs, Lakeside is proud to be an international advocate and resource for kids and families.

© All rights reserved, Diane Wagenhals, IPED, 2009.

If you would like to subscribe to our parenting tips, please follow us on Twitter at GerryatLakeside

If you’d like to learn more about our professional development training and CEUs, please complete the form below.

High, healthy self-esteem strengthens your child’s Iceberg and gives him a strong, reliable foundation for success.

The heart of healthy parenting is an appreciation for how emotional health and self-esteem develops and is maintained in the family. The parent becomes the psychological “mirror” through which a child sees himself. (concept source: Dorothy Corkille Briggs, Your Child’s Self-Esteem)

Your child is born without a sense of self and does not automatically “grow” a sense of positive self-esteem. Self-esteem develops as your child collects, sorts and interprets the millions of verbal and nonverbal messages he receives from those around him.

The emotionally healthy child has a clear, respectful sense of self.

Children need to feel cherished, prized and special. They will value themselves as they sense they are valued by the important people in their lives, particularly their parents.

Therefore, children need explicit messages, tangible expressions and living experiences describing their lovability, worth and competence. They need consistent specific nurturing messages over time as their Iceberg’s develop.

Be aware than an unrealistic self-esteem can manifest into someone who is arrogant, conceited, narcissistic and self-righteous. This behavior occurs when the child has been repeatedly told, “You’re the best, the smartest, the most talented, the greatest, etc.”

These global messages, though intended to counter messages of unworthiness and shame, can be unhealthy for several reasons: 1) they are inflated and untrue; 2) they create attitudes of irresponsibility; and, 3) they promote selfishness and self-centeredness.

Further, these inaccurate labeling messages can create enormous obstacles for children and a bad reputation for the true meaning of healthy self-esteem.

Healthy self-esteem is not competitive

Healthy self-esteem does not come by pushing aside another person. It is not achieved through finding fault, blaming or accusing others, or proving oneself more capable or successful than another.

The Cornerstones of Emotional Safety

Blending the theories of authors Briggs and Nagy (Fair Giving and Entitlement), we can discover that the degree to which each of the following cornerstones is consistently present in a child’s life influences the degree of core self-esteem he or she will develop.

Unconditional love for a child exists when he knows he will be accepted warts and all—with all his vulnerabilities, uncertainties, needs, or mistakes, when he can trust that he will not be shamed, blamed, held inappropriately responsible, or made to feel guilty or intimidated.

PARENTING ACTION STEPS:

1. Remember you are a mirror to your child
2. Consistently nurture authenticity, promote assets, affirm potential
3. Build the cornerstones of emotional safety
4. Maintain a secure base

Expert information from IPED

This information is brought to you by Lakeside Educational Network’s IPED Program. The Institute for Professional and Educational Development Program informs, equips and inspires educators, counselors, early childhood practitioners and human services professionals dealing with many difficult and complex issues each day.

Our exclusive curriculum, available directly from Lakeside’s IPED, is comprehensive in topics that promote emotional and relational health in children and families. Successful outcomes consistently occur as a result.

With more than 50 years of outstanding service through its many programs, Lakeside is proud to be an international advocate and resource for kids and families.

© All rights reserved, Diane Wagenhals, IPED, 2009.

If you would like to subscribe to our parenting tips, please follow us on Twitter at GerryatLakeside

If you’d like to learn more about our professional development training and CEUs, please complete the form below.

Just as you can nurture, support, or empower in your relationships, you can neglect or abuse yourself or others. The consequences when neglect and abuse occur can be dire.

The reason a person can or cannot give or receive fairly in a relationship is almost always found , in his or her history of giving and receiving.

The degree to which there is a fair balance of give and take in a family’s relationships is called the Ethical Dimension, a brilliant theory of relationships created by Ivan Boszorme-Nagy, founder of Contextual Therapy. It respects a family’s legacies and the impact of the ethical dimensions of these relationships on future generations.

Think about the balance of giving and receiving in your family over the course of generations.

When parents give fairly and appropriately to a child in one generation, that child is then freed to give fairly and appropriately to his own children.

Giving to and receiving from others in a fair and balanced way earns a person constructive entitlement—the right to give and receive fairly in all relationships including the one you have within yourself.

Conversely, when parents neglect or hurt their children, these grown children earn entitlement, or the ethical right to compensation called destructive entitlement. This compensation (destructive entitlement) can have hurtful implications for others, including the children themselves.

The person who has earned destructive entitlement is not obligated to give fairly to others or to himself because he has an ethical “claim” to redeem. This redemptive process has a destructive impact. If the person cashes in the claim, others are hurt. Yet, if it is not cashed in, he or she is cheated.

These entitlements are not about feelings of entitlement. They are about earned rights that exist within a person.

Often people are unaware that they and others do what they do because earned entitlements are the underlying forces behind behaviors.

Children fairly given to, who also are encouraged to give both within and outside the family according to their own developmental levels and abilities, learn that such giving results in a positive spiral of self-validation, self-worth and the freedom to act.

In contrast, children who are discouraged from giving earn destructive entitlement, along with a lack of validation that promotes low self-worth and lessened abilities to give fairly in other relationships, along with an ethically earned right to be less trustworthy.

Children don’t give back in equal measure

Children give on a scale all their own. Because a child’s resources are limited, parents may not recognize the importance of a child’s offerings nor the value of the parent’s appreciation for those offerings.

Presents can be given in the form of help around the house, drawings, special rocks, hugs, favors, apologies, attempts to make amends, and through words of love and comfort. The important element to recognize is that children are learning how to give and are receiving credit for their giving.

In this dynamic of fair giving and receiving, children have opportunities to give and have their gifts accepted and valued while simultaneously receiving appropriate nurturing. This process earns them constructive entitlement.

Children who are overindulged, who are not expected to give fairly or make amends for broken trust, also earn destructive entitlement. Like some more obvious forms of abuse and neglect, overindulgence can have equally severe consequences, even though over-giving can seem so much more benign.

Parentification

In parentification, children are forced to give too much through bearing inappropriate responsibilities, making the parent-child relationship ethically unfair and off-balance.

The lack of balance can unfairly pressure children to over-give and can rob them of the right to be fairly cared for.

Sometimes parents expect children to take on the burden of unfair responsibilities beyond the level of their maturity, developmental skill, or abililty.

Extreme cases of parentification include situations in which children are given such overwhelming tasks as continually taking care of younger siblings, keeping family secrets or accepting physical abuse while protecting the abusive parent.

How to heal destructive entitlement? Give credit for unfairness

When a child (or an adult) has been given too much or too little and has built up some degree of destructive entitlement, one of the most healing approaches is to give him credit for the unfairness. Then, as unfairness is acknowledged and appreciated, there can be a positive shift in the balance of fairness, and as a result the person can let go of some of the anger, hurt and right for revenge.

Simultaneously, the person needs to give to herself and to others fairly in order to begin building constructive entitlement, making amends for any destructive behavior.

Then through the process of receiving credit and acknowledgments for unfairness, while making amends and giving fairly to others, over time, the shift from destructive to constructive entitlement can occur.

The amount of time to heal depends upon the severity of the destructive entitlement.

Additionally, the person who has been forced to over-give can assume the right to set limits on giving. Destructive cycles can be broken when patterns of over- or under-giving are stopped so that future generations no longer need to suffer from and struggle with the legacies of unfairness and earned destructive entitlement.

By interrupting destructive patterns of entitlement and replacing them with constructive patterns of entitlement, parents have the incredible power to change unhealthy family legacies for themselves and for future generations. How awesome is that?

PARENTING ACTION STEPS:

1.         Consider your family’s legacies and your loyalties to them

2.         Learn to recognize constructive and destructive entitlement

3.         Break patterns of over- or under-giving

4.         Intentionally give fairly to yourself and your child

5.         Encourage your child to give inside and outside the family

Expert information from IPED

This information is brought to you by Lakeside Educational Network’s IPED Program. The Institute for Professional and Educational Development Program informs, equips and inspires educators, counselors, early childhood practitioners and human services professionals dealing with many difficult and complex issues each day.

Our exclusive curriculum, available directly from Lakeside’s IPED, is comprehensive in topics that promote emotional and relational health in children and families. Successful outcomes consistently occur as a result.

With more than 50 years of outstanding service through its many programs, Lakeside is proud to be an international advocate and resource for kids and families.

© All rights reserved, Diane Wagenhals, IPED, 2009.

If you would like to subscribe to our parenting tips, please follow us on Twitter at GerryatLakeside

If you’d like to learn more about our professional development training and CEUs, please complete the form below.

Global language is less specific and tends to be critical of the child’s personhood rather than of a specific action or behavior. Often language that uses more descriptive, specific and tentative words is more accurate and less threatening.

Evaluative vs. descriptive words  

It is important for parents to appreciate the differences between use of evaluative and descriptive language.

Evaluative words such as “good, bad, kind, cruel, nice, and mean” imply judgment and can be highly emotional in their transmission and reception. Descriptive words do not judge; they state facts.

By confusing evaluations with descriptions, opinions can be stated as facts, and personal beliefs can be presented as truths.

If the distinction is not clear, value judgments may be accepted as facts. The danger of opinions becoming “facts” increases with the amount of authority one person has over another. Parents can state opinions as facts and children can struggle to determine what is real vs. what is subjective judgment.

Opinions stored as truths can be difficult to dislodge. They can impact your child’s iceberg and affect his relationship with you or others.

However, if you clearly identify your statement as being a personal evaluation, then your child is freer to appreciate that this is indeed your opinion. The information can then be stored differently and can be more easily modified by your child’s own experiences.

• Example: “The way I see it is…” vs. “This is the way it is.”

More global vs. specific and more absolute vs. tentative language

Global and absolute words, such as “always, never, should, perfect, totally, completely, must and can’t” are exaggerations. Such words give no leeway and can make the receiver feel defensive, labeled or trapped.

More specific words keep the conversation in the present; they speak of what is happening now. More tentative words such as “sometimes, maybe, possibly” usually are gentler and more accurate.

• Example: “You are always so disorganized!” Is a global and absolute evaluation.
• “Today you seem to be struggling to get your homework organized,” is more specific and tentative and probably will be better received.

 Positive absolutes 

Positive absolutes are blanket statements that use words like “always or never” and can be heavy to bear.

• Example: “You always do your best” can have a surprising negative impact because of the pressure it places on the receiver.
• Instead, a specific positive statement noting one-time situations eliminates the burden of expecting anyone to always be a certain way: “I counted on you to wash the car today, and you really came through for me” is healthier than “I can always count on you no matter what I ask you to do.”

The impact of directive statements 

Directives are statements that tell the receiver what he can or cannot, should or should not do. These kinds of statements can evoke negative feelings and can be inflammatory and feel controlling.

 More tentative statements typically are less threatening.

• Example: “It might help you think this through and you might discover you know what to do” is less directive than “You have to do this now, this way…”

When you need to use evaluative and directive language

There are times when disciplining children that directive and definitive language is more appropriate. (“In our family we value kindness. Therefore, no one may purposefully hurt another person or pet, period.”)

There are appropriate absolute directives that serve an important function because they define values and provide both clear structure and boundaries.

PARENTING ACTION STEPS:

1. First use the Observer Role.
2. Consider your power to reframe your and your child’s world.
3. Be more specific, tentative and descriptive with your language.
4. Use evaluative, absolute, and global words with care

Expert information from IPED

This information is brought to you by Lakeside Educational Network’s IPED Program. The Institute for Professional and Educational Development Program informs, equips and inspires educators, counselors, early childhood practitioners and human services professionals dealing with many difficult and complex issues each day.

Our exclusive curriculum, available directly from Lakeside’s IPED, is comprehensive in topics that promote emotional and relational health in children and families. Successful outcomes consistently occur as a result.

With more than 50 years of outstanding service through its many programs, Lakeside is proud to be an international advocate and resource for kids and families.

© All rights reserved, Diane Wagenhals, IPED, 2009.

If you would like to subscribe to our parenting tips, please follow us on Twitter at GerryatLakeside

If you’d like to learn more about our professional development training and CEUs, please complete the form below. 

The words we use carry positive and negative connotations, and implications and assumptions that affect our thoughts and, in some cases, can actually create our attitudes about things.

Words can ignite images, thoughts and feelings. Evaluative words or attributions (names or labels such as “dumb, lazy or bad”) you impose on your child could eventually become internalized into your child’s self-image. When these evaluations or attributions become part of your child’s core belief system, they can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

As you would assume, healthy images promote healthy self-esteem. Consequently, unfair, distorted images can have a profoundly negative impact.

Think of the words you use as a frame. They carry images, attitudes and values that may or may not be appropriate to what is being described or discussed.

Parents frame the world by labeling the many behaviors and situations around them.

Reframing involves changing, discarding or at least acknowledging the highly subjective nature of a particular perspective. It requires the ability to see the factual aspects of the situation as one thing and the frame as another, just as the picture on the wall is one thing and its frame is another.

When you reframe in a specific, nonevaluative way, you often change the reactions and attitudes of the message-receiver because your new description activates a different, healthier set of images, thoughts and feelings in his mind. (This communication skill works with children and adults.)

When reframing a word or perspective, it is a sound rule to use less emotional and more objective, descriptive words.

For example, shifting the emphasis from the child onto you, the speaker wo takes responsibility for your words, can be more emotionally and relationally healthy.

• Less Healthy Frame: “My child is selfish about sharing.”
• Healthier Reframe: “I see that in this stage of development my child values ownership.”
• Less Healthy Frame: “You are an annoying kid!”
• Healthier Reframe: “It is difficult for me to concentrate when you bounce the ball next to me!”

It is important to stress that reframing does not suggest using euphemisms for negative behaviors. You are not obligated to “sweeten” your reactions, bury your feelings, go against your values, or excuse inappropriate or destructive actions.

The value of reframing is in appreciating the power you have intentionally to frame and reframe your and your child’s world. Reframing allows you to make statements that offer a more accurate description of your perspective and your child’s responsibility.

With a bit of practice, you can become more intentional about changing the frames you use in your parenting. With reframing, you have the power to use more descriptive (”There is mud on your shoes”) vs. evaluative words (“You are a sloppy mess.”)

You’ll soon enjoy how descriptive words evoke healthier ways of interacting and behaving.  

PARENTING ACTION STEPS:

1. First use Observer Role
2. Consider the message you want the receiver to receive 
3. Take responsibility for your words
4. Evaluate and revise your message as needed

Expert information from IPED

This information is brought to you by Lakeside Educational Network’s IPED Program. The Institute for Professional and Educational Development Program informs, equips and inspires educators, counselors, early childhood practitioners and human services professionals dealing with many difficult and complex issues each day.

Our exclusive curriculum, available directly from Lakeside’s IPED, is comprehensive in topics that promote emotional and relational health in children and families. Successful outcomes consistently occur as a result.

With more than 50 years of outstanding service through its many programs, Lakeside is proud to be an international advocate and resource for kids and families.

© All rights reserved, Diane Wagenhals, IPED, 2009.

If you would like to subscribe to our parenting tips, please follow us on Twitter at GerryatLakeside

If you’d like to learn more about our professional development training and CEUs, please complete the form below.

The impact of family loyalties can feel like an almost ghostly presence.

Loyalty occurs because we bond to parents who give us life and the nurturing we need to survive. We express this loyalty by defending or repeating the beliefs, roles, rules, values, and traditions of our parents and, therefore, of our family of origin.

You may have heard family loyalties referred to as legacies or baggage. We can be unaware that this loyalty occurs and that it is the force behind our behaviors.

All families hand down a legacy of beliefs, attitudes, rules and behaviors through a complex tapestry of messages about those beliefs, attitudes, rules and behaviors.

Each family member learns and eventually internalizes these legacies.

• Sometimes our loyalties are to emotionally and relationally healthy beliefs and processes.
• Sometimes we inherit less healthy beliefs and practices.
• But, regardless of how healthy our loyalties are, because each of us is loyal to his or her parents, we each unconsciously strive to maintain the consistent tapestry of our family’s beliefs and practices.

The grip of family loyalty can be so powerful that a family member who begins to question unhealthy traits often feels guilty for being disloyal, as if he has abandoned his family or betrayed a trust…even though he cognitively can understand the need for change.

Breaches in loyalty can cause upheavals in family relationships. It takes courage, persistence and intentionality to work through the stress and difficulties toward healthier ways of parenting.

New skills require conscious thought and intentional implementation. Later, when the family adjusts to these new skills, former destructive patterns can be reduced and even eliminated, while healthy ones can be intentionally preserved. Eliminating destructive patterns may take patience, as change occurs in the context of relationships over time.

With new skills, new loyalties to emotionally healthier practices can become a part of the family system. Then the children of this family can be loyal to parents who are providing healthier ways of interacting and behaving. A new legacy is now created!

PARENTING ACTION STEPS:

1. Consider the Steps of Growth—be open to new awareness and understanding
2. Consider your current family and your family of origin
3. Appreciate the power family loyalties has on you
4. Intentionally nurture healthy family loyalties while gently modifying unhealthy ones

Expert information from IPED

This information is brought to you by Lakeside Educational Network’s IPED Program. The Institute for Professional and Educational Development Program informs, equips and inspires educators, counselors, early childhood practitioners and human services professionals dealing with many difficult and complex issues each day.

Our exclusive curriculum, available directly from Lakeside’s IPED, is comprehensive in topics that promote emotional and relational health in children and families. Successful outcomes consistently occur as a result.

With more than 50 years of outstanding service through its many programs, Lakeside is proud to be an international advocate and resource for kids and families.

© All rights reserved, Diane Wagenhals, IPED, 2009.

If you would like to subscribe to our parenting tips, please follow us on Twitter at GerryatLakeside

If you’d like to learn more about our professional development training and CEUs, please complete the form below.

A family ensures a degree of protection from the world for each member, especially its children. Further, families are comprised of networks of relationships in which there are different degrees of connection and respect, and different ways in which power is exerted or shared among the individuals within them.

Just as there are no perfect children or parents, there are no perfect families. For example, you may have received uneven or less healthy parenting when you were growing up, and thus have decided that as a result you will parent your children in healthier ways.

When you understand the powers at work in families, you are in a better position to promote emotional health in your own family system.

You belong to two families

Each of us has two families to consider:

• our family of origin in which we were a child, and
• our current family in which we live as an adult.

Family dynamics are often extremely subtle and difficult to assess. Loyalties to your family of origin can make you feel guilty when your current family operates in conflict with those loyalties.

Over time, society has changed the definition of and also how we measure the success of the family.

In the past, the success or health of a family was measured by outward appearances Today, success and health are measured by how well we care for each other at an emotional level. (See the IPED Iceberg, Relationship, Observer Role, Trust, Change and Steps of Growth pages.)

We expect, and are expected, to know how to be emotionally and relationally healthy without any foundation provided for those expectations. How can we expect that family members will provide emotional and relational health as a key measure of a family’s success with little or no modeling, training or preparation!

Parents in today’s families often are often poorly equipped to fulfill these expectations because the relational skills and knowledge that were lacking in the past generations do not magically materialize into the present ones.

As a result, it is no wonder so many families are struggling to be successful.

Traits of Healthy Families

(The following is an integrated list of the key traits and qualities of healthy families adapted from Dolores Curran’s, Traits of a Healthy Family, and Janit Woititz’s, Emotionally Healthy Parenting)

• The degree to which each family member communicates, listens, affirms and supports one another
• The degree to which unconditional love is provided by each family member.
• The degree to which there is respect for each family member’s boundaries.
• The degree to which all feelings are tolerated by each family member.
• The degree to which there are reasonable limits and structure for each family member.
• The degree to which there is organization and planning along with the ability to respond to a crisis by each family member.
• The degree to which trust is developed by each family member.
• The degree to which there is a sense of play, humor and shared leisure time by each family member.
• The sense of rituals and traditions for each family member.
• The degree to which each family member receives respect.
• The degree to which parents teach and guide.
• The degree to which the demands made on children are age and developmentally appropriate.
• The frequency of affirmations to children.

PARENTING ACTION STEPS

1. Use the Observer Role to help you gain new awareness and understanding of your family
2. Consider your current family and your family of origin
3. Remember that relationships directly impact emotional health
4. Remember that change takes place in the context of relationships over time

Expert information from IPED

This information is brought to you by Lakeside Educational Network’s IPED Program. The Institute for Professional and Educational Development Program informs, equips and inspires educators, counselors, early childhood practitioners and human services professionals dealing with many difficult and complex issues each day.

Our exclusive curriculum, available directly from Lakeside’s IPED, is comprehensive in topics that promote emotional and relational health in children and families. Successful outcomes consistently occur as a result.

With more than 50 years of outstanding service through its many programs, Lakeside is proud to be an international advocate and resource for kids and families.

© All rights reserved, Diane Wagenhals, IPED, 2009.

If you would like to subscribe to our parenting tips, please follow us on Twitter at GerryatLakeside

If you’d like to learn more about our professional development training and CEUs, please complete the form below.

They think they might be missing a parenting-approach because it is tough to believe some behaviors are normal—or even serve a useful purpose.

Are they missing a simple shortcut? Should change be so difficult?

Three principles of change

Change:

• Is a complex, multi-faceted, dynamic subject
• Is a part of each life and each relationship, and
• Occurs in the context of relationships over time

No one can forecast with certainty how much time will be needed for change to occur. It occurs when there is a noticeable shift in an attitude, belief or behavior.

 Some changes are more difficult than others

Some changes are more complicated than others, and some may take longer to achieve.  For example, it can be anxiety-producing to make changes that challenge a family loyalty or that require a great deal of work.

We believe parents can be comforted (and perhaps disappointed) to learn there usually is not a magical quick fix solution to a problem or challenging behavior.

Instead, there is education and understanding and an ongoing process of applying multiple emotionally and relationally healthy approaches of parenting that over time build and strengthen your and your child’s Icebergs.

When you are introduced to new information, skills or principles, you may be influenced to move in a new direction. All change produces stress–even when it is positive, planned, desired or under your control. The degree to which it is a significant change affects the degree of stress you and those in relationships with you feel.

Change occurs in the context of relationships over time         

There are no tricks to changing your child’s behavior

When you learn the possible meanings behind behaviors–about your child’s budding emotional health and his development of self-esteem–you are learning about your child’s Iceberg and Steps of Growth.

It is with this awareness and your understanding of the importance of building trust and trustworthiness, fairness and safety that change will occur. You are building the relational health in the deepest layer of the Iceberg from which desired behavior emerges, accepting that change occurs in the context of relationships over time.

PARENTING ACTION STEPS:

1. First use the Observer Role
2. Increase your awareness of change and its impact on your and your child’s Iceberg
3. Intentionally and patiently nurture emotionally and relationally healthy change

Expert information from IPED

This information is brought to you by Lakeside Educational Network’s IPED Program. The Institute for Professional and Educational Development Program informs, equips and inspires educators, counselors, early childhood practitioners and human services professionals dealing with many difficult and complex issues each day.

Our exclusive curriculum, available directly from Lakeside’s IPED, is comprehensive in topics that promote emotional and relational health in children and families. Successful outcomes consistently occur as a result.

With more than 50 years of outstanding service through its many programs, Lakeside is proud to be an international advocate and resource for kids and families. 

© All rights reserved, Diane Wagenhals, IPED, 2009.

If you would like to subscribe to our parenting tips, please follow us on Twitter at GerryatLakeside

If you’d like to learn more about our professional development training and CEUs, please complete the form below.

As a parent you will face new challenges and need to make decisions about how to parent in healthy effective ways as your child grows. Over and over you will find yourself and your children moving through a predictable process of change.

The Steps of Growth and Change

Consider the process of growth as five steps: each successive step up is a growing process.

• the lowest is below ground level, where a person is unaware.
• you become aware
• you understand
• you take action
• then you reflect on the process and consider how well you are doing.

Basement

In the basement, there are two forms of unawareness: a) when you are aware that you are unaware; and, b) when you are unaware that there is anything possible of which to become aware. (You are unaware that you are unaware!)

Unaware to Aware

The first step of growth occurs when your unawareness changes to awareness.

• You experience an “Ah-ha” moment.
• You recognize something that you overlooked, had not seen or noticed.
• It can be a confusing, overwhelming, painful, or breathtaking moment when you become aware.
• However, like a genie now out of a bottle, once you are aware you cannot go back into the basement.

Not Time Yet To Act

Recognition can be a very difficult, frustrating place when you are not yet equipped with the skills and approaches that allow you to make changes and take action. Yet, it is a critical step that needs to occur before the action-step.

As eager as you may be to DO something quickly once you become aware, it is usually a healthier and more effective process to slow down and complete the understanding-step of the process.

Awareness to Understanding

The next growth-step is the change from awareness to understanding. Understanding involves taking in the information that explains the situation, behaviors, concerns, issues or problems so they make sense.

It is the clarifying step that provides the essence of “Oh, I see… Now it makes sense.”

The Action Step

The action step involves a decision based on knowledge gained from the steps of awareness and understanding.

• It could mean you make necessary changes
• it could mean you take no action so natural consequences will occur (or you realize your job is to accept and adjust.)
• It is an intentional step.

The Reflection Step

Reflection involves using the Observer Role to stop and look back down the steps to assess your progress.

• How effective were your actions in achieving the desired change?
• If your assessment is positive, your stairway-climb for this situation most likely is completed.
• If your assessment is less positive, perhaps you have yet to discover an awareness or gain an understanding that might influence your action plan.

Sometimes No Action Is Required

There are times when your new awareness and understanding are all that is needed to change an attitude (more on attitudes later).

The significance of your changed attitude may reduce your stress that, in turn, could lower stress in your relationship and within your child. Then, with less stress in your relationship and with your child, your child may change some things positively in her behavior.

Up and Down the Steps of Growth

You repeat these Steps of Growth whenever you grow, no matter what age.

By knowing about the Steps of Growth, you can be more self-aware, self-accepting, intentional and patient. You can also be more aware, accepting of and patient with the growth processes occurring in others, including your children.

Wherever you find yourself to be in the growth process, give yourself credit for how and why you are on each step. Give yourself time to experience each step so your growth can be meaningful and healthy for you and your children.

PARENTING ACTION STEPS:

1. First use the Observer Role.
2. Consider your child’s stage of development and needs (its impact on your and your child’s Iceberg.)
   
3. Be aware of your own growth process
4. Allow yourself and your child time and space to take each step (intentionally and patiently nurture emotionally and relationally healthy change)

Expert information from IPED

This information is brought to you by Lakeside Educational Network’s IPED Program. The Institute for Professional and Educational Development Program informs, equips and inspires educators, counselors, early childhood practitioners and human services professionals dealing with many difficult and complex issues each day.

Our exclusive curriculum, available directly from Lakeside’s IPED, is comprehensive in topics that promote emotional and relational health in children and families. Successful outcomes consistently occur as a result.

With more than 50 years of outstanding service through its many programs, Lakeside is proud to be an international advocate and resource for kids and families.

© All rights reserved, Diane Wagenhals, IPED, 2009.

If you would like to subscribe to our parenting tips, please follow us on Twitter at GerryatLakeside

If you’d like to learn more about our professional development training and CEUs, please complete the form below.

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Developing safety and trust with your child is a critical component of the parent-child relationship.

The process of gradually helping your child become trustworthy is essential for the development of your child’s emotional and relational health. A child who trusts feels safe and tends to make better decisions…a characteristic you will appreciate as your child becomes a teenager.

Five principles about trust you need to know:

• Trust exists on a continuum: To what degree is each person trusting? To what degree is each person trustworthy?
• Trust should not be assumed automatically as existing in a relationship just because a relationship exists.
• Trust is not static. It is earned and grown. It needs nurturing to be maintained, and it has the potential to be damaged and rebuilt.
• The impact of broken trust is cumulative; that means that each time trust is broken, more time is required to earn back that trust.
• Your own history of trust with others—including how your parents handled trust as you grew up—will deeply influence the degree to which you manage trust in fair and healthy ways with your children.

Children tend to break trust, but a parent can be prepared when this happens

As a parent, it can be a challenge to determine how much to trust your child in each situation. However, being prepared for the probability of your child breaking trust with you can feel empowering.

When trust is broken, you will need to help your child find a fair way to make amends and rebuild trust. “I’ll never trust you again!” is not a healthy response. Talking through the facts of what occurred to break trust is healthy and may clarify a way to make amends (See our Iceberg and Relationship Tweets).

When kids ask, “Don’t you trust me?” you may respond by explaining some principles of trust. Help them understand that trust is not an either/or concept and that it will take time to rebuild.

Remember, an essential skill for parents is to help children find acceptable ways to rebuild broken trust.

PARENTING ACTION STEPS:

1. Step back and observe behavior. (Observer Role)
2. Accept that you will promote and preserve trust with intentional, in charge decisions and actions.
3. Consider fair and acceptable ways for your child to make amends.
4. Discuss how trust may be rebuilt and follow through.

Expert information from IPED

This information is brought to you by Lakeside Educational Network’s IPED Program. The Institute for Professional and Educational Development Program informs, equips and inspires educators, counselors, early childhood practitioners and human services professionals dealing with many difficult and complex issues each day.

Our exclusive curriculum, available directly from Lakeside’s IPED, is comprehensive in topics that promote emotional and relational health in children and families. Successful outcomes consistently occur as a result.

With more than 50 years of outstanding service through its many programs, Lakeside is proud to be an international advocate and resource for kids and families.

© All rights reserved, Diane Wagenhals, IPED, 2009.

If you would like to subscribe to our parenting tips, please follow us on Twitter at GerryatLakeside

If you’d like to learn more about our professional development training and CEUs, please complete the form below.

When you use this technique, you can make more informed decisions based on rational thinking…not impulsive reacting. Plus, using the Observer Role is a critical skill for learning to actively listen (a skill you’ll learn about in later Tweets).

There is great power in being able to stand firm in the Observer Role and in refusing to be pushed into a more active role until you are ready.

What is the Observer Role?

Observing means:

• taking a detached but mindful perspective in a particular situation
• watching, analyzing, categorizing and considering the situation from many perspectives
• waiting before deciding to become actively involved.

Choosing the Observer Role offers you control and clarity

You are in the Observer Role when you choose to allow your two children to argue about who first had a toy, though you can hear (and even see) all that is happening.

As long as neither child is in danger, observing allows you to become clearer about the whole situation. If and when you decide to participate, you are better prepared to do so with confidence that you are not over-reacting.

Further, stepping back can also provide children with opportunities to resolve arguments themselves, a learning experience for them. ( See our Relationship Tweet ).

Choosing to participate involves you in what is happening

For example…A parent is in the participating role when he pulls two kids apart and tells them they may either decide how to play without anyone getting hurt or must play in separate rooms.

You make a better participant if you first intentionally assume the Observer Role.

It may take a few tries to learn when and how to be in each role and to avoid premature participation. Then, when you do participate you do so more fairly and effectively.

Using the Observer Role can:

• help you more intentionally build your child’s self-esteem
• appreciate her needs
• communicate appropriately
• help you apply the correct technique for each specific situation.

As you intentionally observe, as a parent you can grow in awareness and are more likely to parent in healthy, effective ways.

Keep your role clear

It can be difficult to maintain the Observer Role when others are urging you to participate.

It requires intentionality and self-control to observe. The Observer steps back and intentionally remains separate while still caring.

How the Observer Role helps you become an emotionally healthier parent

As Observer, you are gathering information. The more informed you are, the more likely your decisions will be healthy.

You automatically slow down, take in as much as you can, sort your information, organize it, and integrate it with other things you have observed. As a result, you gain confidence in your decisions because they are based on more information (including your child’s Iceberg.)

You may find you become less critical and less judgmental because you now understand someone or something better. You are more calm and in charge because you are so much clearer.

PARENTING ACTION STEPS:

1. Step back and observe behavior
2. Resist participating until you are ready
3. Watch, analyze and categorize the situation
4. Decide when you are adequately prepared to make a clearer, healthier decision about your actions

Expert information from IPED

This information is brought to you by Lakeside Educational Network’s IPED Program. The Institute for Professional and Educational Development Program informs, equips and inspires educators, counselors, early childhood practitioners and human services professionals dealing with many difficult and complex issues each day.

Our exclusive curriculum, available directly from Lakeside’s IPED, is comprehensive in topics that promote emotional and relational health in children and families. Successful outcomes consistently occur as a result.

With more than 50 years of outstanding service through its many programs, Lakeside is proud to be an international advocate and resource for kids and families.

© All rights reserved, Diane Wagenhals, IPED, 2009.

If you would like to subscribe to our parenting tips, please follow us on Twitter at GerryatLakeside.

If you’d like to learn more about our professional development training and CEUs, please complete the form below.

So, it follows that each relationship is dynamic. Each is always changing, has many dimensions and multiple levels.

These dynamics give each relationship its own energy—an energy which indicates the emotional health of the relationship.

Your relationship is a dance

A relationship may be considered as two people dancing, and an emotionally healthy relationship looks like a smooth, consistent, flowing dance:

• Sometimes the dance is slow and close
• Sometimes people step apart and appear more independent
• But no matter how the energy of the dance changes, the connection remains

The connection also carries the potential for the relationship to be wounded.

When wounds happen, the dance is interrupted and energy diminishes. What causes wounds to surface? What can we do when they occur?

Wounds often occur from unfair expectations or unclear communication.

If the relationship’s degree of emotional health is strong, the dance will resume, the energy flourishes. In less emotionally healthy relationships, understanding how energy flows within the relationship will help.

Our childhood impacts the energy of our relationships

Each of us carries deep within a collection of the negative and positive experiences of our childhood. . .especially those experiences that occurred in the first several years.

In our early years, we were totally dependent on the people who cared for us to facilitate the healthy nurturing and accomplishment of our developmental and relational tasks; that is, how our parents tended to our physical, emotional, intellectual, moral and social needs and development as we grew.

Some of us had parents who were not well-equipped to facilitate this growth. Perhaps no one guided them in their process of parenting. Or, perhaps they may not have been given what they needed while they were growing up.

Still, these experiences combined and became a “legacy” or history that we transport across generations into our current relationships. Our legacies affect the energy and emotional health of our relational “dances.”

In fact, we may be unaware that the legacy is there and then be confused when we witness its energy-draining impact: repeating a pattern that does not best serve our needs or bring us the successful results we desire–a cycle of less than emotionally healthy relationships.

What about your relationship with your child?

At the core of emotionally healthy parenting is a healthy relationship between parent and child. (See information on the IPED Iceberg.)

The degree of emotional health of your child relates directly to the degree of emotional health of your parent-child relationship. In other words, your legacy affects your relationship with your child and your child’s ability to build healthy relationships.

But no matter what your past, being aware of the legacy you carry forward is a step toward helping restore your relationships. By opening yourself to awareness, you begin understanding the process of helping yourself and your child move toward emotional health.

PARENTING ACTION STEPS:

We all have the potential to be emotionally healthy and to have emotionally healthy relationships.

1. Appreciate that most significant relationships are complex, dynamic and evolving.
2. Understand that relational health directly impacts emotional health and vice versa.
3. Consider the impact that past relationships may have on present ones. (When you are aware of your legacy, you become mindful of how it can impact your relationships.)
4. Everyone makes mistakes. Make amends when wounds occur. Genuinely saying, “I’m sorry” to your child also teaches a child that he or she has permission to grow and learn. (See information on the IPED Iceberg.)

Expert information from IPED

This information is brought to you by Lakeside Educational Network’s IPED Program. The Institute for Professional and Educational Development Program informs, equips and inspires educators, counselors, early childhood practitioners and human services professionals dealing with many difficult and complex issues each day.

Our exclusive curriculum, available directly from Lakeside’s IPED, is comprehensive in topics that promote emotional and relational health in children and families. Successful outcomes consistently occur as a result.

With more than 50 years of outstanding service through its many programs, Lakeside is proud to be an international advocate and resource for kids and families.

© All rights reserved, Diane Wagenhals, IPED, 2009.

If you would like to subscribe to our parenting tips, please follow us on Twitter at GerryatLakeside

If you’d like to learn more about our professional development training and CEUs, please complete the form below.

Many parents do. Actually, the behavior you see emerges from what lies below the surface, the part you see.

But your child’s behavior goes much deeper.

The two invisible layers of the iceberg—the parts hidden under water—together create the foundation for appropriate behavior, and the foundation is the primary focus.

The first invisible layer: emotional health

See the illustration, and think of the first invisible layer as your child’s degree of emotional health.

Emotional health is more than your child’s feelings. It involves his or her ability to:

• build and maintain healthy self-esteem and self-confidence,
• develop a core belief system that is nurturing and fair,
• grow in self-awareness, compassion and empathy
• manage his or her emotions, and
• live fully and creatively

The deeper invisible layer: relational health

Notice the bottom portion of the illustration. Your child’s ability to relate to others in a positive and healthy way stems from this deepest layer.

As a result of your child’s growing emotional health—the first hidden layer—he or she will be better able to build and maintain emotionally healthy relationships that involve:

• high levels of trust and trustworthiness
• a balance of fair giving and receiving, and
• the ability to be intimate in ways that are appropriate in the context of each specific relationship

Parents are icebergs, too

Your degree of emotional and relational health emerges from the hidden layers of your iceberg. These layers are the source of your confidence, self-esteem, ability to nurture and be nurtured, and appreciate life more fully.

How do your family relationships impact your—and your child’s—iceberg?

As an infant, your first relationships occur in the context of family where you find a world that proposes:

• to nurture and protect
• give structure
• meet needs, and
• help you learn to trust and become trustworthy

The degree to which your family was able to give these key elements of emotional health determines the degree of emotional health you have as an adult, and eventually as a parent. With strong relational and emotional health, it follows that healthy outward behaviors naturally emerge.

As an emotionally healthy individual, you are therefore able to be intentional about emotionally healthy parenting. You are better equipped to nurture and maintain a strong Iceberg for your children and yourself.

How do you fix a parenting mistake?

Since there are no perfect parents or perfect children, Icebergs do get “chipped.” When this happens, it is important to admit the mistake and make amends—apologize.

When you acknowledge a mistake and make amends, it is like pouring warm water over the Iceberg and smoothing the chips and helping to heal the mistake.

The benefit for everyone

As your child experiences emotionally healthy relationships, he or she is positively positioned to grow, nurture and be nurtured, and build others’ emotional health even as his or her own is being built. When your child is emotionally healthy as an individual, you experience and appreciate life more fully and achieve a level of contentment as a family.

When you nurture the relational health of your child, over time, emotional health and appropriate behaviors will naturally grow.

PARENTING ACTION STEPS:

1. Picture an Iceberg and divide it into three levels: one above the water and two below the water.
2. Nurture the deeper, invisible layers to gain desired behaviors
3. When a mistake is made, acknowledge it and make amends. Making amends is like pouring warm water over the “chips” to smooth the Iceberg.

Expert information from IPED

This information is brought to you by Lakeside Educational Network’s IPED Program. The Institute for Professional and Educational Development Program informs, equips and inspires educators, counselors, early childhood practitioners and human services professionals dealing with many difficult and complex issues each day.

Our exclusive curriculum, available directly from Lakeside’s IPED, is comprehensive in topics that promote emotional and relational health in children and families. Successful outcomes consistently occur as a result.

With more than 50 years of outstanding service through its many programs, Lakeside is proud to be an international advocate and resource for kids and families.

© All rights reserved, Diane Wagenhals, IPED, 2009.

If you would like to subscribe to our parenting tips, please follow us on Twitter at GerryatLakeside

If you’d like to learn more about our professional development training and CEUs, please complete the form below.

At the bottom of each page, there should be a contact form with fields for readers to “opt-in” for future contact. The required fields are name and email address, and other options fields include address and phone number. When submitted, the form will be emailed to Becky Jacoby at this time.