October 2012
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Practice During Neutral Times
The last couple weeks we have been having issues with Kenzie being loud at certain times. We would ask her to be quiet or we would give her the shhh, and she’d ignore us and keep singing or talking or making whatever noise she wanted. We were frustrated. We were giving consequences but continually felt like we weren’t making progress. I have talked about training before the moment,...
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10 More Ways to Help Kids Deal with Anger
I have done a post before on 10 Ways to Calm an Angry Child. I want to give you some more tools to handle anger in a child. I also want to encourage you to get to the root of true anger. Kids can become angry and frustrated just because they’re kids and don’t know how to handle their emotions yet. This can come from simple things like not getting exactly what they want. You may...
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Stop to Smell the Roses
I often feel like I’m in so much of a hurry. My kids are noticing something new on the sidewalk or staring up at the sky, and I’m trying to rush them on to our next thing. I don’t often enough take time to let them hook and re-hook their carseat straps just so they can become better at doing it. I want to rush off to wherever I think we need to go. Our walks become for exercise...
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Keep the Diaper On
Recently, I decided to share with you some of my idiot mom moments as part of my tips. I thought these funny mom moments would help you feel better about your own parenting. Let’s just call it “Parenting for Dummies.” If you missed my post a few days ago, you might enjoy reading about another bodily function - peeing. Do you find that you have never had more poop stories in your...
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Teaching Persuasiveness
Persuasiveness
“And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful.” - 2 Timothy 2:24
There aren’t pictures of this activity because it involved girls curled up with me on the bed talking. Sometimes I wish I had a photographer just following me around. Sometimes I don’t! With the kids their age, I’m...
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Teach Them to Clean Up their Own Spills
I’m only starting to become better at this. Sometimes it seems more simple to just clean up spills myself. However, this simple tip helps them to take responsibility for their accidents. It also might help them try and be more careful next time. Kids will spill. They are still learning to manipulate items in the hand. They haven’t had 20+ years of experience like you have. Have...
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Persuasiveness and Asking Questions
Yesterday, I emphasized the importance of really listening when you are trying to be persuasive. Today I wanted to talk about the skill of asking good questions with my kids. We can’t get to the heart of someone’s opinions unless we are really prepared to ask questions so we can hear their voice. Sometimes the questions might be to gather the information you need to understand their...
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Peeing Advice
Every once in a while I will pull a move that should get me into the Mommy Darwin Award Book (if there was one). I have thought about sharing these dumb moments with you in my tip area, but I never have. I just decided you might enjoy me throwing in these humorous stories every once in a while, so I’m doing it today. Call it “Parenting for Dummies.” Perhaps it will all make you...
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Confiscate Toys they Fight Over
We have more recently had a little bit of issues fighting over things. I will ask, “What’s more important? Your toy or your sister?” I’m glad I haven’t gotten any smart comments back on that one…yet. I’m sure it’s coming. They can generally work it out fairly. If they are fighting over a particular toy and can’t work it out, I simply take it...
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Wear the Same Color in Large Crowds
We were at Sea World today, and there were a number of families who had chosen to wear the same color shirts. They weren’t all wearing the same exact shirt, but they had obviously chosen the same color. If one of them had wandered off, they wouldn’t have to try and think back to what the child was wearing but more quickly and easily picked them out of the crowd. If you are looking for...
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Don't Isolate Yourself
Becoming a mom can be a lonely road. I am very social and pretty plugged in places. Despite that, I remember times of feeling very alone. Sometimes people become stay at home moms when they are used to going to an office everyday. They had everyday interactions with other adults and suddenly have a baby staring up at them. You go from complete independence where you can do whatever you want, and...
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"You don't get what you want. You get what you...
“You don’t get what you want. You get what you emphasize,” is a quote I have heard the Pritchards use a number of times. The concept is pretty simple. You need to look toward the long term and keep life intentional to see the results you want. You can dream of seeing certain things in your children. Until you start to invest the time and energy it takes, you won’t see...
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