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  Are Today’s Kids More Self-Centered than Previous Generations? “If you get your homework done then you can go out and play.” “If you clean your room then you can watch a video.” Sound familiar? Many parents today use a simple behavior modification approach to raise their children. This approach basically says, “If you do what I say, I’ll give you what you want.” Unfortunately, children trained this way often develop a “What’s in it for me?” mentality. “If I…

        How can you tell the difference between defiance and impulsivity? Sometimes the line is fuzzy, but the biggest factor has to do with awareness. The child exhibiting annoying behavior is often not aware of what he’s doing or doesn’t have a good repertoire of socially appropriate behaviors. Some parents believe that because they said, “stop tapping” yesterday, today’s tapping must be defiance. This may not be the case. Training is the Key Children often engage in impulsive or annoying…

        Is Arguing a Good Quality? Children who argue have good character qualities like persistence, perseverance, determination, creativity, and an ability to communicate their ideas. The problem with arguing is that your child views you as an obstacle, a mountain to tunnel through. The child who argues often lacks sensitivity, humility, and a proper respect for authority. Your challenge as a parent is to encourage the positive qualities and remove the negative ones. When you sense that your child has…

One Fact About Lying That Will Help You With Your Kids This one truth can help you deal with lying in your kids: Dishonesty always occurs under pressure.  Kids need internal character to combat the external pressure. For example, some lie to escape punishment. They fear what might happen if they tell the truth, so they try to protect themselves. Children sometimes think that lying is the easy way out, but, in fact, it often makes life more difficult. The…

When Your Kids Get Hurt, Should You Comfort Them? Your child is running and all of a sudden falls down with a smack on the sidewalk. What do you do? Do you rush over and pick him up? Or do you say, “You’re okay. Get up and try again?” Or how about just looking away and waiting to see if he recovers on his own? All of those are reasonable responses and each might be effective depending on the moment.…

Why Transparency with Kids is Important “Why are you sad, Mom?” Cheryl was trying to recover from the upsetting news she received at work. She didn’t get the promotion she had hoped for. But that wasn’t her daughter’s problem. Should she put on a happy face or share the situation with her nine-year-old? In this case, Cheryl’s daughter often moped around when she was disappointed so Cheryl decided this might be a helpful time to be transparent. “I didn’t get…

• • • • • Parenting Tip June 15, 2015 When a Child Tends to Badger A badger is a burrowing animal with an amazing amount of persistence. Badgers have extraordinary physical strength and a tenacious approach to life’s challenges. Many children are like badgers when they can’t accept a “no” answer from their parents. These children badger parents in an attempt to reverse the decision. Children who badger usually have dominating personalities and confident persistence, challenging anyone who blocks…

Parenting Tip June 8, 2015 My Child Is Just Going Through The Motions Sometimes children learn to go through the motions to just get through a discipline experience. They’ll parrot the answers that they know you want to hear. You know that helping them change their hearts is the right thing to do, but you don’t seem to be getting anywhere. What do you do? “The answer must be bigger consequences.” That tends to be what parents think of first,…

• • • • • Parenting Tip May 22, 2015 The Importance of Visioning Take a few minutes and imagine what your children will be like as adults. Some parents have immediate thoughts of terror and doom, but instead, look at the good qualities your children have and imagine how those qualities will benefit them later in life. Then share those observations with your children. Visioning is an important part of parenting, in fact, we see it as one of…