Is it the Dog Whisperer or the Kid Whisperer?

The Dog Whisperer with Cesar Millan never fails to remind me of how qualities, skills and behaviours important to being a good dog owner, overlap with those that will help us be effective as parents.

Here are just five of the beautiful parallels I’ve picked up from Cesar’s show:

1) Use calm, assertive energy. People and animals pick up on our energy and react accordingly. If you are pretending to be happy, when inside you are seething or fearful you are not fooling anyone. Calm assertive energy is not weak, nor threatening. It tells the other you mean business and are fully in control of yourself. When our child’s emotions are escalating and we start getting riled up as well, we make the situation much worse than it needs to be.

2) Establish who’s boss. I can feel the hackles going up on some people when they read these words, but hear me out. With dogs this means letting the dog know you are in charge and ultimately they need to live by your rules. You are Alpha and to be in your pack they must accept this. With kids it is only slightly different. When our kids are little they do need to recognize us as boss and when it comes to things like safety, we need them to obey. The difference is with kids we are “grooming” them to eventually take over the boss position in their own lives, which means in many situations it is not imperative that we win. Choose your battles wisely and teach your child to stand up for her own beliefs in an assertive way, while still respecting and understanding authority.

3) Use a clear, consistent message. Figure out your main rules, teach them and enforce them. If the rule is “No going in the pool without permission”, and your water loving dog is jumping in uninvited at any given opportunity, Cesar suggests you teach him he must wait for your permission to enter. Correct him every time he tries to go in on his own so he learns to watch you before going in. With children it is essential we teach them what our rules are and then consistently enforce them. If it’s not important enough to enforce, do NOT have it as a rule. Your young child might not understand why she can’t go in the pool when you’re not around, but she needs to know it is important she not do so.

4) Plan for success. Cesar talks about taking the time to exercise, feed and share affection with your dog – twice daily, but especially – before taking him to something stressful or new. This way you are dealing with a relaxed, content dog instead of one filled with intense energy. Again with kids this is good practice as a child filled with excited energy is going to struggle with sitting still at the doctor’s office, their sibling’s concert, or a restaurant. Just like with our dog, our child’s body language can tell us much about what might be about to come. Preventing our child’s blow-out by having toys, snacks and other attention grabbers available can make the difference between an enjoyable evening and one that ends in tears.

5) Work in the present. This is one of Cesar’s most powerful messages (in my opinion) – a dog does not benefit by people dwelling on the awfulness he might have experienced in his past. We hurt him more by feeling sorry for him, expecting less of him and coddling him because of previous injury or trauma. Focus on the present and believe in the kind of dog he instinctually is. The same is true with people. People do not get stronger when we feel sorry for them and dwell on the things they’ve been through. This doesn’t mean we can’t hug a hurt child, or console a newly broken-up teen, but it does mean if we see her as wounded or to teach her to blame others for her situation we will not help her embrace her inner power and be strengthened. Teach your kids to take only the teachings from the past and then embrace their power in the present.

In closing, there are definitely areas of dog rearing that are going to differ from raising children. We would not, for example, wrestle our kids into the submissive position on the ground, tie a leash around their necks or stick tennis racquets in their mouths to stop biting. But with a little bit of good sense anyone can see there are plenty of positive parallels for us to learn from.

Relationships are built on things like respect, communication, consistency, trust, acceptance, etc., and it appears this is true whether we are dealing with a dog or a child. So if you’re not sure about your ability as a parent, take a look at your dog…perhaps there are some lessons there you can learn from.

Note: This article expresses the understanding of the author and not necessary that of Cesar Millan, The Dog Whisperer.

Debbie Pokornik is the author of Break Free of Parenting Pressures; Embrace Your Natural Guidance and helps people embrace their personal power in all aspects of life. More information can be found at http://www.empoweringnrg.com/ . She is an avid fan of Cesar Millan and puts a lot of positive energy into being the Alpha with her dog and her kids.

Parenting…Is it Natural or Learned?

Many of us (females especially) have grown up knowing that one day we will likely become a parent. We recognize that people have been having babies for eons and while it might not always happen the way we expected it to, it is a natural progression in life. The truth is while the actions that get us pregnant would qualify as natural (in most cases), little else of parenting is.

This way of thinking sets us up for all kinds of struggles. When we believe things are natural we tend to believe they will come easily to us and when they do not we feel shocked and embarrassed. We do not want to ask for help or admit that we don’t know the answer. We compare ourselves to the “outside view” of the lives of others and wonder why everyone else seems able to do this job.

In reality, most of what we know about parenting has been taught to us by the people who looked after us when we were young. Our parents, teachers, babysitters, coaches, etc, all had a hand in providing us with tools we can use on our youngsters – good and bad. These tools don’t always fit with our philosophy of parenting and sometimes controlling the urge to use those tools is what makes us question our ability in the first place.

Add to that the fact that our situation is unique in its own right. Our background, our babies, our partners (or lack thereof), our life stressors, our support system, our personality…all influence our experience, making our situation different from every other parent out there. This means we can ask others for ideas or help, but we shouldn’t expect their advice will always be fitting for our situation.

If we really want to be able to embrace the role of parenting and feel good about our performance in that job, we must begin by recognizing that being a good parent will not come naturally to us. On the contrary, parenting requires a lot of personal development – growing beyond where we are at and developing skills we might currently be lacking in. It requires a willingness to learn and ask questions along with a belief in our ability to persevere and make it through whatever challenges this role brings our way.

Parenting, and in fact all personal development, is never easy—but it is what makes us resilient and helps us to grow into the people we always wanted to be.

Parenting Mistakes; Pulling the Good Out of Every Situation

Have you ever had one of those moments when you correct your child in a way that feels totally wrong and fills you with regret? You know…where you yell too loudly, grab too roughly or say something that previously would have been totally unacceptable?

We all have limits that we live within—our boundaries that determine acceptable and unacceptable behaviours. When we cross that line, we have reached our limit in more ways than one…and once we cross it we feel terrible!

But what if I told you these situations that fill us with so much guilt and cause us to wonder if we have ruined our child for life, are actually opportunities for us and our children to grow? When we use these opportunities to reflect on what we have done and take strides to make amends, we actually strengthen our relationship with our child. It is only when we ignore the situation and “stuff” the resulting feelings that we risk becoming desensitized and derailing from our goals as a parent.

From a personal perspective, these situations cause us to reflect on our lack of control; to think about the bigger picture and hence why we don’t want to parent that way; and to recognize areas where we might need help. Perhaps our stress at work is squeezing its way into our home life, or perhaps our stress is resulting from our home and work life being virtually the same thing. Upon deeper reflection we might recognize a pattern developing or a trigger that is causing our blow-up. We might discover something from our upbringing sneaking its way into our current world or that our own lack of experience is causing a situation to get out of control.

In short, taking time to think about why the situation occurred can help us recognize when we need a break, or when some personal development is required.

From our child’s perspective this situation allows us an opportunity to give our child a genuine apology—no buts, excuses, or blaming included. It allows us to show him we are in fact human (and therefore do make mistakes) and to model self awareness. All of these are critical life skills that our child will definitely need at some point in his life. Our kids learn more from what we do than what we say. Showing him these skills in action is a beneficial outcome of this situation.

So the next time you find yourself flying off the handle and behaving in a way you’d be very embarrassed to have go public, recognize it as an opportunity to teach, learn and grow. Your being bothered by these situations is a good thing and suggests you are not the kind of parent that would use these ideas to excuse reoccurring behaviours of this nature. The fact that you are human is a good thing…it’s when you start beating yourself up for being human that it becomes a problem.

Does Parenting Really Have To Be This Hard?

There was a time in my parenting life, when I really wondered if the amount of effort I was putting into raising my kids was worth the effort. I had a lot of great reasons for parenting the way I did, but on the more trying of days I couldn’t help but think I was making it harder than it needed to be.

Looking at it now I realize I found this job so hard for the following reasons:

1. I cared a lot about doing a good job and being a great parent
2. Because I cared about doing a good job, I was putting a lot of energy into being self aware and analyzing why things had gone the way they did
3. Because I was analyzing things so much and really looking for the “reason” behind things, I was taking both my own and my kids mistakes/failures personally
4. Because I was taking things personally I was allowing self-doubt, guilt and uncertainty to weigh me down

I thought this would be an interesting revelation to share with fellow parents. Parenting (in my opinion) is harder when you really care about doing a good job. The other reasons were caused more by my own efforts and less from anything my kids were doing.

If I hadn’t cared so much, I might have just reacted – punished when it suited my purpose and raised kids who listened to me because they felt they had no other choice. I don’t mean to be minimizing the challenges faced by parents who have taken this route or to even suggest it is wrong, but I can tell you this…

Today I have strong, positive relationships with my kids. They truly are wonderful teens – sure my son wears his pants too low, exhausts me with his negotiating and has a real “smart” mouth at times. He’s a “C” average student in high school and I’m sure will make some “interesting” choices as life goes along. Despite this, he is well liked, communicative and respectful most of the time.

My daughter gets involved (sometimes causes) all kinds of friendship drama at school and has a look that can kill from twenty feet away. Her room is messy beyond belief and she avoids chores like the plague. But she is also very caring, determined, self assured and creative. She excels at school and is quick to pick up when people are not respecting her boundaries.

Both of them make me laugh a lot and bring way more joy into my life than they could ever take from it. I have, and will continue, to make numerous parenting errors…but somehow I now know these things only add to the parenting experience.

So, if you are parenting young children, putting in a lot of effort and questioning if it is worth it, I believe it truly is. I think I would have benefited from hearing that back when those feelings were surfacing for me and that is why I share this story.

I would love to hear your thoughts and stories…

Debbie Pokornik is the owner of empowering NRG. She is the author of Break Free of Parenting Pressures and believes all parents can use support at some point in their parenting experience. For other great parenting tips or to book Debbie for keynotes/workshops, go to http://empoweringnrg.com/

Effective Listening; How to Open Your Mind, Your Heart and Your Ears

Empathic Listening is a tool aimed at helping people connect and really hear what another person is telling them. To do it correctly, we must imagine ourselves in the other person’s situation and try to relate to how they are feeling. It is done with open ears, mind, and heart. Our goal is to detach from our own feelings and work on understanding the feelings of the other person. This can be challenging if what we are hearing affects us as well, but it is a key piece to getting the whole story.

The main strategy of Empathic Listening is the following:

• Identify the speaker’s feeling behind the words (anger, disappointment…)
  
• Empathize--try to think how you would feel in that person’s situation and share these thoughts with the speaker (warning: do not say I know how you feel!)
  
• Reflect back what you have heard, clarify if necessary
  
• Assist with problem solving ONLY if requested to do so

Example of Empathic Listening with child’s emotional outburst:

Child: I hate Grandma!

Parent: You sound angry. What’s going on?

Child: Grandma’s mean, she never plays with me

Parent: Hmm, I don’t think I’d like it if my Grandma never played with me, especially if she used to play with me a lot.

Child: Yeah. Now she’s always busy with the baby.

Parent: (nodding) So, do you think the problem is that she’s spending too much time with the baby?

Child: Yeah. Can I have a cookie?

Two important points:

1. Getting past the strong opening statement the child uses can be a hurdle for many parents. Those are BIG words, and if we want to find out where they are coming from we have to ignore our own emotions and listen for our child’s.
   
2. The child ended the conversation without asking the parent to help fix the problem. Parents love to fix problems, even when they are not asked to do so. In this case, and in more cases than you might imagine, the child just needed to be heard. His feelings were making him uncomfortable resulting in his strong opening statement. At some point he might bring it up with his parent again and ask for help with ideas, but if not, it is far more empowering for him if the parent just allows the conversation to end there.

Example of Empathic Listening with a bullying disclosure:

Child: I pretended to be sick because Bart said he was going to bash my head in and teach all the wimps at school a lesson!

Parent: Wow that sounds pretty scary.

Child: I’m not scared, I’m mad!

Parent: Okay, mad makes sense too… if it were me I think I’d be both mad and scared.

Child: Could I stay home tomorrow?

Parent: I wish I could let you. I don’t think I would want to go back either. I think the school might get upset though.

Child: They won’t care. You can just tell them I’m sick.

Parent: You know what Bart is doing is not okay. He has no right to treat you or anybody like that. What he’s doing is bullying. How about we come up with a plan to help you work through this problem?

In this case the parent raises the idea of problem solving together. Bullying is a serious issue that only arises when there is a power imbalance of some sort. Often our kids will need some guidance to work their way through it.

If the child responded by saying, “No. I’ll deal with it myself,” the parent could agree but end with a check back statement. “Okay, how about I check in with you again on the weekend to see how it went?” The result would be a child who feels supported, cared for and empowered by his parent’s belief in his ability.

Sometimes we have trouble identifying the name of the feeling and in fact the speaker himself might not be clear how he feels. Don’t get caught up in identifying the feeling or it could become a circus, (i.e., Are you mad? No. Irritated? No! Frustrated? No! Furious? NO!) The idea is to connect with the person by trying to understand his feeling. Guessing it right is not that important. We will never truly know what’s going on inside another person. If he says he is not angry despite his clenched jaw, red face, and throbbing temple, accept it and move on.

Finally, despite our perfect use of Empathic Listening, sometimes our child will not be receptive. If that’s the case (you can tell because he is escalating instead of calming) ditch this tool and move into self preservation. Calmly say something like “I can see you’re not ready to talk about this now, let me know if you want to talk later.” Then walk away and refuse to engage in further argument.

Exerpted with permission from Break Free of Parenting Pressures; Embrace Your Natural Guidance by Debbie Pokornik.

Raising Leaders - Being a Great Boss, Can Help Us Raise Great Kids

Anyone can boss people around…but not everyone will be a great boss. If we can focus on the qualities that separate an ordinary boss from a really great boss and then apply them to our parenting strategies, we will raise great kids.

Ten qualities that a great boss will possess are:

1. Patient with good self-control. A great boss is predictable in that he stays calm and controlled despite the situation. He does not allow his emotions to determine his reaction, but instead uses them to guide him on a path to discovery. Patience and self-control are two things that can challenge us when dealing with our children. Practicing these skills with our kids is a win-win situation.

2. Clear expectations. Expectations are not a guessing game when you have a great boss. This type of leader will be clear on what she wants from you and when she expects it done by. With our kids this might translate into The table needs to be cleared before you go outside.

3. Acknowledges a job well done. We all like to hear when we’ve done a good job and especially appreciate being told what it was we did well. With our kids we can do this by using effective feedback which tells them what they’ve done well and why we like it. Thanks for setting the table it makes my job easier when you help out.

4. Cares about the individual. For a boss, this means knowing a bit about the employee’s life outside of work – birthdays, weekend plans, sick children, etc. For parents, this involves knowing what their child is dealing with in life at the moment, who his friends are, his IT interests (sites surfing, games playing, shows watching) as well as his current hobbies.

5. Teaches, then trusts. A great boss will show you a new task, allow you to try it, make sure you understand it, and then trust you to do the job. With our children, this training is often severely lacking. To really learn something most of us benefit by having it broken down in steps, by being given an opportunity to try it out (hands-on) and by slight, positive adjustments being made when things go wrong. A great boss wouldn’t assume you know the details just from watching, yet often that is what we expect from our kids.

6. Provides assertive correction. A great boss will calmly, yet clearly tell you when there is a problem with something you’ve done, complete with an explanation of why this behaviour is a problem. This boss will not accept excuses or shirking of responsibility, but is willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. A great boss believes in you and recognizes mistakes are an inevitable part of living. Paying attention to how you are correcting your kids can make the difference between teaching them the lesson, and making them feel “faulty” for making a mistake.

7. Role models desired behaviours. A great boss does not say one thing and do another, unless he’s very clear about his reasons for this discrepancy. It is critical we remember our kids learn far more from what we do than what we say. As much as possible we want our behaviours to match the values we are trying to teach.

8. Promotes independence and interdependence. A great boss allows employees to be individuals within the boundaries of company standards. She doesn’t try to make clones of herself, but recognizes the unique talents each person brings to the table. She also expects people to work together for the good of the company. While our kids might seem to be a lot like us, they are individuals and will benefit most when we recognize and support that. If we allow our child to be her own unique self while working towards a common set of family goals, we will have a much happier team.

9. Avoids micro-managing. A great boss gives us a task, ensures we understand the details and timeline and then allows us to do it. When we want our kids to do things we often ask (or tell) them, wait a moment and then nag at them to do as they were asked. Besides being irritating, this tells our kids they do not need to do what we ask until our level of nagging hits a certain octave!

10. Promotes mutual respect. A great boss promotes a respectful relationship by treating her employees with respect. Orders are given sparingly and without personal attack. Ordering our children might seem more efficient, but in the end it will cause a lot of extra work. Watch the tone of voice you are using with your kids and be aware of how much you are ordering, rather than asking or suggesting.

Our children really are the bosses of the future. If we can keep these qualities in mind and practice them as much as possible in our family environment, we will have future leaders who are ready and able to be great.

Debbie is the owner of Empowering NRG and author of Break Free of Parenting Pressures: Embrace Your Natural Guidance. She believes all parents can use support at some point in their parenting experience and has made it her mission to help with this task. For more info go to http://www.empoweringnrg.com

Understanding Empathy, Seven Tips for Raising Compassionate Children

Empathy is about putting yourself in someone else’s shoes and trying to relate to what they might be feeling. Out of empathy comes caring, consideration, compassion and even remorse (if you are unable to think how your actions might hurt another person, how can you possibly feel bad for what you have done?). Some people purposely turn off their empathy to eliminate getting hurt and others are not stimulated to create the empathy pathways in their brain in the first place.

Seven tips for encouraging empathy:

1. Help kids become aware of their own feelings by pointing out what you see. “I can see you’re disappointed” “I understand your disgust…”
   
2. When your child does something hurtful to another person, ask her to think about how it might feel if the roles were reversed. Try to get her thinking without making her feel bad for making a mistake. “I want you to think about how you would feel if someone took away your favorite toy and wouldn’t let you have it back.”
   
3. Share your own feelings and take full responsibility for them. “I’m furious the dog ate my food while I was on the phone – I was looking forward to eating that sandwich.”
   
4. Model empathy to your child. “I can understand why you might feel that way. I would feel angry if someone did that to me.”
   
5. Use situations around you to discuss how other people might be feeling. Tactfully talk about situations you witness or use the characters in movies and TV shows. “She looked like she felt embarrassed when the store clerk laughed at her – what do you think?”
   
6. When people have to care for something living, they often develop a sense of connection which helps to teach empathy. Teach your kids how to take care of something living – a plant, animal, bird or reptile.
   
7. Have your kids act out a short story (fairy tales work well) and encourage them to really immerse themselves in the roles. To be a great actor you have to think carefully about how your character would be feeling which is what empathy is all about.
   

Developing empathy is important for all of us. Getting along with others, being able to wait your turn, treating people with compassion, feeling bad when you mistreat others are all dependent on our ability to care about how that other person might feel. Tuning into others helps us be caring people.

Parent Power: Using Our Power to Build Strong Relationships with Our Kids

As mentioned in a previous article, Parent Power is the authority given to us to guide our children towards acceptable behaviour. It is a neutral power that is automatically given and, when used effectively, can help us raise resilient kids while building a strong, positive relationship with them.

Gaining our children’s compliance is not always an easy thing to do which is why we need our power to back up our words when they refuse to listen. Our goal with our kids is to teach them how to think for themselves and understand why what we tell them to do is necessary, rather than have them blindly follow our direction.

In the end, we want to have taught our kids our version of right versus wrong, created a strong, loving relationship with them so they want to be part of our lives, and built up mutual respect so they will work with us during those tumultuous teenage years.

Five ideas for using your power wisely:

Provide clear expectations, enforcement and follow-through. Kids crave structure. They like to know what is expected of them and what the potential consequence will be for breaking that rule. Just like us, they feel an injustice has been done when they are not told of expectations and then get in trouble for breaking a rule. Be clear about your rules, enforce them consistently and do your best to follow-through on the planned consequence.

Allow choices. People like to be allowed to make their own decisions – although some will oppose it on occasion. People who resist choices usually have something else going on for them – fear of making a bad decision, challenges with self-regulation, etc. Allowing our kids to make choices and teaching them how to make good ones is an important part of helping them develop.

Guide rather than boss. Notice the kind of language that you use and when possible choose words that suggest an action rather than ordering it. For example, “Pick up your jacket” becomes “Your jacket belongs on a hook.” Depending on your child’s personality this can make the difference between daily fights and voluntary compliance. When we boss people around we are using power. Frivolous use of our power does not build respect. Save the bossing for moments when it feels totally necessary, and practice using positive communication the rest of the time.

Choose your battles carefully. There are a lot of things to correct, advise on, or lecture our kids about and if we do them all we cannot possibly build a positive relationship with them. Remember your kids will do things differently from you and will have their own perspective about what is right or wrong in many situations. Any time you have to fight to get your way, you are not teaching, but forcing compliance.

Be creative. Rather than going on automatic and pulling out habitual parenting tools (spanking, grounding, yelling, time-out…) force yourself to think creatively about the situation. Parenting is not a task to do on auto-pilot and yet so often that is what we do. When our kids are babies most of us experiment to figure out how to stop them fussing. As our kids grow and start pushing our buttons we often stop thinking and start reacting. When we force ourselves to come up with a new idea to try we are developing our own brain pathways along with those of our child.

There are a lot of great ways to gain our child’s compliance and still build a loving, respectful relationship. I encourage you to come up with your own, but to get started you might check out two of my earlier (September 09)articles sharing creative ideas for dealing with name calling (Name Calling: How parents and teachers can use it to their benefit) and rude/whiney behaviour (Would You Like a Do-Over?).

The less you use your power muscle and the more you practice using positive parenting strategies, the more you will benefit when your kids reach that rebellious, teenager stage. We all need to use our power sometimes, we just need to be sure we don’t get lazy and start using it to get our way all of the time.

The choice is ours … we have the power to make a difference!

Debbie Pokornik is a presenter and owner of empowering NRG and is releasing her first book Break Free of Parenting Pressures: Release Your Natural Guidance early 2010.

Parent Power: What is it and why is it important to know about it?

Parent Power is the authority given to us as parents to enforce rules and boundaries with our children in order to teach them right from wrong. It gives us permission to get things done using the power of our position and acts like a bottom line that suggests we can indeed “make our kids” do something.

To some of us this sounds terrible – who are we to force our kids to comply? To others it sounds fantastic – you’re darn rights my kids better listen to me. In reality Parent Power is neither good nor bad. It is there by virtue of our role as parents and how we use it can make all the difference in our growing relationship with our child.

Important things to know about Parent Power:

• Used carefully it can be extremely helpful. It allows us to respectfully guide our kids towards appropriate behaviour and build good, strong relationships with them at the same time.

• It must be used by a calm, controlled parent to be effective. Any time we overreact and “lose it” we diminish our Parent Power

• It relies on our children believing in this power for it to work.

• As our kids grow older our Parent Power naturally decreases. By the time our kids are teenagers we must rely on the mutual respect we have built with them to gain their cooperation.

• Used in a negative way Parent Power can cause our kids to tune us out, call our bluff, comply out of fear, or, in extreme circumstances, be removed from our home. It is very difficult to respect a person who lacks self control and uses their power unfairly.

• Because Parent Power is most often used behind closed doors, there is plenty of opportunity to misuse or overuse it.

Recognizing Parent Power

Some common phrases or actions we might use to flex our Parent Power muscle are:

• Because I said so…
• I am your parent and you’ll do as I say
• I have told you to do something and you need to listen to me
• As long as you are under my roof

• Use a loud or authoritative voice
• Intentionally tower over our little one to give our words more power
• Shoot an “I mean business” look at our child to gain compliance
• Use our strength to force our child to do something we’ve asked him to do (i.e. go to his bedroom)

These are not necessarily bad things for us to do. There are times when we need to gain our kid's compliance and in cases where they have decided not to listen this is how we do it. Those parents with a very full parenting pack of strategies and techniques, might rarely (if ever) get to the above examples, but I guarantee they use this power in some other way.

Where it becomes a problem is when we start using this power just to get our way without doing any of the teaching or mentoring that is required in between. Our goal as parents is to teach our kids how to think so they can make good sound decisions on their own. We cannot do this by regularly using power comments or actions just to get our way.

Using your Parent Power is not a bad thing – it has been given to you as a tool to use. My next article will talk about positive ways to use Parent Power, but for now just becoming aware of how and when you are using it can tune you in to what you are teaching and whether or not you are building the relationship you really would like to have with your child.

So think about your use of Parent Power and by all means leave me comments, questions or stories as you see fit.

Halloween Memories: Back away from the candies

When my kids were younger I was very careful about the kind of food they ate and how often they could eat it. They had very little processed stuff and rarely ate white sugar. When Halloween came around however, all of that changed.

In the beginning I wanted to control the candy intake and restricted the amount they could have. This was quite a job and I quickly realized it wasn't worth the effort. I decided to do something different and set up a deal.

The deal was that when they came home with their huge satchel of items (we live in the country so the bounty is huge) we would go through and throw out anything with Aspartame or similar substances. Colas were given to Dad to take to work and other can drinks were put away for later. The kids then divided their candy up into a pile of everything they liked (or thought they would like) and anything they didn't like. The stuff they didn't like was put in a bag to go to our local food bank. On occasion I would buy some of their might like items for a nickel a piece as a further incentive to let stuff go.

Armed with their bag of favorites, the first holiday (i.e. Saturday) after Halloween my kids celebrated what we called candy day. This was a day when they could eat as much candy as they wanted, starting as early as they wanted. The only rules were that all wrappers (or other evidence of the candy fest) had to be put in the garbage and that no matter how much sugar (and other things) they put in their bodies they had to maintain their self-control (i.e. you could not go ballistic and start fighting with each other just because you were feeling the jitters)

The first time we did this, I really thought my kids would feel sick and never want to over do it like that again. I thought they wouldn't eat anything but candy until supper and would quicly become cranky and rude. I was wrong.

They ate a tonne of candy, still ate every healthy meal that was offered that day and never lost control of their behaviour. They had a lot of fun playing games all day and at the end of the day went to bed tired, but happy. No ill effects were noticed even a week after the fact.

Best of all, by the end of the day their candy--or at least all their favorites--were gone and that huge pull the sack of goods would normally have over them completely disappeared.

I learned from this little experiment that sometimes its fun to just let go of the rules and enjoy the reality of the moment. My kids love candy day and still talk about it every year. Being teenagers their diets have taken quite a dive, but I have faith that the healthy start they were given in life will still benefit them. I also believe that this little experiment has allowed them to create happy memories of the days following Halloween and I'm not sure that would have been the case if we hadn't gone in this direction.

Name Calling: How parents and teachers can use it to their benefit

People love to poke fun at one another and will often resort to name calling to express how they are feeling. This activity is not always a bad thing and can actually be quite fun. It is a form of teasing; a give and take process meant to lighten the mood, create a little laugh and strengthen the relationship between participants.

Where name calling becomes a problem is when one person is using these moments to hurt the other. Any laughter is one-sided and typically the jibes only flow in one direction. These kinds of things can be precursors to bullying and are damaging to the relationships involved.

Name calling can also be a problem when the kids involved do not have the skills (or relationship strength) to enjoy the process. The way they deal with this frustration is to strike out at the other person and conflict arises. We can allow this to happen and hope the kids figure out a way to work it out, or we can be proactive and put a process in place first. This process should allow us to teach skills, limit the hurtful comments, and remain calm in the process.

One way to do this is to put a “two nice things” rule into effect. This rule requires that anyone who puts down another (joking or otherwise) will need to say two nice things about that person. Even in a strong relationship teasing can be damaging to self esteem (especially if you hit a sensitive topic), so it becomes the job of the “hurter” to build the other person back up. We call these put-ups and they are teaching the skills of positive thinking and compliments.

Typically, children will question any new rule so it is important to teach it in advance and then enforce it calmly and consistently. Let people know that when they call someone anything other than their name, they will be required to build that person back up by saying two nice things about them. Talk about what put-ups are acceptable and have the kids practice giving out compliments. Discuss if repeats will be allowed for repeat offenses and how these rules will be enforced.

Examples of good put-ups:
You’re fun
You’re a good friend
I like playing with you
You’re fun to hang out with
You’re very creative
You tell great stories
You make great lego machines
You have a beautiful voice
You’re very talented
You’re funny

Let the kids know that if they argue about the put down (i.e. it was just a joke, I didn’t say that, that’s not name calling), they will automatically be required to say four nice things. If they continue to argue the number becomes six and they will be asked to leave the room and return when they are ready to give their compliments.

The idea is to build people up. Although kids are often good at honest compliments when they are young, they often lose this by Grade two and start focusing on what they don’t like about other people. Focusing on positives is a skill that we all benefit by learning. Using a rule such as this allows kids to practice this skill and creates a nicer atmosphere for us all.

One word of warning…It is critical that you, as the enforcer, remain calm and allow this to be a learning experience. If you become judgmental (i.e. that was uncalled for; you are very rude) or allow anger to guide your enforcement, the process will become a form of punishment and, rather than disappearing, the name calling will intensify.


Debbie Pokornik is the owner of empowering NRG. She is the author of Peak at Parenting; Natural, Realistic Guidance for the Busy Parent (releasing late 2009) and believes all parents can use support at some point in their parenting experience. For other great parenting tips or to book Debbie for keynotes/workshops, go to http://empoweringnrg.com/

Parenting Infants, the Worries and Uncertainties

Becoming a parent is one of the most life-altering experiences a person can make. One day we are responsible for only ourselves and the next we are in charge of the very survival of another. The overwhelming emotions, the fear of making a mistake, and the unspeakable uncertainty can leave new parents quite breathless. With each successful moment we gain more confidence, only to take two giant steps back any time something goes wrong.

“What’s wrong with him?” asks our well meaning friend as our child screams inconsolably in our arms. “What did you eat? You do know that broccoli, garlic, peanut butter, and eggs –just to name the obvious– are on the banned list while breastfeeding, don’t you?”

Oh no! Why don’t I know this important information? you think, feeling panic bubble up from within. How am I ever going to handle being a parent when I don’t know even the most basic of things?

The point is, parenting comes with loads of uncertainties that many of us are completely unprepared for. While our well meaning friends, family members, and professionals are trying to be helpful, they are actually starting a trend that will continue throughout most of our parenting journey. It is a trend that suggests we should know how to be good parents, and if we don’t we are failing to meet the mark.

When my first born was just a few weeks old the public health nurse came to visit me. She was kind, supportive, and full of great information. Before she left she told me to start giving my son a daily vitamin. This sounded simple as well as healthy, so I had my husband pick some up on his was home from work.

Armed with the nurse’s instructions, I took the required dosage of vitamin and squirted a little bit into my son’s cheek. He spit it out immediately and started to fuss. Since the nurse had said babies loved the taste I decided he was just surprised by the sweetness and squirted the rest of the tiny dose into his cheek. He spit out what he could, screamed, sucked in the sticky syrup, and started to choke.

A panicked expression came over his face as he struggled for breath. I patted his back then flipped him over into the CPR choking baby position, but he continued to struggle for breath. Not knowing what to do, I tried to feed him and thankfully he latched on and washed away the syrup. The whole incident took about a minute and in that time I went from a fairly confident mother of a newborn to a quivering, emotional failure.

When the nurse visited again, she listened to my traumatic story, laughed, and told me I must give him the vitamin anyway. “He’ll stop fighting you once he realizes you mean business.”

Parents are often given this kind of advice. Ignore your inner voice, ignore your child’s protests and do as you have been told. Afraid of making a critical mistake we obey and then wonder where we have failed when things don’t go as planned.

As far as my son is concerned I made a couple more unsuccessful attempts to give him the vitamin before giving up completely. When the nurse asked how it was going, I lied and said all was fine. Yes, I was riddled with guilt and wondered if I was damaging my son for life, but I had to believe that not having vitamins was better for him than daily trauma.

He’s fifteen now and while he does behave erratically at times he’s a healthy kid displaying regular teenage behaviours. I have gained a lot more confidence as a parent and while I’m still far from perfect, I take comfort in knowing none of us will ever reach that status.

I continue to try and do the best I can with what I know and listen to both my children and my inner voice. I research when necessary and search for advice that works with my value system. Most of all, I hold tight to Eleanor Roosevelt’s words of wisdom, “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent,” and try not to feel like a failure every time something goes wrong in my parenting experience.

Sibling Rivalry; Five ways to ensure you aren’t adding to the problem

There are many things we accidentally do as parents or teachers that encourage kids to fight. Knowing what these are helps us avoid participating in them and adding fuel to the fire. Putting these five ideas into practice will help you decrease unnecessary arguments.

1. Encourage telling, discourage tattling: Tattling is one of the most frustrating behaviours kids do. Understanding the difference between tattling and telling is an important life skill, yet many of us fail to teach it.

Our kids need to understand two simple points:
· Telling is when you are trying to get someone out of danger or trouble
· Tattling is when you are trying to get someone into trouble

Responses that encourage tattling:
“What! Lisa was told to stay inside… you tell her to come and see me right now!”
“Who made this mess? Tell me right now or no story time for anyone.”
“Bart, did you pinch Lisa? That’s mean and unacceptable behaviour…”

Responses that discourage tattling:
“Are you trying to get Lisa into trouble or out of trouble?”
“This mess will need to be cleaned up before story time.”
“Lisa, do you need some ice (or a hug) for that bruise?”
“Do you need my help to tell Bart how you feel about him pinching you?”

Don’t get upset with kids for tattling, they do it because it can be very rewarding. Try to focus on keeping the door to communication open (i.e. responding respectfully) while guiding them in the right direction.

2. Let bygones be bygones: Think carefully before demanding an explanation when breaking up a disagreement between your kids. We often provide much sought after attention by asking questions and, without a video, may never know the truth. It’s better to calmly do what needs to be done (console a hurt child, focus on clean up, discipline the kids) and forego the investigation. You can ask questions later if you feel you must, but understand you may never know the real story.

3. Stay on the fence: It takes two to tango and even the most innocent seeming child can be the instigator. You give that child a taste of negative power when you side with him or her. Discipline them both and they’ll soon learn not to involve you unless absolutely necessary (see Five tips to decrease the fighting for ideas). Of course when you witness the interaction and know one person is responsible, deal with it accordingly, just be careful you are not choosing favorites.

4. Small reactions give bigger results: When you must remove one it is often more effective to take the one who is hurt. Refrain from making a big deal about it or you teach the kids it pays to yell loudest. Instead, remove the hurt child with a calm statement like, “Bart and I will work on his problem solving skills later, let’s you and I go put some ice on that bruise right now.” If neither child is hurt you might ask, “Can you two work this out or do you need me involved?”

5. Let them think: When we ask kids to come up with solutions we offer an opportunity to learn. Unfortunately it’s often easier to tell them what to do instead. Many kids would prefer we do all the work…but then what are they learning? The more work they do, the less likely they are to slip back into fighting mode the next time.

Two examples of ways to keep the kids thinking are: “Bart, can you think of an acceptable way to work out this disagreement with your sister?” or “It sounds like you two might need a cooling off period before you can play together nicely, do you need my help setting that up?”

Using the above ideas won’t stop kids from disagreeing, but it will provide them with an understanding of how much you are willing to be involved in their squabbles. It also allows them an opportunity to practice skills that will be important in every relationship they have.

Sibling Rivalry; Five tips to decrease the fighting

When our kids have been taught skills to work out disagreements and been made aware of family rules, we are in a good place to limit our involvement in their disagreements and as a result decrease the amount of bickering in our homes. Here are five tips to help you do this:

1. Discuss any changes you are making with everyone ahead of time. Be calm and allow the kids to question the process. Adapt the wording to fit the maturity level of your kids. “You all have skills for working out disagreements with each other and from here on in I’m going to let you practice them. Remember our house rules and understand it will always be in your best interest to work things out without involving me.”

2. When your kids start to argue, remove yourself from the listening zone. Acknowledge their disagreement and leave: “I know you two can work this out.” Disappear into your bedroom, bathroom – anywhere they can’t easily follow you. Read, exercise, or write a shopping list, whatever works to distract you. If the kids were after your attention the disagreement will quickly fizzle out.

3. When you don’t want to leave the room or can’t (i.e. in the car), use a statement like the one above and then put on your earphones, turn up the radio, sing, read (or pretend to)…whatever it takes so they know you aren’t willing to participate.

4. Put a time limit on how long they have to work it out before you step in and decide for them. “You have five minutes to work this out and then I will make the decision for you.” Ignore them for the stated amount of time. If they work it out, compliment them and move on. If they are still arguing when the time is up, make the decision – which is final – and is never in favor of either child. Your job at this point is not to help them both be happy… if you do this it will be your job for life!If they were arguing over a movie you might decide “no movie”… or a movie you know they both dislike. If they were fighting over name calling you might insist they both say three nice things about each other. If they try to argue with you add in three nice things about you too. If they refuse, send them off on their own (i.e. to their room) and only allow them to return when they have their nice things ready.

5. If you can tell things are escalating too fast, give less time (i.e. ten to thirty seconds) to work it out and then step in. They need some time to try and find their self control, but too much time could result in serious damage. After the allotted time calmly step in and use ideas like the following:“You two just can’t seem to get along right now. Brianna, grab your book and sit here, Stephanie, take your drawing stuff to the kitchen and work there. Let me know when you think you’re ready to work together again.” “You two need to sit down and neither of you may get up until the other one gives you permission to do so.” Or “You two can both go to your rooms and may not come out until the other one says it’s okay for you to do so.”You may need to put something on the line to keep them from ignoring you (i.e. a privilege like TV time). These strategies work because the kids must work together (i.e. give each other permission) before they can move on.

A few extra pointers to ensure success with these tactics:

During the initial meeting discuss what will happen if the argument keeps resurfacing. A parent imposed consequence might be necessary.

Apologies are welcome but not a requirement of the process. Forced apologies are worthless and cause more grief than they are worth.

Stay calm and enforce consequences. If you get angry the focus shifts from skill development to punishment to resentment.

Be prepared for the kids and to test this change. Be strong and know that what you are doing is definitely in everyone’s best interest.

Disagreements are part of every day life…it is critical our kids develop skills to help them deal with conflicts. If we can teach our kids how to work out their disagreements with each other, over time we will require our referee whistle less and less and our kids will be better people for it.

Sibling Rivalry; Teaching kids how to fight with skill

When kids fight to get our attention we can respond in one of three ways:

1. We can react to their arguing, get involved, and reward them for this irritating and unwelcome behaviour.
2. We can completely ignore them, hope they work it out without bloodshed, and allow them to perhaps damage their relationship to the point of no return.
3. We can provide them with the skills and boundaries required to work out their disagreement effectively and then remove ourselves from the role of referee.

I’m a strong supporter of the third alternative as I believe it allows our children to learn important life skills and also provides us with an escape from their fighting. Before we can do this, however, we must make sure a couple of important pieces are firmly in place.

The first thing we need to do is ensure we have clear family boundaries. Boundaries are like the bottom line behaviours that will not be tolerated in our families. When it comes to sibling rivalry it is important to ensure our kids know what these are and what the consequences will be if they ignore them. Examples of things we might enforce are:

- Nothing physical: no hitting, biting, kicking, etc. You don’t have to create a long list of all the possible physical things, but instead make it simple and enforce it consistently.

- No destruction of the other’s property: destroying other people’s property damages trust and often creates a “revengeful” mindset.

- No bullying behaviours: when you force someone to do your bidding by using size, strength, age, or other power to create fear, you are bullying.

When our kids are aware of our boundaries and the rules that enforce them, they will understand they are always in place, even when their sister or brother is pushing them to the limit.

The second thing we need to do before we can leave our kids to work it out alone, is to teach them acceptable skills. From a young age we can help them solve disagreements by modeling respectful communication and offering to help when they are stuck. As they mature, we wean them from our help so they can practice. The goal is to help them learn a variety of skills so when conflict arises they have tools to deal with it.

There are many different tools you can teach, but a few examples are: conflict resolution, problem solving, I-messages, being assertive, compromising, synergizing, negotiating, empathizing and respectful listening. A later article will go into more detail on these skills if you’re not familiar with them, but for now start with what you do know and pay attention to what you are teaching.

A benefit of sibling rivalry is the opportunity to practice life skills. It is our job as parents to set up the boundaries to keep the fighting respectful and to provide the skills our children can use to work it out. With these pieces firmly in place, we still might not enjoy it, but at least we know our kids are actually benefiting from their time in the ring.

Sibling Rivalry; Why Kids Fight

Childhood is a time of learning and growing. A time when mistakes are made, boundaries are pushed and problems are solved. These challenges continue into adulthood, the only difference is, once we are adults people expect us to have learned some skills to deal with them.

Whether we like it or not, our kids learn most of these skills from watching us. When they see us lose our self-control to anger, or watch us calmly work our way through a problem, they are taking the information in and filing it away for future use.

When our children disagree we are being given an opportunity to really help them grow and learn. Unfortunately, many of us see these disagreements as a frustrating problem and deal with it by yelling, threatening, or punishing them for their behaviour. When we do this we are missing a great opportunity and actually creating further conflict.

The opposite extreme is when we witness their fighting and write it off as normal or unavoidable sibling behaviour. This can work out okay, if the children are naturally born with some skills, but if they are not (which is much more common) it can lead to frustration, anger, and resentment. Over time this can become damaging to their relationship with each other and with us.

Our goal when our children argue is to see these disagreements as a way to practice skill development. When we do this we remove most of the frustration and instead model the behaviours we would really like them to learn. The wonderful side-effect of doing this is that many of the petty arguments will disappear.

A later article will look at tips for dealing with the rivalry. This article is aimed at helping parents understand some of the reasons for the fights. When we are aware of why our kids are fighting it becomes easier for us to maintain our self-control.

Common reasons kids argue:

· To get attention
· They feel an injustice has been done
· They spend a lot of time together
· The family is a safe group to vent frustrations on
· Their social skills are still developing
· They are tired, hot, hungry, stressed, grouchy or otherwise bothered
· They are full of energy and really enjoy the physical release

These reasons are understandable and provide perfect opportunities to do some teaching. While we might feel frustrated that our child is such an “attention-hound”, it does let us know that giving him attention for this kind of behaviour will not work in our favour. It also tells us that if we can teach him other (more positive) ways to get our attention our time with him will be more enjoyable.
If he feels an injustice has been done, it gives us an opportunity to turn judgment into curiosity and perhaps fix a misunderstanding. If our child craves physical outlets for his energy we might enroll him in recreational activity to help him do this. There is a lot of helpful information that comes from understanding why our children are going after each other. We just have to be aware of what’s going on.

It is important when looking at this list that we do not write off our kids’ behaviours as acceptable, just because it is understandable. A tired or hungry child, still needs to control her behaviour and part of our job is to help her understand that. As well, even though the family is a safe place to vent, it is not okay to treat people disrespectfully, even if it is your irritating little sister.

There are a few other reasons that kids will fight which tend to be a bit more serious in nature:

· Personality conflict
· To feel powerful
· They are jealous of their sibling
· They have a chemical imbalance that is interfering with their regular behaviour
· The have learned it is fun and are becoming a bully

These reasons are more serious, and, left alone, can result in damaging situations. They are harder to correct and can have very negative results if you do not. If you believe you are dealing with issues from this grouping it can be helpful to get assistance from professionals. Parent Educators, Social Workers or Family Centres are a few of the places you might go to seek help.

If you are uncertain what the cause of your children’s fighting might be you have a couple of options. You can seek out help to identify the cause, or try some of the generic techniques offered first (available in future articles). Then if the problem persists or gets worse over time, go for help.

Whatever you decide to do, it is beneficial to remember that siblings will have disagreements while they are growing up. This does not make them bad or defective and does not turn you into a bad parent. On the contrary these situations are gifts. They are opportunities to teach and practice important, life-long skills.

So while we might not celebrate sibling rivalry… at the very least hopefully we can see there are some positives.