Ways to Get Your Kids to Do Chores

boy doing dishes - kids and chores

Tips on How to Encourage Kids to do Chores

I was recently asked to share my thoughts on helping parents find practical solutions for involving their children in chores and responsibilities around their home.  Disclaimer to the parents reading this post: It takes effort, consistency and sometimes being the “bad guy” in your kid’s mind. The conversations I have regularly with parents asking for help in this area are numerous, and it has become evident to me that it is a continuing challenge for families.

Let’s talk about why having your child help around the home is so important. Over the last 20-30 years, it seems more and more parents are not requiring or teaching their children to do much around the home. Excuses for this are plenty: “the kids are too busy,” “it’s easier for me to do it myself then have the kids do it,” “they don’t do a good job,” “I just don’t like fighting with them to get them to do it,” and the list goes on.

Transitioning Tweens: The Leap to Middle School

Transition to Middle School

Helping your child transition to junior high school

Whether your school district transitions students from elementary to middle school in sixth grade or seventh, it can be a difficult time for kids, and parents, as well.  There are the obvious adjustments like a larger school building, use of lockers, loads of new faces, unfamiliar teachers and different rules. And the entrance into middle school usually  brings about new pressures to wear the right clothes, say the right things and fit in with certain groups. Many childhood experts see this as the most difficult time, socially, for most kids. I have heard it referred to as the time to “eat or be eaten.”

So what can a parent do to help alleviate the pressure their children may experience during this time of life? There is no magic bullet that will ensure your child goes from elementary school into middle school experiencing no stress. However, if handled well, many of these experiences can end up being beneficial life lessons in the long run. As a parenting coach I often recommend the following formula.

Helping Kids Heal: When Your Child Needs Psychotherapy

Therapy for Kids

Helping a Child who is Entering Psychotherapy

We prepare children for all sorts of things in life—a new babysitter, the first day of school, the arrival of a new sibling. Preparation is important because children, like adults, find comfort in knowing what to expect. The same sense of security is critical to helping a child who is entering psychotherapy.

How to Keep Your Sanity When It’s Back-to-School Time

Focusing on Things That Matter Mom

5 Tips for Mom’s Back-to-School Sanity

1.  Heal self-defeating thoughts: “I stunk at math and my kids will stink too!” This was my greatest self-sabotaging thought as a Mom, and I had to heal! As Moms we allow toxic negative thoughts to run through our minds every single day. It’s time to stop it this school year! Moms can be defeated in their parenting before they get out of bed in the morning. Thoughts can’t be removed—they have to be replaced. So here is what every Mom needs to try: Face the fear. Just because you aren’t good at math, for example, doesn’t mean that’s going to be your child’s truth. It’s hard, but arrest those thoughts as soon as they enter into your mind (handcuff it literally). Then replace the negative “Jimmy isn’t going to “get” math thought with “Jimmy is smart, resourceful and able to do it!” (Plus Mom, you can hire a tutor or grab a homework coach to support him). Repeat these “healing” thoughts and strategies every time those old self-defeating ones come up.

7 Tips for When Your Child Stays Home Alone

Ways to Keep Your Child Safe When Home Alone

As parents, we never want to leave our children home alone, but sometimes it is unavoidable.  Here are a few basics to keep in mind when your child must be home alone.

1.  Discuss any fears your child might have. Start by talking to your child honestly about how they feel about being home alone. Your child’s fears may be calmed with information about simple safety procedures in the house, such as locked windows and doors. Sometimes it’s the unknown that frightens a child. If your child knows he or she won’t have to answer the door or the telephone, that may be enough to put their mind at ease. That’s why it’s so important to get to the bottom of your child’s fear by discussing what’s behind it.

How to Get Your Tween or Teen to Talk to You

How to Communicate with your Tween or Teen

Getting Tweens and Teens to Talk

If you are the parent of a young child, you may still have one who freely talks about her thoughts, ideas, feelings and experiences. You may also have heard that once your child becomes older, she will not share with you the way she does now. If you are the parent of a teen or tween, you may now be experiencing a relationship that seems to have little communication within it. You may feel grief over what once was, and wonder where it all went ‘wrong’.