Archive for 'Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder'

Project Attainable Expectations to Your Kids

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Everywhere we go, we are bound with certain expectations. There are certain expectations that we have to live up to at work – we need to perform our jobs right, help our co-workers finish a project, and so on. In school, we are also expected to make our assignments and to study. All relationships that we have and in every affiliation or association that we make, there are certain expectations that we have to fulfill.

At home, there are also certain expectations that we have to live up to. The main reason why families function well and remain united is due to the fulfilling of expectations by each family member. Parents are expected to provide for the family and offer food, clothing, comfort and love. Children are also expected to help with chores, to study, and to respect and love their parents.

One good way to avoid family conflicts is to make sure expectations from each member especially that of the children, are clear. As a parent, you need to create a list of expectations that apply to certain situations. By creating a list of expectations for your kids, you are telling them in a way what they should do during certain situations.

When you make your expectations clear to your kids, you are telling them their limitations in the process. Through a list of expectations, children know how they can interact with their friends, with strangers, and even with their romantic partners. By creating a list of expectations, you will be able to effectively show your children how to behave in church, at a restaurant, and in any public place.

However, you need to be consistent with your expectations. The moment you tell your kids that you expect them to be home by 8 p.m. sharp, it should always remain that way. Your expectations should not be variable and should not be easily affected by your mood or your opinion. Your expectations should always remain firm, even when your child feels otherwise.

So when your child gets a high score at test, it does not earn him the right to disrespect you. Even when your child has no school for two days, it does not mean that he or she is allowed to stay up all night and watch TV.

But the most important thing that you have to remember is to make your expectations realistic and reliable. Setting expectations that are too high or too low will lead to mediocre results. That is why you need to keep your expectations at normal, attainable levels and with respect to your child’s age.

Realistic and reasonable expectations will not make your child feel incompetent. Projecting expectations that are too high to attain will only make your child feel like he or she is “not good enough”. Too high expectations will make your child feel less about themselves and will make you unhappy and disappointed all the time.

Author Katherine Thompson enjoys sharing on topics including teens for boot camp. Learn how to be a better parent by visiting her website about my problem children.

Projections Get in the Way of Parenting

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What you mean by projecting is reading other people’s minds. What happens when you do projection is just like a movie projector. When you feel bad about yourself it is being projected into another person. That’s when you think that they do think poorly of you.

You simply think that it’s a way of reading minds but in fact what you’re doing is you’re putting your own fear and your own self-doubt in the other person’s mind. This doesn’t work for you or for your kids when you’re parenting.

There are times when everything goes wrong and if you see it that way you might translate it as what your child thinks, to the detriment of your own kid. If you want to raise highly positive children you have to be positive yourself. You have to funnel your positivity to your kid. But remember it’s not all blue skies. Being positive doesn’t mean being delusional. When reality bites, you have to make it a point that your kid may be able to understand what you’re going through in their own simple way.

Projections can also happen the other way around. Sometimes kids also project what they feel towards themselves to you. When this happens you need to keep on reassuring them that what you think of them is exactly the opposite of that. You have to keep giving positive reassurance when this happens. Always make them feel that you’re accepting and that you understand how they feel, but there’s one thing you shouldn’t do and that is to make them see that you’re giving up on them.

Projecting is a symptom of an unhealthy mind. When you tend to project negativity, you probably have low self-esteem, have been hiding a lot of issues, and may even have issues about self-respect. However, when you project yourself too positively, it may be that you have superiority complex or have high self-esteem, which may sometimes be not that good as well.

That’s why they say that we all are a work in progress. We always have to check ourselves and try to make sure that we make a balanced thought of our surroundings and other people. We do this for our kids, for our loved ones, but most of all, for ourselves.

We owe it ourselves to experience life positively and to experience all our relationships positively. If we love in this manner, no amount of negativity can bring us down, whatever our goal may be, but most particularly when we are trying to raise our children.

Author Katherine Thompson enjoys sharing on topics including boot camp teens. Learn how to be a better parent by visiting her website about problem children.

Emotional Labels Are Not At All Helpful

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One thing that parents should not do to their kids is to label their behavior with something that sets them off emotionally. There may be times when the kid just had a bad day at school, is a bit crazy, and is having a difficult time with his homework. What the parent often says is that “You’re doing that to make me angry at you, don’t you?”

That thing can set off an inferno in your kid, particularly for the teen-agers who have the rebellious streak in them. The thing is, parents are so fond of labeling it with feelings instead of keeping it a business. Time and again, it is important for a parent to know that parenting demands that you take charge of it as if it were a business.

What is a business like way to go about this scenario is: “Oh, you’re not doing the right things today. You have to start it over. For you to do that, you need to go back to your room and come back to start things right after fifteen minutes.”

It’s simple. There are no explanations, no but’s and if’s, and no questions asked. This is to assert your authority as a parent. This is being firm to your kid and a way of showing your responsible love and concern.

With this, a parent must not dwell with the emotions that most often would like to grab your attention and keep you away from a sound decision. When you are thinking about punishing your kid for one wrong doing, it should still be his well-being that you must focus on. Remember the one main goal for your punishing him is to make him realize his mistake and be able to make sense of why he must be corrected. Yes, that’s the case, even when he is still at a young age.

Moral development for your child takes place gradually. This is one of the instances wherein they can learn much from you. So don’t get frustrated if your kid commits a lot of blunders in decision making and their relationships with others. When you say everyone is a work in progress when it comes to that; that is much, much more applicable to kids.

That is why labeling them with emotional titles will not help. They themselves are not even aware of what they are feeling, most of the time. Oftentimes, parents would have to help their kid process his emotions and may sometimes have to let him understand it is normal to have that feeling.

Author Katherine Thompson enjoys sharing on topics including teens’ boot camp. Learn how to be a better parent by visiting her website about problem children.

Teach Your Kids to Be Honest

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Finding out that your child has lied to you is utterly heartbreaking. After that one incident, you begin to feel apprehensive every time your child tells you something. After knowing for a fact that your child is capable of lying, you find it hard to trust anything that your child tells you. A sound child and parent relationship does not work that way, which is why you need to learn how to handle it.

While parents try as much as they can to let their children know the importance of honesty, there are still a few times when children forget about it. Because they are young, children are prone to shortcuts, failures, and temptations. These natural tendencies often lead to an occasional untruth, called the “white lie”.

A while lie is generally “harmless”, but then again kids can easily understand it in the wrong way. In order to prevent your kids from dishonesty, you have to nip the problem right in the bud. So that your kids will be discouraged from lying you have to teach them how to be honest.

The first step in teaching honesty is making your expectations of honesty very clear. You have to let your child know that telling the truth is very much important, therefore he should aim for it as much as possible. Tell your child that there are consequences for lying. As early as possible, nurture honesty in your kids as a desirable character trait.

But teaching your kids about being honest when you are dishonest yourself is just purely wrong. If you want to show your kids the importance of honesty, model honest behavior to your child. Prevent yourself from telling lies or misrepresenting facts. Kids are very keen observers and they know when they are being lied to, so do not risk it.

You have to reinforce any act of honesty too. When you reward your kids every time they tell the truth, you are also encouraging them to continue the behavior. Every time your kid is honest during a difficult situation, praise them for making the right move. After telling the truth about a sensitive situation, appreciate them.

It is very important that you believe your kids. So when you feel that your child is not telling you the truth, do not jump into hasty conclusions right away. Before you make any judgments, evaluate the facts first. It is very important that you find out for a fact that your kids are telling the truth or not before you accuse them of lying.

Teaching kids how to be honest is a daunting task. But if you make honesty a principle to live by, following through with it might not be as difficult. Take every opportunity there is and share the value of honesty with your kids as much as you can.

Author Katherine Thompson enjoys sharing on topics including boot camp teens. Learn how to be a better parent by visiting her website about my problem child.

Don’t Act on Feelings

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Feelings only possess the value that you put on them. Don’t let the feelings or the emotions be the basis of your decision. These are not a good guide for making a decision regarding your child. It may be good but only when you talk about a situation where feelings were hurt.

The cliché “Don’t decide when you’re emotional” is in fact true when you are dealing with your child. This is because most often when these feelings wane, you will realize you have made the wrong decision and chances are, it may be difficult to repair the damage done.

An example of this is when your child bought himself a PSP from his own savings and you due to fear that he might not be able to cope with his home work and activities in school decided to sell the PSP without your child’s permission. That fear may be the anger you feel as well upon learning that your child made a decision without consulting you.

There’s a fat chance that your child will forever be doing this if you insisted to do it your way. These things could have been discussed with your child. One thing that he must understand is that even when he has the resources to buy it, he must consult with his mother if it is a good decision.

Again, emotions can be too powerful for kids to control and they have not developed the right elements to handle them. That’s why it is significant that you as parents are there to filter the things that may happen to them as well as the possible emotions that they may feel in every situation, special the critical ones, such as divorce.

You as a parent therefore must not be emotional when making a decision particularly if it’s about your child. You have to be an example of a well-balanced person to him and always make sure that when you decide on something about your child even if it’s about punishment, you must first consider his benefit and well-being.

Author Katherine Thompson enjoys sharing on topics including boot camp for teens. Learn how to be a better parent by visiting her website about my problem children.

All About Emotionalizing

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Emotions sometimes play a vital role in a decision making process. A person may make an irrational decision especially if he has a negative attitude and is hot tempered. But what will happen as a consequence may not bring in good results. When emotional intensity takes over rational decision making, your brain may not work anymore because you shut it completely. You let your feelings influence your decision making capability.

Anger and stress usually turn out as negative emotions. These negative emotions can affect a person’s decision making capabilities. The result would be an irrational and not so sensible decision.

What a person can do is control the intensity of these emotions. He can then slowly convert these negative emotions into positive ones. By having the ability to cool down, relax and absorb everything around you, you can then have time to do some intellectual analysis. You’ll have time to think and plan on what the sensible decision to make.

Your ability to recognize and manage emotions can be a good coping mechanism in handling these negative emotions. Using humor and the ability to connect with other people’s emotions through non-verbal communications can easily bring you towards attaining positive attitude. These can lead you to give a more logical analysis on things before making the decision-making.

Getting emotions override your logical functions may not give you good decision results. A good example would be if you are interviewing an applicant for a certain position in your company. Don’t get emotions overrule your intellectual rationalization. If you have gut feelings that this applicant cannot be your brilliant employee because of his appearance or the way he conducts himself in your presence – you might be wrong.

Perceptions may not give you a good decision result. You may see an applicant and perceive him to be successful because of the way he talks – you may find out later that he is lazy. You have to base your selection on what his qualifications are, and how the selection process really turns out. Your decision must not be based on emotions or just your gut feelings.

Emotions can really get in the way of your decision making process if you let it override your logical way of analyzing things. Remember that emotions use only your heart and how you feel for a particular thing. Your brain was not given the opportunity to weigh the facts in order for a logical decision to be made.

A person may have a high ego and not readily accept that he can make a wrong decision. His line of thinking would be that his giving the decision was the more logical decision that can be made. What people should remember is that the brain is way over his heart. Therefore, it commands the better logic than his feelings.

Author Katherine Thompson enjoys sharing on topics including boot camp teens. Learn how to be a better parent by visiting her website about my problem child.

Always Respond Positively When Your Kid Starts to Get Negative

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It is always a challenge for any individual to practice parenting given its many complicated dealings with situations and the child itself. Not all can master parenting in one sitting – in fact no one can! However, this very reason is the essence of “parenthood” making it somewhat tough but at the same time, enables to bring out the best of our abilities.

Kids are most often in a “wandering” and “wondering” stage where they are not certain where they can actually place themselves in a situation or where they actually qualify in terms of the relationships that they have – within the family and in society as a whole. Because of this, kids are most often filled with a feeling of uncertainty that leads to insecurity and negativity.

The challenge posed to parents is this, therefore: how do we respond positively when our kid starts to get negative? First, be reminded and be convinced that negativity should have no room in your child’s disposition especially because who he becomes in the future is dependent on his molding stage which is childhood.

Responding positively to our child’s negativity doesn’t mean that we would blind-side our child into thinking that everything is perfect. A child can still see reality but in a more constructive way depending on how you make him see it.

Even if it means a great deal of convincing, parents should be very patient in explaining to the child that faulty thinking is not right and has no room in his attitude. If possible, give your child some concrete examples of how positivity brought out a better result as compared to negativity.

It may need a lot of time to convince your child out of the faulty thinking of having negativity given the fact that he may be having a hard time understanding everything you are saying. But if you only stay firm in your conviction at challenging negativity and try to become a living example of positivity in life, in no time at all, you will see great changes in your child.

Perhaps at one or some point, your child may question what you are trying to make him understand and accept. He may even justify it as just a programmed gesture on your part because you are his parent. If this happens, continue to persuade him and tell him that even with regards to other kids, you stand firm on your belief that positivity is the better solution.

The only way to ever make your child develop a good deal of confidence, security and hopefulness in life is when you as a parent are able to reinforce it within him over and over again, if need be. Persuasion and persistence goes hand in hand in creating a wonderfully positive child for him to become one positive asset as an adult one day.

Author Katherine Thompson enjoys sharing on topics including teens’ boot camp. Learn how to be a better parent by visiting her website about my problem children.

Kids Discipline

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An article that can be helpful to you has just been posted on our website. If you wish to learn how to teach your kids discipline, then you may want to check out our latest post. Teaching kids discipline is an investment in your child’s future as it helps them grow up to be responsible adults. Start by being a model to your children and show them that bad behavior is never tolerated. Read more about it by visiting our site. We also highly recommend that you try the Total Transformation Program by Dr. James Lehman for further training on child behavior change techniques (it can be yours for free if you fill out a feedback survey).

What to Do with Negative Kids

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Kids often have faulty thoughts especially about themselves. That’s what’s happening when you tell your daughter, “You look so pretty today” and she responds with “Oh mom, you are just saying that because you’re my mother.” When kids do that, you need to reinforce positivity to her. The way to do that is to say for example, “Oh well, you truly look pretty, whether you want to hear it or not.” Or you can say too, “No, I’m saying that to you because I do love you,” or “I’m saying that to you because I love what you did.”

They say it’s only the positive thoughts that can do away with the negative. This thinking error that your kids commit must be corrected; otherwise, they will be suffering from low self-esteem in the long run, especially in their adult life. One way to change the negativity in your kids is to always divert him into the positive. Being his role model, it is not so difficult for him to emulate your positivity, giving him the upper hand among children who are prone to the sometimes overcritical minds of parents and most of their accompanying adults.

Pretension is also a good means to keep your child protected from the many harsh realities of life. It’s a bad idea to show your kid the real world when it’s too harsh for his innocent and morality-challenged mind to accept or understand. Remember that moral development comes late in the stages of human life cycle. Young kids don’t have a concept of morality yet in them and that’s why it is often called foundation years. Parents simply have to make sure they start with a good, strong moral foundation.

When parents are able to provide a good foundation for morality in their kids, they are sure to linger on the positive things that life can offer and may tend to evade those that will lead them to sin, to despair, or to anything negative. Remember, reinforcing the positive may require a lot of strategies. It varies according to the personality of your child. That and many other factors to consider.

A positive child will grow up to be a well-balanced and well-adjusted individual in the future, the type who can survive any condition he may be thrown in. That’s why you must envelop your kid with positivity and this is only possible with your responsible love and concern for your kid.

Author Katherine Thompson enjoys sharing on topics including boot camp for teens. Learn how to be a better parent by visiting her website about my problem child.

Parent Training

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We posted a new article on our website. This article acquaints you with parent training and what programs like it want to accomplish in terms of helping you deal more effectively with children. If you feel you want to learn a few more helpful skills as a parent – as we all do – we invite you to read our latest post. For further advice on transforming problem children, we also recommend you try the Total Transformation Program by Dr. James Lehman as you can get it for free if you fill out a feedback survey.

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