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Tips for Home
If you want to create a beautiful family, keep these simple tips close at hand and use them everyday.
- Tune Up Your Belief System.
We all know we live out of our beliefs – our pre-determined opinions about
things. What we believe is what we expect to see. Since we go towards our
focus, belief systems have a way of controlling our lives. They can hurt us
or serve us.
What are your beliefs about your family?
- Do you believe your family is a hassle or a blessing?
- Do you belief you could have done better in picking your partner, or
do you believe you are the luckiest guy/girl in the world?
- Do you believe mornings are stressful, rushed and something that you
have to get through, or do believe your mornings are a time to celebrate
and enjoy life and family?
What belief systems are handicapping you? Which ones are serving you?
- Compliments that Work
Have you ever seen parents who constantly give a lot of compliments to their
kids? ("Good job! Way to go! Keep it up!") Have you ever given this
type of compliment? If so, please take that approach out of your parenting.
Children quickly learn to tune this meaningless chatter out and then we lose
the ability to influence the ones we love the most. Here are three proven
ways to truly build your children's confidence, character and values:
- Be Sincere, Specific and Selective. Replace insincere, non-specific,
and too frequent compliments with the 3 S's of Yes (sincere, specific,
selective). When you now decide to acknowledge one of your children, it
will be 100% sincere. It will be focused on a specific action or event,
and thus, it will be brief and sincere. Saying "Jimmy, you are so
responsible," many times a day or week in a sneaky attempt to convince
him or manipulate him, is neither sincere nor specific. A better way might
be, "Jimmy, I admire the way you handled your school project all
by yourself and turned it in ahead of schedule."
- When this approach is done well and used very selectively, your child
will actually walk away seeing themselves in a different light. Over time,
they build a different belief system about themselves, and as we mentioned
in number one above, we live out of our belief systems and we go towards
our focus.
- Ask Questions that Make Them Think
Replace a lot of your telling, informing and lecturing with Forward Focused
Questions. For example, instead of telling your child how you think they should
act at the birthday party, ask them for their thoughts and ideas first. You
might say, "John, how would you like to behave at the birthday party
that would make the other kids feel good and also take care of Tim's home
and toys?" The old lecturing could easily perpetuate undesirable behavior.
Asking a Forward Focused Question allows the child to develop their own critical
thinking skills.
- Stop, Look, and Listen Deeply
How do you feel when you're trying to talk to your partner as they are watching
TV? Most people see their kids less than three hours a day – and out of that,
only a few minutes are with complete concentration on the child(ren). Any
parent will tell you that kids grow up too fast. Do you want to risk losing
what precious little time you might have with them before they are out in
the world? Truly listening to what your child is saying and feeling. Replace
the empty compliments and too much telling and lecturing with time looking
into their eyes, stopping what your doing and just listening. (should we share
what old way and new way does…..
- Create a home/family of celebration.
When you and your family are celebrating the good things and events in your
life, you will naturally be on a roll. When your family members are on a roll,
they usually feel good about themselves. They become more confident, and naturally
want to support each other, have fun and cooperate. One of the hundreds of
ways to bring this discipline into your family is to ask a variety of celebration
questions at meal-time. For example, "Would each family member please
share something that you are celebrating today?
- Count Your Blessings – Out Loud!
When you and your family are thankful for each other and all of the blessings
in your lives, you are automatically living on the front side of the energy
map – feeling confident, empowered and positive. It's one of the oldest laws
of the universe, what you focus on is what you'll get. In addition to asking
questions to easily create this focus, your family will naturally follow your
example. Over time, as you model a sincere attitude of gratitude, your family
will too.
- You Get What You Focus On
A child naturally wants to be great, until we teach them that they are bad.
Every time we focus on their bad behavior, tell them not to do something,
or say ‘don't,' it reinforces their own belief system that they are a bad
person, and that could become a self-fulfilling prophesy. Replace this old
approach with clear, firm messages on what's important to you and also share
why it's important to you. If their age is appropriate, you might follow your
message ("It's important to me that we are always honest with each other")
with a simple question such as, "How do you think you should do this?
Or, "How do you think this will make things better?"
- Healthy Parents Create Healthy Kids
When your children's emotional needs are met, 90% of your parenting issues
and hassles will disappear. Here's how to gage your kid's health: 
- Do they feel truly listened too?
- Do they feel like their feelings are acknowledged and understood?
- Do they feel that they are unconditionally accepted and loved vs just
accepted and loved when they are behaving the way you want them to behave?
(Note: this does not mean that all behaviors are ok. It is very important
to be firm in stopping an unacceptable behavior and then to redirect your
children to acceptable behavior.)
When your emotional needs are met, you can more easily meet your children's
emotional needs. Ask yourself:
- Are you taking good care of yourself?
- Are you focused on your blessings?
- Are you celebrating the good things and moments in your day?
- Are you living on the frontside of the energy map and on a roll most
of the time?
- Do you have positive thoughts and dialogue about yourself?
- Are you blocking off time to do things that you really enjoy?
- Do you have a circle of healthy, caring friends?
- Do you have healthy belief systems about yourself, your family, life,
etc?
- Four Simple Keys to Parenting
Do you follow the four simple keys to parenting?
- Do your children know that you love them and accept them unconditionally?
- Are you direct and firm in sharing what's important to you and why?
- Are you consistent?
- Do you set a good example in how you live your life, including how
you treat you spouse, friends, co-workers to how you take care of your
possessions, your home, your responsibilities, etc?
- Magic Moments Matter
The moment between an "event or circumstance" in your family --
and how you respond to what happens -- creates your family and your future.
Use these moments wisely. They moments are truly magic moments. In these moments,
we have a choice to either just get the job done -- stop the bad behavior
-- and perhaps leave our children with inappropriate qualities and value;
or we can get the job done and leave them with priceless qualities and values.
These are the gifts that will make or break your children's future. Gifts
like responsibility, honesty, confidence, joyfulness, etc.
We all know that material gifts (bikes, video games, cell phones, dolls and
trucks) pale compared to the gifts of qualities and values (like responsibility,
honesty and self-esteem) These gifts that are the foundation of healthy, happy,
successful lives. But how many of us realize that we get to choose what qualities
and values we want to give our families.
It's easy to parent when things are going well. But how do we parent and lead
when problems arise? These are the times when taking a magic moment will dissolve
undesirable behavior, build self esteem and relationships and lead our loved
ones to healthy behaviors and a beautiful future.
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