Help My Out Of Control Kid!: How To Handle Temper Tantrums

Dealing with tantrums is the part of parenting which most parents dread. They hope their sweet little baby will not ever hit the toddler tantrum phase or the even worse teenage temper tantrum phase.

As a young mother, I was just as afraid of toddler tantrums as the next person. Then it happened, my sweet, good natured little boy switched in to a power struggling animal.

This was my first child, I didn’t know what to do.

I remember one day, when he was three years old, I told him he couldn’t have a certain snack he wanted and the next thing I knew he was in his room throwing his brand new metal Tonka dump truck against his wall. Continue reading

Improving Self Esteem: How To Build Self Confidence In Children

A Mother’s Question About Building Self Esteem In Children

 “Emma said to me at bedtime that she thinks that she’s ugly. I’m not exactly sure where she heard this since I’m always telling her how cute she is, but what would you say to your kids if they said that?”

 Nicholeen’s Answer:

 I am wondering if she has heard lots of talk about beauty from friends at school. Maybe some friends always talk about how pretty certain class mates are, and she is never mentioned or something like that.

Usually issues like this appear to be self-worth problems, but are usually social issues. A girl who is surrounded by talk about beauty can assume she isn’t pretty even if no one says anything mean.

Many people are groomed these days to base their worth off of feed back from others. If a person gets in the habit of that they will always end up needing low self-esteem help. An important skill to know is how to improve your self-esteem. This skill is essential for proper self-government. We really do have control over our own self-confidence. Continue reading

Positive Parenting: Justice or Mercy?

The Parenting Question

Justice or mercy? That is the question. When your child gets frustrated at his sister and hits her does he need justice or mercy? When your youth comes home from a date after curfew does she need justice or mercy? How do parents balance these two truths? Which principles are the parent secrets for raising children? Is justice or mercy the key for how to become a good parent? Continue reading

Back Talking Cure

 

Question:

 

“How do you stop children from back talking?”

 

Answer:

 

Children talking back, or sassing, to their parents seems to be a behavior many children experiment with. At different phases of development feelings of independence and intelligence emerge causing kids to talk back.

 

Ironically, parents spend lots of energy reinforcing the intelligence of their children, and teaching the children how to think for themselves. If we spend so many years moving our child toward self-governing thoughts and behaviors, why do we care so much about back talking children and back talking teenagers? Continue reading

Relationship Repair Work

It is garden time at my house.  I really love putting in a garden with the family!  We spent a good amount of time today in the garden pulling weeds and planting new, good seeds.  

Raising children is similar to gardening.  We have to keep nourishing, and planting new seeds to strengthen the garden.  Keep your relationships with your teens, and other children alive and growing by having lots of good talk together, play together, and work together time.  

We can all think of long lists of things we need to weed out of our child’s garden, but if our nourishing relationship isn’t being worked on then the weeding will not work as well as you hope for.  

Focus your best efforts on Continue reading