Category: Parenting

Posted in Parenting

7 Do’s and Don’ts of Raising a Happy Child

Posted on by Tim Connolly

Happiness probably tops the list of things you want to cultivate in your children — just follow our list of what to do (and not do) when nurturing your child’s positive outlook.

Do Let Your Kid Take the Lead

Spend “child-centered time” with your kid every day, says Joyce Nolan Harrison, M.D., assistant professor of psychiatry, division of child and adolescent psychiatry at Johns Hopkins Children’s Center. This means putting away all distractions (read: your smartphone!), getting on the floor, giving your full “face-to-face” attention, and letting your little one lead playtime. “Do what the child wants to do, not what you want the child to do,” she says. This isn’t a new concept, but it can be extremely difficult for many parents. Start by dedicating just five minutes to playtime each day. “Inevitably, what happens,” she says, “is parents want to do it more.” If you have multiple kids, spend time individually with each one; combine their playtime only if they request it.

Don’t Protect Kids From Failure

It may be one of the hardest tasks as a parent, but let your kid make her own mistakes — and learn from them. To help kids prepare for sticky situations, help them learn to accept life’s realities, such as conflict, struggle, and consequences. For instance, if your daughter repeatedly forgets to take her lunch to school, let her manage for herself in the cafeteria one day. If she isn’t getting along with a teacher or a classmate, let her try working it out first. “Children have to deal with the fact that this world is full of flawed people,” says Christine Carter, Ph.D., author of Raising Happiness and a sociologist at UC Berkeley Greater Good Science Center. Avoid becoming a “helicopter” parent, who is always hovering, or a “snow-plough” parent, who swoops in and rescues a child before something bad happens. Instead, adopt a middle-ground approach to parenting. “The trick is to stay just far enough away that the child begins to develop her own autonomy, but close enough that if a child is floundering, the parents can come in and pick her up,” says Dorothy Stubbe, M.D., associate professor and program director at Yale University School of Medicine Child Study Center.

Do Offer (Selective) Praise

Pop quiz: Your kid scores a 95 on a math test. You respond with: (A) You’re so smart! I’m super proud of you, or (B) I’m glad that you studied hard. Keep up the great work! For the sake of your child’s self-esteem and happiness, experts agree that option B is the best response, since it’s better to dole out praise for an action than for a result. Praising inherent traits, such as intelligence, can make kids self-conscious, which may lead to unwanted complexes. The worst-case scenario is when a child evolves into a perfectionist and eventually feels insecure and believes he is disappointing you if he doesn’t get straight A’s. These days, parents tend to overpraise, so buck the trend by praising for concrete actions and effort. Dr. Carter notes that it’s easier to comment on the end result, such as a high test score, but she recommends that you train yourself to praise “specific effort, because that’s in a child’s control.”

Don’t Criticize and Compare

Shining the light on unwelcomed behavior can often backfire. “Give a reaction when you want an action repeated,” Dr. Harrison says. “Ignore things you don’t want to continue. For some kids, a bad reaction is better than no reaction.” In other words, say something nice when your daughter puts away her toys, but try to hold your breath when she doesn’t share them with her little brother. Avoiding criticism boosts a child’s self-esteem and helps keep her happy and motivated, Dr. Stubbe says. If your child repeats the bad behavior, try hard to continue ignoring it. If it persists, remain patient, and calmly explain to him why his behavior is not acceptable, and remind him of how he should act.

Do Show Gratitude

“Gratitude and happiness are so strongly linked,” Dr. Carter says. So practice gratitude with your munchkin on a daily basis, but appreciation lists shouldn’t consist solely of toys and tablets. Teach your children to focus on being thankful for nonmaterial things, such as sleeping in a warm bed or taking an art class, to broaden their perspective. If your child can’t rattle off a list, it doesn’t mean he’s not grateful — he may simply need practice. “Kids aren’t really taught to be grateful, but parents get upset when kids act entitled,” Dr. Carter says. If your youngster isn’t responsive, try a sneaky approach: At dinnertime or before bed, ask him to name three good things that happened that day.

Posted in Parenting

4 Types of Parenting Styles and Their Effects on Kids

Posted on by Tim Connolly

Your parenting style can affect everything from how much your child weighs to how she feels about herself. It’s important to ensure your parenting style is supporting healthy growth and development because the way you interact with your child and how you discipline her will influence her for the rest of her life. 

Researchers have identified four types of parenting styles:

  • Authoritarian
  • Authoritative
  • Permissive
  • Uninvolved

Each style takes a different approach to raising children, and can be identified by a number of different characteristics.

1. Authoritarian Parenting

Do any of these statements sound like you?

  • You believe kids should be seen and not heard.
  • When it comes to rules, you believe it’s “my way or the highway.”
  • You don’t take your child’s feelings into consideration.

If any of those ring true, you might be an authoritarian parent. Authoritarian parents believe kids should follow the rules without exception.

Authoritarian parents are famous for saying, “Because I said so,” when a child questions the reasons behind a rule. They are not interested in negotiating and their focus is on obedience.

They also don’t allow kids to get involved in problem-solving challenges or obstacles. Instead, they make the rules and enforce the consequences with little regard for a child’s opinion. 

Authoritarian parents may use punishments instead of discipline. So rather than teach a child how to make better choices, they’re invested in making kids feel sorry for their mistakes.

Children who grow up with strict authoritarian parents tend to follow rules much of the time. But, their obedience comes at a price.

Children of authoritarian parents are at a higher risk of development self-esteem problems because their opinions aren’t valued.

They may also become hostile or aggressive. Rather than think about how to do things better in the future, they often focus on the anger they feel toward their parents. Since authoritarian parents are often strict, their children may grow to become good liars in an effort to avoid punishment.

2. Authoritative Parenting

Do any of these statements sound like you?

  • You put a lot of effort into creating and maintaining a positive relationship with your child.
  • You explain the reasons behind your rules.
  • You enforce rules and give consequences, but take your child’s feelings into consideration. 

If those statements sound familiar, you may be an authoritative parent. Authoritative parents have rules and they use consequences, but they also take their children’s opinions into account. They validate their children’s feelings, while also making it clear that the adults are ultimately in charge. 

Authoritative parents invest time and energy into preventing behavior problems before they start. They also use positive discipline strategies to reinforce good behavior, like praise and reward systems.

3. Permissive Parenting

Do any of these statements sound like you?

  • You set rules but rarely enforce them.
  • You don’t give out consequences very often.
  • You think your child will learn best with little interference from you.

If those statements sound familiar, you might be a permissive parent. Permissive parents are lenient. They often only step in when there’s a serious problem.

They’re quite forgiving and they adopt an attitude of “kids will be kids.” When they do use consequences, they may not make those consequences stick. They might give privileges back if a child begs or they may allow a child to get out of time-out early if he promises to be good. 

Permissive parents usually take on more of a friend role than a parent role. They often encourage their children to talk with them about their problems, but they usually don’t put much effort into discouraging poor choices or bad behavior. 

4. Uninvolved Parenting

Do any of these statements sound familiar?

  • You don’t ask your child about school or homework.
  • You rarely know where your child is or who she is with.
  • You don’t spend much time with your child.

If those statements sound familiar, you might be an uninvolved parent. Uninvolved parents tend to have little knowledge of what their children are doing.

There tend to be few rules. Children may not receive much guidance, nurturing, and parental attention.

Uninvolved parents expect children to raise themselves. They don’t devote much time or energy into meeting children’s basic needs.

Uninvolved parents may be neglectful but it’s not always intentional. A parent with mental health issues or substance abuse problems, for example, may not be able to care for a child’s physical or emotional needs on a consistent basis. 

Posted in Parenting

The Emotions Bowl – begin teaching kids emotional regulation

Posted on by Tim Connolly

My brother was seeking a way to stay close to his kids during a very tumultuous time in his life and he asked the advice of a family counselor.

She suggested the emotions bowl.

Since then he and I both have added this ritual into our days. It is a simple way to increase connection and emotional regulation with your kids.

Family emotional health starts with being able to talk about our emotions. And we can’t do that without having a wide ranging awareness of what these emotions are and how they come up in big and small ways during our days. Along with awareness, we need to know it is safe to express these emotions in our family. The emotions bowl gives you a tool to open up conversation about emotions.

The premise: you write down the 8 core emotions on slips of paper. Each person takes a turn a pulling a slip out and talking about when they had that emotion. Other family members listen without judging, trying to solve, or commenting. Just listening, providing a safe place to talk.

Here’s how to use the emotions bowl to begin to increase emotional fluency in your family:

The emotions bowl has  Plutchik’s eight core emotions on slips of paper.

List of emotions we use in our emotions bowl:

  • Anger
  • Anticipation
  • Joy
  • Trust
  • Fear
  • Surprise
  • Sadness
  • Disgust

We just use a little wooden bowl to hold the emotions. In my (Alissa’s) family we actually went to the craft store and bought little wooden disks we could paint and write the emotions on. Obviously just slips of paper work fine! We just made the disks because it seemed fun.

Each person takes turns pulling out an emotion then talking about when they had that emotion during the day.

For the listeners – the point of this exercise is to make a safe space to talk about emotions, so the listener’s only response is to listen to the person talking about when that emotion came up. It’s important to note that the listeners just validate the speaker’s experience. They don’t need to agree that they would have felt the same thing. Our usual reaction is simply nodding and, maybe a simple repeating back to make sure I understood. Very young children may need a little help, but very quickly they will be able to come up with their own emotional events.

The important things is that you just listen as the person talking tells about their emotion – no trying to come up with solutions or fix their emotions. This is not a problem solving  time, it is a listening time. Emotions come and go, they don’t always need to be acted on.

Also, many time  the emotions bowl doesn’t bring up some deep emotional conversation and that’s completely fine! We feel a variety of emotions in a variety of depths. This exercise helps us become get mindful about internal experiences, and gives us a chance to practice expressing what we feel.

For instance a recent interaction in our family went something like this:

Kid – (draws ‘sadness’ out of the bowl)

Me – Ok, when did you feel sadness today?

Kid – Sadness is a hard one. I don’t feel it much.

Me – It doesn’t have to be a big sadness, it can be little too. (Then I’m quiet to see if she talks more, leaving the space open for her to think of a sadness. A little open ended encouragement is ok, but mainly being silent and waiting is important. Many times kids just need time to think, even if they at first say they can’t think of anything.)

Kid – Oh, I was sad when I opened the pencil sharpener.

Me – Oh? You were sad when you opened the pencil sharpener?

Kid – Yeah! The pencil shavings spilled all over! I was sad about the mess!

Me – (Noticing that indeed she still has some shavings on her shirt and chair…) Ah, you opened the pencil sharpener and the shavings fell out all over you and the floor. You felt sad about that?

Kid – Yeah. It made a mess.

Ok – I admit that in this moment, inside I thought, “But is that really sadness?” I had an urge to tell her how she felt, but I didn’t. The point of the emotions bowl is to grow emotional awareness. She’ll have plenty of times to hear more and think more about sadness. Hearing her emotions and listening is validating of her experience and it teaches her to trust herself.

Using the emotions bowl in this non judgmental way shows your kids that all emotions are something that can be talked about in your family, not just the happy ones. It gives vocabulary around the variety of emotions they feel and it helps them have awareness and curiosity about their emotions.

My brother says, “One of the fun things that we like about it is that the first question used to always be, ‘What if I don’t feel that?’ and I would say, ‘Well I bet if you think really hard you’ll think of some time you felt that.’ and then it becomes a game to think of a time. We’ve never pulled an emotion out where the person couldn’t think of some time during the day where they felt that and sometimes it’s something funny like, ‘I felt disgust when I saw that sandwich this morning or whatever.’ but it’s like we can play with the emotions.”

The other nice thing about little routines like the emotions bowl is that they require no set up (beyond the first time once you’ve gotten the emotions written out). Then you have a way to be with your kids in a meaningful way and it only takes a few minutes.

“The Emotion Bowl I started doing at a time when there was no routine in my life. You know we’d just moved into an apartment, there was no table, it was a mess. So I didn’t feel like there were any of these anchoring points in my day, and that little bowl with the emotions in it just became this really easy go-to tradition or anchoring point that we all knew what was going to happen.

And it struck me that it really doesn’t have to be that complicated. I don’t have to have a table set and have a big dinner made with it. We could be eating take-out food sitting on the couch, but we had that little tradition that made a point of connection and gave all of us to the feeling of family. Like, here we are doing this thing together and it only takes 5 minutes, but is actually connecting us.”

 

Posted in Parenting

Most parents say hands-on, intensive parenting is best

Posted on by Tim Connolly

Most parents say a child-centered, time-intensive approach to parenting is the best way to raise their kids, regardless of education, income or race.

New research from Cornell University suggests intensive parenting has become the dominant model for how parents across the socio-economic spectrum feel children should be raised, regardless of whether the parent has the resources to actually do so.

“This points to the exceptionally high standards for how parents should raise their kids,” said postdoctoral fellow Patrick Ishizuka, author of “Social Class, Gender and Contemporary Parenting Standards in the United States,” published in Social Forces. “It suggests that parents are experiencing significant pressure to spend great amounts of both time and money on children.”

Most parents said intensive parenting is the ideal approach for both mothers and fathers, and applies to parenting boys and girls, according to the study.

Field researchers have known that parents with low incomes and less education tend to spend less time and money on children than those with higher incomes and more education. But it hadn’t been clear whether that is because they lack resources or because they prefer a different approach to childbearing.

Ishizuka’s study is the first to directly address the question using a nationally representative survey, asking parents of different social classes what they consider to be “good parenting.” He analyzed data from more than 3,600 study participants who were parents.

The vast majority, 75 percent, of college graduates and non-college graduates rated an intensive approach as “very good” or “excellent” parenting.

The findings imply parents may struggle to meet these ideals, especially if they have low incomes and education levels. You should teach your kids by taking help from Point-system for kids which would help you to develop a healthy and happy child.

Posted in Parenting

12 Ways to Ensure Your Kid is More Important Than Your Phone

Posted on by Tim Connolly

Parents don’t need more guilt. That’s not what this article is about.

We know we shouldn’t spend too much time on our smartphones in front of our kids. We’ve read articles like “For The Children’s Sake, Put Down That Smartphone,” and “Children reveal ‘hidden sadness’ of parents spending too much time on mobile phones.”

But you probably already feel a tinge of guilt when you think of this topic. I know I do.

We parents are beginning to admit that we’re as concerned about our screen time as we’re concerned about our kids’ screen time.

Unlike our kids, however, we actually have reasons for looking at screens all day.

We have email, schedules, research, updates, shopping, messaging, mapping, planning – sometimes even calling.

Let’s admit it – again, without guilt or judgment – we also look at our screens for entertainment and distraction. Those are parental needs too.

Our phone dependence is a symptom of busy lives, busy work, restless minds. But the devices themselves are rigged against us. Intentionally or not, their design can trigger addiction-like behaviors in many people. As noted on Quartz,“Still, there’s plenty of research out there describing the dopamine effect—a neurotransmitter that sends pulses to your brain’s reward and pleasure centers with every new text or tweet—and the widespread addiction to that momentary pleasure, which has been compared to cravings for nicotine, cocaine, and gambling.”

Indeed, according to this recent Gallup poll, “about half of U.S. smartphone owners check their devices several times an hour or more frequently.”

The attention we devote to our phones has a measurable impact on our health, wellbeing, and social and family relationships.

Psychology professor Larry Rosen has shown that “if there’s a phone around—even if it’s someone else’s phone—its presence tends to make people anxious and perform more poorly on tasks.”Volume 0% FEATURED VIDEO ALL OUR VIDEOS

Staring at our phones gives us tech neck, it can spike stress, it can disrupt sleep patterns, it can lead to distractedness and irritability, and it may even trigger depressive symptoms in some people.

The intense attention we devote to our smartphones has a major, measurable impact on our health, wellbeing, and social and family relationships.

But in a family situation, the greatest problem might be “technoference” with our relationships with our spouse and kids.

Kids can feel that we’re more interested in our phones than we are interested in them.

The good news is that this is a fixable problem. For most people, it’s simply a matter of admitting to the issue, and making a simple plan with the rest of the family.

Help Your Kids Develop Healthy Habits by Improving Your Tech Habits

David Hill of the American Academy of Pediatrics said that positive parenting practices around technology include role-modeling.

“Demonstrate your own mindfulness in front of your children by putting down your phone during meals or whenever they need your attention.” – David Hill

Here are some ideas to help you create healthy phone boundaries.Boundaries that your kid might inherit and follow outside of your home, and may even pass down to their own kids someday.

 1 ) Take Stock of Your Actual Phone Needs 

Tim Harford writes that “smartphones are habit-forming, so think about the habits you want to form.”

Every parent has unique technology-related needs. Many of us legitimately need to get on our phones. But most of us get on the phone in front of our kids more than we need to.

It’s useful to write a list of your important everyday phone activities. This list will be slightly different for every parent. What activities are critical for your job vs those that are fun and refreshing?

Use this list to make time to check your phone without interrupting family moments. Account for work and play on your phone – you need both.

Reassert control over your phone by figuring out how you actually use it. Don’t let it use you.

 2) Involve the Kids in a Family Discussion About Appropriate Smartphone Use 

Even young kids can contribute to a discussion about phone use around the house. This will help them understand why you occasionally need to get on the phone. It will also help them understand why you set rules on their technology usage.

David Hill of the American Academy of Pediatrics also suggests involving kids in making rules around media.Ask them what they think appropriate electronic media use looks like and what sorts of consequences might be warranted for breaking the agreed-upon rules. You may have to help guide them in these discussions, but often you’ll find that they have expectations that are not that different from your own.

 3) Write and Post Smartphone Rules Where Everyone Can See Them 

This can be a rambling manifesto, but it’s better if it’s a simple, short list posted on the fridge.Again, they’ll be different for every family, but examples might include:

  • No phones out for the first hour after coming home
  • No phones out until the kids are in bed
  • No phones out during meals
  • No phones out during a family movie (the hardest one for me – kids’ movies are terrible).

 4) Give Kids Ten Minutes of Undivided Positive Attention 

One of my favorite family tips of all time comes from my friend Sarah Woodard, who learned about it from  Amy McCready of Positive Parenting Solutions.

It’s simple: give your kids 10 minutes of pure, undivided attention twice a day. This means you go into their world talking with them or playing with them with no interruptions. This supports positive attention and emotional connection, and it’s very doable. 10 minutes. Try it for a couple of weeks.

To make an effort to spend a mere 10 minutes of undivided time with your kid seems ridiculous.But for many (maybe most) parents, intentional time spent together can be surprisingly rare.

 5) Understand, Admit, & Overcome FOMO 

FOMO (fear of missing out) can cause real anxiety. It can make people use their phone to check up with their connections much more than is healthy, or necessary.

You’re best equipped to deal with FOMO by being honest about it. 

 6) Consider Your Habit Triggers 

In The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg wrote  “Most of the choices we make every day may feel like the products of well-considered decision making, but they’re not.”

We automatically reach for our phones in certain situations. Try to pay attention to these cues or triggers. When do you automatically reach for your phone? What can you do differently during those times, besides look at your phone?  Or how can you change the way you’re using your phone in those moments to include your kids?Charles Duhigg also wrote “The Golden Rule of Habit Change: You can’t extinguish a bad habit, you can only change it.”

If might not be a bad thing of you read the news on your phone at breakfast in front of your kids – if you occasionally share something of interest with them. Kind of like the old days with the newspaper.

“Change might not be fast and it isn’t always easy. But with time and effort, almost any habit can be reshaped.” – Charles Duhigg

 7) Designate a Box or Drawer Where You’ll Stash Your Phone During Phone-Free Time 

 8) Put the Phone On Silent During Set Times 

 9) Turn off Notifications 

  • iOS Instructions
  • Android Instructions

 10) Use “Do Not Disturb” on Your Phone During Family Time 

It’s easy to silence calls, alerts, and notifications on many iOS and Android phones while the device is locked. You can also schedule a time or choose who you’ll allow calls from.

  • How to set up Do Not Disturb on iOS
  • Android phones with Marshmallow also have a “Do Not Disturb” feature

 11) Make your device faster and more efficient to use 

You can spend less time on your phone simply by better organizing your apps.

  • Use a service like Unroll.me to unsubscribe to some of the email subscriptions you have to wade through just to check your important mail.
  • Rearrange your apps for greater efficiency.
  • Delete apps that waste your time. Easier said than done, but I’m glad I recently did this every time I use my phone.

 12) Use An App To Monitor Usage 

CHECKY is a simple app that tells you how many times a day do you check your phone. You’ll be surprised.

Moment is an iOS app that automatically tracks how much you use your iPhone and iPad each day.If you’re using your phone too much, you can set daily limits on yourself and be notified when you go over.You can even force yourself off your device when you’re over your limit. There are many bedtime stories to read for your children which leads to developing a good relationship with them.

Posted in Parenting

Women with big jobs and big families: Balancing really isn’t that hard

Posted on by Tim Connolly

The autonomy and career capital that come with executive roles help you delegate on the job. You often have the resources to be strategic at home too — and the organizational skills to pull it all off. Professional women with four or more children share their secrets for managing life, secrets that can help any parent (dads too!) succeed.

1. What’s good for the family is good for each kid. 

If you have a large family, you’re managing a complex organization. “I started to realize I’m leading at work, and I’m leading at home, and the skill set is no different,” says Liz Wiseman, a former Oracle executive, entrepreneur, and mom of four. Leadership means being focused on the whole, particularly in managing children’s lives. Women handled potential extra-curricular craziness two ways. First, “We make them all do the same thing,” says Jaime Teevan, a researcher with Microsoft Research and a professor at the University of Washington, who has a 6-year-old, 8-year-old twins, and a 10-year-old. Tuesdays, her boys all do judo at the same time. She meets a girlfriend for happy hour at a brewery across the street. Net result? “I look forward to judo. It’s awesome.”

The other approach is to choose your location wisely. Mary Crotty, assistant general counsel at Pfizer and a mother of eight, lives in Pelham, NY, in a part of town where “a lot of the things are actually walkable,” she says. Jenny Dearborn, chief learning officer at SAP, and a mom of four, says that this is the upside of California: “We live in a part of the world where the weather permits them to go to places on their bikes.”

2. Enlist the village. 

Crotty’s children are close enough in age that with sports “a lot of times they would end up on the same team.” Even so, it’s impossible for two parents to get eight kids to everything, so “I have a lot of wonderful people in town who always help us out,” she says.

3. Embrace work/life integration.

 Lisa Lacasse is the vice president for strategy and operations at the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network. She also has four teenagers. “I just do everything all the time,” she says. “I’ll go to work and spend 20 minutes during downtime finalizing logistics for summer camp.” She works the hours that work for her, coming in a little later if she’s got a school event, and then making up the time elsewhere. “I’ve never asked permission for the flexibility of my job,” she says. In life, it’s sometimes better to ask for forgiveness, which may not be necessary if you do good work. “I think women in particular need to feel more empowered to do that,” she says. “No one ever told me to do it, I just did.”

4. Prioritize self care.

 Managing a big career and a big family takes energy. So smart women manage their own energy like they’d manage an important direct report. Sleep is one necessary component. “I’d love to stay up late and do something great, but I go to sleep early and wake up again,” says Liess. Exercise also helps, and you can be creative about fitting it in. Crotty will exercise at 10 p.m. “That’s the time I can finally get to the gym,” she says. “I can always get a parking spot!”

Dearborn manages her early shift and late shift by exercising strategically during what would be an afternoon slump. “Exercise in the middle of the day gives me the boost to get through the end of the day,” she says.

5. Build your team at work. 

Lisa Barton, executive vice president at AEP Transmission, whose blended family consists of five daughters, stresses that work success is all about “investing time in others. That seems counterintuitive to a busy lifestyle, but I think it’s incredibly important. You end up lightening your load and end up giving people the opportunity to be successful, which they really enjoy.” When you can’t delegate, collaborate. “Two people don’t only get half the credit,” says Teevan. “You get almost the whole credit and you only do half the work.”

Seek sponsors and allies too. Crotty notes that her (female) boss encouraged her to seek promotions even with all her responsibilities, and gave her the flexibility to make it work. Wiseman came back from her first maternity leave and figured out that “I can’t solve my problems by working harder anymore. I have to solve them by being thoughtful.” She talked with her (male) boss who said, basically, tell me what you need. “I always felt like I had an ally,” she says, and as she built her career, “For me, it was important that those allies were men.” Many times, men are the ones in powerful positions, and have the capital to help you. It is important for parents to explain government to kids and all the important facts about what is going on in their country.



Posted in Parenting

How to Build Systems for a Productive Life as a Parent

Posted on by Tim Connolly

Much of our frustration and failure in productivity comes from the recurring, mundane, daily must-dos of life. These little, repeating tasks seem so unimportant that we often overlook them. When overlooked, however, these small tasks can add up to pretty big losses in productivity.

Systems help us to deal with the recurring stuff of life; we don’t want to, or need to, eliminate these things. We simply want to make them more efficient. Think “streamlining.” Think “simplifying.”

Think “having a plan for breakfast so you don’t have to run out for milk at [7:30] in the morning when your kids are starving.”

Think systems.

Whether we realize it or not, we depend on systems. This is true in parenting as in all of life. The better our systems are, the easier – and more productive – our lives will be.

Systems Are Everywhere

There’s a system you follow for getting dressed in the morning, for making sure you eat daily, for doing your work.

These may not be the most efficient systems, but they work to some degree.

When you’re a parent, you are responsible not only for the stuff of your own life but also for your child’s life… at least, up until a certain age when we hope that they start taking that responsibility for themselves.

The more responsibilities you have, the more complicated life becomes. The more complicated life becomes, the more overwhelmed, stressed, and frustrated we get.

Systems help to reduce the complication.

Sure, you can spend ten minutes every morning scratching your head over what you’re going to make for breakfast that both you and your child will eat – that’s an inefficient breakfast system – or you can build an efficient breakfast system that will save you time and frustration.

Once we start seeing the systems that make up our lives, we can start changing them for the better.

We can change them from the default setting, which is usually inefficient and frustrating. We can consciously and carefully build streamlined, flexible, and enjoyable systems.

That can make life better for us and for our kids.

Where to Start

Start looking for the systems in your life as they already exist. Don’t judge. Don’t stress. Just notice.

As you notice your own systems, you’ll also start to notice where they break down or become frustrating and inefficient.

As you see where your current systems fail, you can start to decide if you need to level it and build a brand-new system, or simply tweak your current one a little bit so it’s working for you.

Where Is the Pain?

Regular pain points in your life are often signs of broken, inefficient, and/or out-dated systems.

What are the areas in your life that fit one or more of these descriptions?

  • This area is a source of continual frustration for me and/or my child.
  • This area is one that I often avoid, consciously or unconsciously, by procrastinating or creating obstacles and distractions.
  • This area is one that is necessary in daily life, but it always seems to take too long and be too complicated.
  • This area is a continual drain of my time, money, or other resources.
  • This area seems to continually create conflicts between the people involved.

For parents in general, and parents who are interested in productivity especially, the following areas are common issues:

  • “Kid clutter”: toys, clothes, and general stuff that collects and gets left everywhere.
  • Transition times: coming and going anywhere, especially on a schedule.
  • Meal times.
  • Bed/nap times.
  • Having your own personal/adult time.
  • Keeping up with regular work demands.
  • Keeping up with household chores such as laundry and cleaning.
  • Having time for hobbies, exercise, personal life, social life, etc., while also being a parent and staying productive.

Do any of those areas strike a chord of pain in you?

An Example of a Bad System

Let’s take “kid clutter” as an example. I have four kids; the oldest is 8. I am continually picking up dirty socks, muddy shoes, balls, Legos, game pieces, paper scraps, and markers and putting them where they belong.

For a while, I thought I just didn’t have a good enough system for storing and organizing this stuff.

But I do, really. There are designated places for all of these things. My kids know where things go.

The problem was not the storage system, but the “getting stuff back where it belongs” system. Was there a system already in place? Sure. It was a very basic but effective one: the old “Kids drop stuff wherever they want and Mom goes around and picks it all up” system.

It was pretty efficient for my kids, but not for me.

A Better System Starts with a Goal

A better system starts with one simple question: what is the point of the system?

The goal of a system determines how you build the system. So before you can build a better system, examine your goal.

In the “kid clutter” example, if my goal is merely to have a clutter-free area, then the system is working. I’m putting away the clutter.

But that isn’t the goal.

The goal is to get my kids to put their own stuff away, so that

a) I can do other stuff and;

b) We can have a clutter-free (or at least clutter-reduced) home.

Components of a Better System

Let’s take a look at some common system components.

  • Goal. As discussed above, what is the point of the system? What behavior are you trying to produce? What is the desired output of the system? Figure this out first, as it will direct the entire system.
  • People. Who’s involved? Who does the work? Who maintains the system? Who needs to know about the system? Who is a threat to the system?
  • Capability. This includes both the mental ability (knowledge, memory) and the physical ability to use the system. There’s no point in asking my kids to put their toys away on a shelf they can’t reach.
  • Resources & Supplies. Resources are the reusable parts or tools in a system, e.g., a hammer. The supplies are the consumables, e.g., nails. Resources have to be maintained. Supplies have to be restocked. Both resources and supplies need to be organized in a defined space.
  • Space. What area does the system cover? Is it a portable or a fixed system? What space is designated for storing the system’s supplies and resources?
  • Methods. What are the steps in the system? What behavior is required from system users?
  • Prompting. What activates the system? Is it a certain time (schedule-initiated) or is it linked to another event or habit?
  • Tracking. How do you know the system is working? Tracking can be very simple. It can be an accountability set-up, a part of your daily or weekly review, or a scheduled look at the system to judge if the system is meeting its goal.

Build, Implement, and Adjust

To start using systems consciously in your life as a productive parent, the first step is to identify the system you need to build.

Then you build it.

Start by defining the goal. Then go through each component on the list above, defining and organizing what your system requires. It’s best if you write it all down so you can have something to reference.

Next you implement the system.

Start using it. Make sure all the components are in place. Don’t try to use a half-built system. Wait until you have what you need. It doesn’t have to be perfect, or perfectly arranged, but it does need to be complete. Otherwise it will break at that missing piece and you will become frustrated with the system.

Use your system consistently for at least a week.

Then adjust it.

Usually we won’t get our systems right the first time through. We’ll use them, and realize that as an example, steps 5 through 7 of the system can be eliminated, or that the space we’ve set aside really isn’t adequate, or something like that.

After a week of consistent use, review your system. Is it working? Is it reaching the goal?

Can it be simplified, streamlined, improved?

Do the tweaking now, then use it again consistently for a designated period of time before you review and adjust it again.

Remember that every new system will have a learning curve with it. Don’t give up on a system just because it is new, unfamiliar, and a little bit difficult at first.

As you get familiar with your system, you will be able to see how to improve and you will be able to use it – and teach it – almost effortlessly.

What areas in your life as a productive parent would benefit from a good system?

You can get all the knowledge about economics for kids and can easily teach your kids about financial management and how to manage their money in future..

Posted in Parenting

Role of Parents in Child Development – 6 Parenting Tips

Posted on by Tim Connolly

Being a parent—a good parent—is a concern that most of us go through. The role of parents during a child’s earliest years is the single biggest influence in shaping the child’s personality. The way parents involve themselves with children closely influences their development.

” One of the most important things we adults can do for young children is to model the kind of person we would like them to be ~ Carol B. Hillman ”

When kids are growing up, it becomes a parent’s responsibility to give her an environment that helps her grow into a mature, sensitive and confident person.  It is often seen that many parents go to extremes either by being extra loving or by being a hard disciplinarian. Either way, it is the child that suffers and may lose her self esteem. Loss of self esteem leads to lack of confidence and in the future, she might not be able to handle life’s challenges successfully.

Your parenting will be successful only when your child learns to face even the hardest of life’s challenges with calm and poise. And once a problem is solved, she must learn to move on.

Here are a few tips on the Role of Parents in Child Development:

1. Let Her to be Herself

Since each soul coming to this earth has its own identity, do not assume that your child will be your image. As a parent, embrace your child the way she is and do not be judgmental to every action of hers. For instance, you are a chirpy person and your child is an introvert, do not push her too hard to make her like you are. Let her be herself and give her time to unfold herself and learn the environment around her.

2. Do not Hold your Child back at Every Stage

As a parent, we often tend to feel that we know the best for child and try to control her life based on our experience and previous notions. You want to protect her from any forthcoming failure in every new action she does. However, whenever trying to guide her, keep in mind that she is still learning, experimenting and exploring life.

A young branch takes on all the bends that one gives it.

Let her make her own decisions, actions and get results. This is the only way she can learn life’s lessons that would help her handle real life situations even without you. Do not hold her back to save her from any presumed failures. But yes, while she is learning to explore life, be there for her in a silent way and whenever she needs you, extend helping hands. When an opportunity comes her way, show your confidence in her abilities. If you show doubts, she will also be unsure of her abilities.

3. Let her Choose Actions over Worries

A child definitely learns by example and you can set the best example for her. So, whenever you face difficulties in your life, what do you think is the best way out? Is it to worry about the future or to take action to solve the problems? Learning something new yourself is a great way to model the learning process for your child.

The role of parents at this stage is to teach your child to forgo worries, stay calm in tough situations and take the necessary actions to solve the issues. And your child will be a stronger person from whatever negative or positive experiences she takes away with her.

4. Respect your Child’s Feelings

Whenever a child reflects some negative or bad feelings over an issue, often parents jump to squash that feeling. But let me tell you, this is the worst thing that you can do to your child because she will never learn to recognize the kind of feelings she has or to cope with them.

The right way is to accept her feelings—whether bad or good—and let her come out of them in her own way. It is the emotions in a person that guide him or her to take either the right or the wrong actions. What you can do is to give her a hug or listen to her calmly to let her vent out feelings.

This is very tough for a parent to let her child go through emotionally tough times, but believe me she will learn to handle them gracefully and with maturity.

5. Let Her be Accountable for All Her Decisions and Actions

Allow your child to take accountability for all her decisions and actions. Do not come to her rescue every time she feels stuck. Gradually, she will learn to make decisions that she can handle with her own abilities. Moreover, it will help her be realistic about her strengths and weaknesses.

Later on, when she grows up she will have a sense of autonomy and peace of mind with every action she takes. In other words, she will grow into a mature and confident adult.

6. Discipline Her to Teach her Not to Punish Her

Your behavior has a strong bearing on your child’s behavior. Though it is important to discipline her, it is also important that while disciplining her, focus on teaching her—not punishing. Whenever she demonstrates bad behavior, it is for you to stay calm and show self-control. Do not shout at her or spank her. Try to understand why she did this and what her feelings were. Handle the situation in a way that your child gets a lesson for the next time.

Conclusion

Our approach towards education can largely motivate them to take up their own educational journey as well. The role of parents in the child’s development process constantly evolves but what continues without change is the fact that parents are the child’s learning models! Do you want to learn more about the Mothers day ideas for your wife then please follow my blog and send your questions in the comment section.

Posted in Parenting

Understand your Child’s Emotions – Intelligent Parenting

Posted on by Tim Connolly

As mammals, most human beings don’t have to make an attempt to love their offspring . . . love flows naturally. Why then are some parents so cruel to their own children?

Some spank their children; others scold and scream instructions most of the time while still others seem to stop them from doing anything and everything under the sun.

Then there are the critical and judgmental types who insult their children and criticize them for the slightest error made in private as well as in public.

While following such an authoritarian style of parenting, they forget to bother about something they should be focusing most closely on: their child’s emotions.

The Impact of Authoritarian Parenting

With advancements in neuroscience, it is now known with certainty that key neural circuits and pathways get formed in the brain during childhood experiences that shape a child’s personality—sometimes irreversibly so—for better or worse. This is why it is so very crucial to focus on a child’s emotions and not consider them insignificant or unimportant.

A child’s emotions and innermost thoughts all through their life can be influenced positively or negatively according to the quality of parenting the child receives during childhood.

It’s Under-Construction, Silly!

The main challenge that all parents face in dealing with children is due to the developing brain in children that causes them to act the way they do. By the time, a human being is 7 years old, his or her brain only reaches up to 75% of its completed form as it exists in adults.

Parents, however, expect their children to act the way adults do in most situations without understanding that children’s brains don’t work the way adults’ brains work because they are still “under construction.” It’s like expecting a frog to sound like a parrot and scolding it for not being able to deliver what you want. Quite ridiculous, is it not?

Final thoughts on a child’s emotions

So, the next time you feel like reprimanding your child for dropping the glass of water on your spick-and-span floor, think twice. Did the child drop the glass intentionally or by mistake? Was the child simply being mischievous due to boredom?

When you reflect on the incapacity of the brain of a child to regulate her impulses and try to understand the reason behind the behavior, you will feel compassion instead of anger. That’s the beginning of intelligent parenting.

This is far more humane than the commonly witnessed harsh and insensitive style of parenting. Just like a child’s nutrition, physical well-being and education are important responsibilities for parents; so are a child’s emotional needs and emotional well-being that deserve equal attention and focus. Understand and focus on your child’s emotions.

Do you want to learn more about the Managing your wife’s emotions tips then please follow my blog and send your questions in the comment section.

Posted in Parenting

Dads are more involved in parenting, yes, but moms still put in more work

Posted on by Tim Connolly

On Jan. 21, in a collective demonstration of historic proportions, millions of women marched in Washington, D.C. and other cities around the world in support of key policy issues such as reproductive rights, equal pay for equal work and support for balancing work and family.

These marches demonstrated the empowerment of women and a widespread commitment to ensuring that women’s rights are furthered – and not eroded – by policymakers. But policy is not the only arena that affects women’s freedoms and well-being.

If equality begins at home, how much progress has been made toward equality in parenting?

The day after the march, The New York Times published an article that described a scene in Montclair, New Jersey, showing what happened when women were absent from town. The article narrated how women’s absence resulted in empty yoga classes, Starbucks cafes populated by men and hapless fathers struggling to juggle children’s weekend schedules.

In other words, as its critics pointed out, the article reinforced the outdated notion that mothers are the primary parents and fathers are (at best) mere helpers and incapable of caring for children independently.

My research focuses on the sharing of parenting between mothers and fathers in dual-earner couples – a group that is most likely to hold gender egalitarian beliefs. In this group, successfully balancing work and family makes some degree of shared parenting necessary.

My research and that of others shows that even though significant progress has been made toward gender equality in parenting, more subtle inequalities remain. Many fathers – even those in the households most likely to have progressive views on parenting – have not achieved equality with mothers in key areas.

Men’s parenting time has increased, but women’s has too

It is true that today’s fathers are more involved in parenting children than ever before. Over the past half-century, fathers in America nearly tripled their child care time from 2.5 hours per week in 1965 to seven hours per week in 2011.

But, over this period, women’s parenting time too has increased – from 10 hours per week in 1965 to 14 hours per week in 2011. This has resulted in a smaller but persistent gap in the time mothers and fathers spend on parenting.

This gap starts in the earliest months of parenthood. Using detailed daily records of new parents’ activities, my team’s research has shown that working mothers take on a greater share of the child care burden for a new baby than do fathers. In fact, new mothers allocated twice as much of their available time to routine child care activities than fathers.

When considering time spent in child care plus time spent in housework and working for pay, the birth of a baby increased mothers’ total workload by 21 hours per week. In contrast, fathers’ total workload increased by only 12.5 hours per week. This represents a 70 percent greater increase in workload for women compared to men.

These differences cannot be explained away by differences in paid work hours or breastfeeding.

Mothers face intense parenting pressure

So, the question remains, why hasn’t fathers’ greater involvement substituted for mothers’ involvement, thus reducing the parenting burden on women?

What has happened is that middle-class families now follow the norm of “intensive parenting,” which dictates that parenting should be child-centered, guided by expert advice and costly in terms of time, money and emotional investment in order to produce the most successful child possible.

Picture modern parents scouring bookstores for the latest parenting manual and preschool math workbooks, fretting over their toddler’s picky eating habits and overloading their weekly schedules with children’s activities and playdates. This pressure to parent intensively does not fall equally on middle-class mothers and fathers, however. Because motherhood remains an idealized role, it is mothers who experience the greatest pressure to meet these unrealistic parenting standards.

Mothers who feel intense pressure to invest heavily in their children may also be reluctant to give up control over parenting. What ends up happening is that fathers spend less time in sole charge of their children. Research on parenting time shows that women are in sole charge of their children for nearly one-third of their time whereas men only for about 8 percent of their time.

Thus, even fathers who are highly involved coparents may experience parenting primarily in the company of children’s mothers and more rarely on their own.

Mothers do more multitasking

Another area in which subtle, persistent inequality exists is multitasking – especially doing several unpaid work activities (e.g., housework and child care) at the same time. Do you want to learn more about the teaching money management then please follow my blog and send your questions in the comment section.