Dine Out on

October 23, 2008

at participating area restaurants

and benefit

Let There Be Mom

Letting Mom be Mom in a Time of Crisis

Let There Be Mom

provides assistance to mothers

who have been diagnosed with a life threatening illness

in or around the Greenville, SC area.

Let There Be Mom might

• Hire a photographer
• Supply each mother with journals
• Get the family a video camera
• Design unique family adventures
• Coordinate family meal & errand teams
• Coordinate special events (i.e.birthdays, anniversaries, etc.)
• Give hospital care packages (to include books, art supplies, video games, snacks, etc.)
• Compile a family cookbook of Mom’s favorite recipes
• And many more ideas are waiting to be discovered.

This simple fund raiser allows you to dine out or drink out (several restaurants serve coffee) and support a mom in need.

For

You may decide to

• Dine out with your family on October 23 as a way to spend time together and help another parent-child relationship.
• Have lunch out with a friend at one of the 24 participating restaurants.
• Take your kids out for breakfast to celebrate your gift of mothering your child.
• Take lunch to a Mom in need.

Plan now to make October 23 a day with special emphasis on the gift of mothering and benefit a mom in crisis.

My mother was diagnosed with cancer when I was 14. She died when I was 17 years old in the spring of my junior year of high school. I plan to take my own kids out to dinner on October 23 to benefit “Let There Be Mom”.

- Kelly

Visit the “Let There Be Mom” website for more information and volunteer opportunities.

Family meetings help families work together to decide on issues such as household chores, schedules, meal times, vacations, house guidelines, solutions for misbehavior and more.

Read Jane Nelsen’s answer to the question,

“When are Children Old Enough to Participate in Family Meetings?”

We’ll explore the concept and implementation of family meetings in the January 2009 class,

Teach Your Children to Fish:

Essential Life Skills for Teaching Independence

Spring 2009 Class: January 6, 13, 20 and 27

Preparing children for real life means teaching them how to do laundry, cook, clean, maintain a car and more. Children who feel capable and genuinely needed misbehave less than children who are pampered. This active learning workshop explores the Significant Seven Perceptions and Skills that promote self-reliance in children and teens, teaches family tools for assigning age appropriate chores and helps parents practice follow-through techniques.

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.

-Chinese Proverb

I’m reading Hold on to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers by Gordon Neufeld, and Gabor Mate’.

Neufeld and Mate’ write:

“Carl Jung suggested that it is not even so much what happens in the parent child relationship that has the greatest impact on the child. What is missing in that relationship leaves the greatest scar on the child’s personality - or ‘nothing happening when something might profitably have happened,’ in the words of the great British child psychiatrist D.W. Winnicott.”

As I read the book, I’m reflecting on my relationships with my children.

As we parent children, we are modeling relationship skills. What relationship skills are my children learning through their relationship with me?

It’s not likely that children will learn skills that we don’t model for them. Often parents expect children to learn to apologize when parents aren’t modeling how to make apologies. Parents may expect children to admit mistakes when parents don’t model how to admit mistakes.

We must model the skills we want our children to use.

• What’s missing in your relationship with your child?

• If you want your child to have empathy, you must include empathy in your relationship with your child.

• If you want your child to calm down before problem solving, you must have the same expectation for yourself.

Children must experience relationship skills in order to learn them.

Why not rewards?

Parents and teachers nationwide offer children gold stars, candy and extra privileges on a consistent basis in exchange for compliance. Many parents and teachers would argue that rewards “teach” children to behave better.

In essence, a reward system teaches children to behave when there’s something in it for the child. That’s not really what I want to teach my kids.

I want my child to be aware that when he is rude to someone, it hurts the someone’s feelings and hurts the relationship between my child and the someone.

I want my child to be aware that their actions affect other people.

Rewards

• Focus on how a child’s behavior affects the child, not others.

• Teach children that an adult in their life doesn’t trust that the child might want to do the right thing (to feel good about it) and would rather manipulate the child than take time to teach the child skills.

• Teach children to depend on “other control” instead of “self control”.

• Focus children on what they “get” instead of what they can give and offer to their family, home and classroom community.

Rewards don’t work long term and don’t teach any skills or attitudes that I want my children to learn.

Read Alfie Kohn’s article,

The Risk of Rewards

Have a great Labor Day Weekend!

Kelly

I just love Jane Nelsen’s answer to

Lazy Child or Normal Child

on Jane Nelsen’s Positive Discipline Blog.

Especially read down to the part where Jane discusses the difference between TELLING and ASKING.

We will be doing the “Telling vs. Asking” activity in the Teaching Children to Fish Parenting Class in January of 2009.

Teach Your Children to Fish:

Essential Life Skills for Teaching Independence

Spring 2009 Class: January 6, 13, 20 and 27

Preparing children for real life means teaching them how to do laundry, cook, clean, maintain a car and more. Children who feel capable and genuinely needed misbehave less than children who are pampered. This active learning workshop explores the Significant Seven Perceptions and Skills that promote self-reliance in children and teens, teaches family tools for assigning age appropriate chores and helps parents practice follow-through techniques.

Become a freelance writer!

Latest Parenting Resources Articles by Kelly Pfeiffer

Reactions are fairly consistent when I’m asked what I “do” for  living.

“I teach parenting classes.”

There’s usually a long silence followed by a comment about spanking.

I usually just nod and smile. Inside my head I keep wondering,

“What’s this obsession with spanking? Why is everyone bringing up spanking when I tell them I teach parenting classes?”

Of all of the aspects about parenting, why do so many people bring up spanking as the first topic related to parenting?

• “Well I was spanked and I needed every spanking I got.”
• “There’s nothing wrong with a swat on the butt at times.”
• “I’ve tried other things, but the only thing that works is to pop their bum and they straighten right up.”

Is spanking possibly the most important decision parents consider when raising kids?

Or is that the only response people can come up with when I tell them I teach parenting classes?

Or perhaps, do some people feel the need to defend their position on spanking, somehow assuming that I’m either pro or anti spanking?

Not sure I’ll ever know the answer to those questions but feel free to comment and tell me your personal opinion as to why people bring up spanking when I tell them I teach parenting classes.

Kelly

Certified Positive Discipline Associate/Trainer

Positive Discipline Facilitator

Master Certified Child Care Trainer

Jane Nelsen writes in her book, Positive Discipline that children are good perceivers, but poor interpreters.

When a new baby is born into a family, a child usually perceives that the baby gets lots of attention from crying and needing its diaper changed. But the child mistakenly interprets all of the attention on the new baby as “My parents love the baby more than they love me.” After a new baby is born in a family, an older child may cry more, whine more and act like a baby more in hopes of getting the same kind of attention the new baby gets.

Watch Jane Nelsen’s candle demonstration on Youtube.com with the message that “there’s enough love to go around” for the new baby and the existing children in the family.

More Tips for the Older Sibling:

• Show Home Videos: If you have videos of the older sibling as a baby - first baby, first solid food, etc., let the older sibling watch to see how similar you treated each child he/she was a baby.
  
• Acknowledge the Older Sibling’s Feelings: Help your older child recognize the feelings he or she might be having. “It’s hard when the new baby needs me so much, isn’t it?” or “You notice I spend a lot of time taking care of the baby and you wish I could spend more time with you?” or “It’s hard to share me with the baby now, isn’t it?”
• Plan Special Time: For preschooler and young elementary aged children, try to fit in 20 minutes of time with them on a daily basis. You can read books at bedtime, play a game together or take a walk together. For kids older than 8, plan a 45 minute special time once a week. Make sure not to overcompensate for a new sibling by spending special time buying new toys for the older sibling or taking them out for special snacks often.

For a limited time, the Positive Discipline website is offering some free parenting downloads, parenting resources that might interest you, including Chapter 1 of the audio book version of Positive Discipline.

To receive the free downloads, you do have to add the free items to your shopping cart at the Positive Discipline site and give your mailing address and e-mail address. After you finish your check out, you will see the free items on the screen. Click on them and download them free of charge. So even though you have to check out using the shopping cart, you don’t pay anything at all.

All of the items listed in the links below are free Parenting downloads from the Positive Discipline website.

• The Differences Between PRAISE and ENCOURAGEMENT hand-out (We’ll use this in the October parenting class: Coaching from the Sidelines: Encouragement is Key to Discipline Success)

• The Mistaken Goals Chart which we will be using in the upcoming parenting class, Misbehavior Detectives.

• The Positive Discipline Guidelines

• Anger Wheel of Choice for Young Children

• Seven Strategies for Developing Capable Young People hand-out.

• Audio Book - Chapter 1 of Positive Discipline Audio Book
  

Enjoy the downloads and hope to see you in the upcoming parenting classes.

Kelly

Certified Positive Discipline Associate

Certified Master Child Care Trainer

Mom/Step Mom to four teens

Focus dinner conversation on positive interaction with each other. Connect as a family at dinner time with these simple dinner games made by Family Time Fun.

Having regular family meals together gives children a closer sense of connection in their homes. When children feel connected to other family members, they are less likely to misbehave. Research shows that having regular family meals together prevents alcohol and drug use in teen girls.

Read Kati Chevaux’s Review of the Preschool version of Beginner Dinner Games.

How’s the morning routine going for your family right now? The new school year has started and mornings can be more hectic with homework, school projects, lunch money and dress code issues.

There are dozens of ways to make routine charts. Check out the links below for some different ways to create routine charts.

Remember that a routine chart

is NOT a reward chart.

No stickers or gold stars needed.

A routine chart is simply a guide for children to follow to help them stay on task in the mornings. Morning routine charts can reduce parental nagging. When children are off task, parenting can simply as a “What?” question: “What’s next on your routine chart?” or “What do you need to be doing to get ready on time?”

Videos and Images on the Web

so you can SEE some visuals

about Picture Routine Charts

• Watch a video about creating morning routine charts with children. This video shows a few helpful examples.

• See this morning routine pie chart.

• On the wall - Joey’s morning routine chart.

• Print out a copy of the picture routine chart that this mom made for her kids. (Kelly’s note: Your child will be more likely to follow the routine and take more ownership of the routine chart if they are involved in both the planning and the making of a routine chart.

• See a flip card morning routine - a picture routine chart on index cards looped together.

Routine charts help children SELF discipline instead of OTHER discipline. When parents nag to keep kids on task in the mornings, children learn to rely solely on others to motivate them to get ready in the morning. Children learn self discipline by following a schedule that they helped create and manage for themselves.

If you haven’t yet, read the article, Morning Picture Routine Chart for Kids by me on Suite101.com.

Wishing your more peaceful mornings!

Kelly