Parenting Teenagers

Parenting can be a very challenging job.  Your role is to grow healthy, productive, successful adults that you still have to love through their challenging toddler and teen years when they can sometimes seem unlovable.  One of my preferred parenting methods, Love & Logic®, perfectly addresses this conundrum and offers techniques that reduce parenting stress.

The basic concept of Love & Logic® is that tough life lessons are better learned in childhood when the stakes are minimal, and parents are there to guide and love children through the growing pains, with the idea that we learn and grow from doing not by being told or having everything done for us.  For example, you remind your child to pick up her bike and put it in the garage.  She fails to do so and the bike is stolen off the front lawn.  You hug her through her tears and let her know because she did not take care of her things, which you purchased, that she must repay you for the bike.  This is a great opportunity (after the emotions have eased) to teach her about consequences. Hopefully, she will learn to take care of her things, on the first request, and avoid a much more expensive lesson with her iPad or laptop.

Love & Logic® is also helpful for reducing the back and forth arguments with teens.  The ‘broken record’ technique can greatly reduce arguing with an unruly teenager.  No matter what your child says, repeat “I love you too much to argue” and they will have no one to argue with.  Once you state the family rule or directive, any further rebuttal should immediately be followed with, “I love you too much to argue”.  Use a loving, non-sarcastic tone, and remember don’t argue back!

There are many helpful tools available in the Love & Logic® books that I highly recommend to help raise smart and independent kids who are capable of making their own healthy choices.  If you would like more information, please reach out to me!

What are your values?

What are your Values?

Karen Banks, M.Ed. PLPC

Full article published in Delux Magazine August/September 2014

Hello Readers!

Sorry for the hiatus but I am back and have lots to write about.  I have been writing for 3 magazines (Delux Magazine, SpokenVizions, and SpokenVizions Youth)which I strongly encourage all of you to subscribe to and enjoy.  I think you will find the information helpful.  I will be publishing parts of each article here on my blog.

If you are here from the link in Delux Magazine…welcome!  Here is a list of values to get you started on figuring out what is important to you. 

From the article:

A fun, albeit uncomfortable, exercise to determine your core values is to get a few sticky notes, 15-20 should work, and write one value one each.  It can be one word or anything that is important to you.  A piece of paper torn or cut into 20 pieces will work as well. 

Once you have your values laid out in front of you, take 10 and throw them away.  You can either look at them and make choices, or you can close your eyes and randomly select 10 to never see again.  Take a moment to stop and feel. Are you sad, angry, or maybe even relieved? Are you feeling anxious about losing something of value to you? Did you make the right choice?  Now take a look at your remaining 10 values and take 5 more away.  Did you lose your family or choose money over power? Is higher education really more important to you than family time?  Is your job balled up on the floor?  The remaining 5 values are your core values. 

Accountability Accuracy Achievement Adventurousness Altruism Ambition Assertiveness Balance Being the best Belonging Boldness Calmness Carefulness Challenge Cheerfulness Clear-mindedness Commitment Community Compassion Competitiveness Consistency Contentment Continuous Improvement Contribution Control Cooperation Correctness Courtesy Creativity Curiosity Decisiveness Democraticness Dependability Determination Devoutness Diligence Discipline Discretion Diversity Dynamism Economy Effectiveness Efficiency Elegance Empathy Enjoyment Enthusiasm Equality

Excellence Excitement Expertise Exploration Expressiveness Fairness Faith Family-orientedness Fidelity Fitness Fluency Focus Freedom Fun Generosity Goodness Grace Growth Happiness Hard Work Health Helping Society Holiness Honesty Honor Humility Independence Ingenuity Inner Harmony Inquisitiveness Insightfulness Intelligence Intellectual Status Intuition Joy Justice Leadership Legacy Love Loyalty Making a difference Mastery Merit Obedience Openness Order Originality Patriotism

Perfection Piety Positivity Practicality Preparedness Professionalism Prudence Quality-orientation Reliability Resourcefulness Restraint Results-oriented Rigor Security Self-actualization Self-control Selflessness Self-reliance Sensitivity Serenity Service Shrewdness Simplicity Soundness Speed Spontaneity Stability Strategic Strength Structure Success Support Teamwork Temperance Thankfulness Thoroughness Thoughtfulness Timeliness Tolerance Traditionalism Trustworthiness Truth-seeking Understanding Uniqueness Unity Usefulness Vision Vitality

List found on http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTED_85.htm

(For a much longer list of values, visit the following pages which I have always found helpful: http://www.stevepavlina.com/articles/list-of-values.htm or http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTED_85.htm or http://www.homelifesimplified.com.au/simplify-your-life-week-2-define-your-personal-values/ which is where the image is from)

Trading Habits

As I wrestle with learning to create new, healthier habits, I wanted to write to share my experiences and maybe gain some insight from my huge list of readers (crickets...).  It is still January (if I can post this in the next 45 minutes) and I know many of us are struggling with making our New Year's resolutions stick...like to blog twice monthly!  Tell me what has been working for you, or not working, in terms of accomplishing your resolutions thus far.

A habit is defined as "a fixed way of thinking, willing, or feeling" and "the process by which new behaviors become automatic is habit formation" and finally the most important point about habits "old habits are hard to break and new habits are hard to form because the behavioral patterns we repeat are imprinted in our neural pathways, but it is possible to form new habits through repetition".  Basically, we have made our habits semi-permanent.  This is kind of a scary thing...unless we focus on creating better habits.

I recently spent a bunch of time working with clients on SMART goals (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, time-bound) as a way to make their New Year's resolutions more concrete.  They were given worksheets like the image below to help them break each goal down into steps.  Email me/comment for the simple form.

Some other steps to help break old habits and form better ones should include making sure you want to change.  If you are honest, do you really WANT to stop smoking or eating junk?  More importantly, are you READY to make the changes? Only make efforts to change the things that you desire to see changed.  If you can't be honest with yourself, how committed and successful will you become?

As any therapist will tell you, find out the reason for your bad habits.  Are you biting your nails or cursing out of nervousness or anxiety?  Once you can get an understanding of the cause of the problem, maybe you can fix it.

Remember to always include your support system on your goals.  They are here to help.  Are they still encouraging you to maintain those resolutions?  Good, then fill them in on your new and improved SMART goals and ask them to hold you accountable.

Finally, to achieve those goals, stay strong in the fight to change your habits and believe you can do better.  Believing in your success sometimes feels like half the battle.  For additional support, please contact me

What are your habits? Nail biting, smoking, risky sex, cursing, tardiness?  I encourage you to set your sights (and habits) on forming new habits like exercise, positive self-talk, better eating,or whatever it is you desire.  Good luck; I'm running this race right beside you.

Thanks to psychologytoday.com for some insight.

What Will You Create in 2014?

Happy New Year! I hope all of you have been blessed these first two days of 2014 and that it will only get better!

This new year, like many others, I began a daily affirmation type book. While this one is focused on financial freedom, there are so many books available that help us take baby steps; one day at a time. January is a great time to start one, hint hint.

In the introduction of The Wealthy Spirit, author Chellie Campbell says, " consciously or unconsciously, we create our lives. We create them out of our thoughts, attitudes, beliefs, and feelings, and the choices we make from them. Our life story is the sum total of our decisions".

This is a powerful statement. Did you know that YOU had so much power and control?! While I could (will) write a whole other blog on that, I wanted to make this a short one to simply encourage you to CREATE YOUR STORY. A new year is a new beginning and a chance for you to create your life story.  Over this year, let's learn to change our old, negative thoughts and attitudes into beautiful words of encouragement which foster positive self beliefs, so that the story we create becomes a happy, peaceful, successful one.

Wishing you many blessings for a successful 2014.

Don't forget to check out my regular columns in Delux Magazine (www.delux-mag.com) and SpokenVizions magazine (www.spokenvizions.com).