“Some experts say that depression and anxiety are the new normal … As parents, we cannot accept this.”

Messy Hope: Help Your Child Overcome Anxiety, Depression, or Suicidal Ideation by Lori Wildenberg is a powerful book to support families during difficult times

As a parent raising kids in today’s world, there are many things that keep me up at night with worry and fear. But there are also many things that give me hope. Hope is something our kids (and us parents) desperately need.

I’ve followed Lori Wildenberg for many years and consider her “an internet friend.” I first came across her in the Moms Together Facebook group, which I now help as a Mom Mentor. I’ve also read her books The Messy Life of Parenting and Empowered Parents. (You can read my review of The Messy Life of Parenting here.)

I do not make any compensation for this review or if you purchase any of these books. These opinions are all my own.

Lori has a great way of writing that brings in personal stories with knowledge. Messy Hope is full of stories from people of all walks of life. I loved reading emotional stories from so many people, not only because it helped me know I wasn’t alone, but also to see how hope and triumph can happen. Sometimes, in our struggles, we can feel so alone. The stories Lori tells, show us that we aren’t alone and that it is possible to overcome the struggles. These stories are also combined with research and practical tips for being the best parents we can be, while supporting our kids and helping them grow in their faith.

We are parenting through difficult times and I truly believe we need as many resources as possible to help us best parent in today’s world. Life is messy. Books like Messy Hope, provide us with support, and give us the help we often need in parenting.

Not only is every chapter full of wonderful and touching stories, but each chapter includes Scripture and concludes with Hope Busters, Hope Builders, Hopeful Truths, and a Prayer.

Some of the important topics covered include:

• Social Media
• Grief
• Tragedy
• The unexpected
• Relationships
• People-pleasing
• Negativity, positivity, toxic positivity
• Perspective
• Being an emotionally safe parent
• Emotional Intelligence
• Resilience
• Sibling comparisons
• Reframing our thinking
• Anxiety
• Depression
• Self-talk
• Receiving help

Here are just a few of my favorite quotes from the book:

“We can be vessels of hope when others experience delay and disappointment.” Page 11.

“God parted the Red Sea. He made a way where there was no way. Hope springs forth in the impossible moments.” page 13

“God is teaching me that hard choices are places where hope can be discovered and creative thinking practiced. Bad choices and their consequences are opportunities for hope to shine. Times that include waiting are moments when God’s glory is most evident.” Page 17

“True hope is bold power and strength.” Page 20

“Our kids are growing up in a hard world. Yet, it does not have to be a hopeless one. We can arm them with hope for their future.” Page 34

“If we approach life being solution focused rather than problem fixated or view life through a realistic positive filter instead of a negative lens, our kids will have a more hopeful model to emulate.” Page 53

“Our kids need to know we love them. Not because of what they do or what they accomplish. They need love with no strings, regularly expressed and demonstrated.” Page 98

I recommend this book to any family facing the struggles of mental health and life in general. It’s a great resource for a family looking for practical and spiritual support. I also recommend this book to any family with young kids who may not yet be experiencing things like anxiety and depression. The better we can prepare for struggles that may come our way, the better equipped we will be to fight them.

You can follow along with Lori on her Facebook or Instagram, or on her website. Messy Hope is available here.

By: Emily Scott, PhD

You may also like:

Focusing on Your Child’s Mental Health

Helping Kids Process Through Tragedy

Adverse Childhood Experiences

Building Resilience in our Kids

Resilience

Overcoming Generational Hurt

The post Messy Hope: Book Review appeared first on Renewed Hope Parenting.

Adults can easily turn our kids away from open conversation.

Now, doing this once in a while is part of life. We are busy and can’t always stop everything for someone else. Doing these things once in a while shouldn’t hurt the relationship communication too much.

However, habitual practice of these can definitely harm our kid’s desire to talk to us. When we really are too involved with something else, we can let our kids know what’s going on and promise to talk to them when we get a chance. And we need to come through on that promise.

When our children are upset, who do we want them to talk to? We will want them to talk to us!  Unfortunately, some kids do not feel their parents are a safe place to go when they are upset, need to confide in someone, are in need of help, or are in danger. How we respond to our children can dictate whether they find us a safe place, and we want to be that safe place for them.

How do you respond when your kids have something to tell you or want to talk?

• Do we kill the conversation right away?

Distraction

Disinterest

Busyness

• Do we take over the conversation with our own thoughts or opinions?

• Do we take away their excitement with our negativity? Do we point out everything wrong with what they are saying?

• Do we shut down their feelings? We don’t have to agree with how our kids are feeling to acknowledge that they feel a certain way. We can respond with empathy and compassion, while helping our kids understand what emotions they feel, whether they match reality, and how to feel better.

• Do we withhold conversation when we are disappointed? Sure, it’s healthy to take a break if we feel ourselves becoming overwhelmed, angry, or about to snap. But withholding ourselves when we aren’t pleased with someone who needs us, can show our communication is conditional to their ability to please us.

• Do we ask questions? Open-ended questions invite more conversation.

• Are we mindful of what our kids need in the conversation? Sometimes kids just want to talk, without wanting us to solve their problems. Simply asking them, “Do you want to vent, or do you want help solving the problem?” shows them we care about what they want and that we are there for them in what they need.

• Do we share our own feelings once it is appropriate to do so? Overtaking the conversation with our own thoughts and feelings can shut our kids down from wanting to talk in the future.

• Do we respond in a way that will harm or foster our relationship? If kids come to expect a loving, empathetic response from us, they’ll be more likely to want to talk. If kids come to expect a hostile, angry, or uninterested response, they’ll be less likely to want to talk to us.

• What does our body language say? We can be open, assertive, aggressive, relaxed, uninterested, and disapproving all without saying a word.

Here are some examples of welcoming body language:

Eye-contact

Smiles

Nodding/head movement

Talking with our hands

Holding a gaze

We want our kids to feel safe with us. We want them to know they can tell us anything.

By: Emily Scott, PhD

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Articles you may also like:

How to be a Safe Place: Tips for Open Communication

Emotional Wellness for Parents

Emotional Intelligence for Kids

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This blog is written as an educational and general resource only. It should not be used to diagnose or as a substitute for parenting or relational therapy, advice, or counseling with a professional therapist or medical doctor. Renewed Hope Parenting is not responsible for results or use of the information provided in these pages if you choose to use them. Everything included in this blog and website is copyrighted to Emily Scott, PhD and Renewed Hope Parenting and may not be used without permission.

The post Ways Parents Shut Down Conversation appeared first on Renewed Hope Parenting.

Our kids will encounter many, many problems throughout their lives. As parents and teachers, we can help them gain the skills they need to handle these problems.

Even from the young toddler years, kids can learn they are capable or solving their problems. We can’t solve problems for them and sometimes kids need to make the “wrong” choice and fail to solve a problem.

Key points on problem-solving:

• Model our own decision making out loud for our kids to see.
• Ask for their help when we encounter a problem. This is a great way to model asking for help, how to solve different adult problems, teach life-skills, and have fun conversations and connect with our kids.
• When our kids have a problem, use empathy before anything else. This is especially true if they are flooded or overwhelmed. Their brains can go into fight-flight-freeze and be stuck in their emotional right brain. If this is the case, they won’t have the ability to think logically. So, meet them with love and empathy to calm their right brain. Once they are calm, they can start to use their logical left brain. (Read more on empathic statements here.)
• Ask problem-solving questions to help stimulate their thinking.
• Guide them to follow problem-solving steps.
• Resist saying one of their ideas is “bad” or “won’t work.” If it’s safe for everyone involved, allow them to make wrong choices and help them evaluate why it didn’t work.
• For younger kids, decision making and problems are usually pretty small (although they certainly don’t feel small to our kids). As kids age, their problems become bigger and can even be life-threatening. It’s so important to allow kids to practice solving problems as early as possible so they can work on their decision-making skills, resilience, and perseverance.
• Avoid making decisions for your kids so they can take full credit for the outcome and can’t blame you for the victory or defeat.
• Help your kids develop a growth mindset. Mistakes help us learn and the earlier we can instill this mindset in our kids, the more likely they’ll be to take on challenges instead of becoming overwhelmed by them.

Steps to problem-solving:

• Calm. If the problem is causing an emotional reaction, we need to be calm to make a wise choice. To do this, we can teach our kids emotional intelligence and how to respond to big feelings.
• Define. What is the problem? Can it be solved?
• Options. What are some options for solving the problem?
• Possibilities. What are the possible outcomes for each of these action steps? Are there outcomes you want to avoid? Is there a more favorable outcome?
• Act. Make a choice to solve the problem.
• Evaluate. How did it go? Are you happy with the outcome? Are further steps needed? Is another solution needed?

Here are some problem-solving questions to stimulate thinking. We can ask our kids these in conversation or let them ask themselves.

1. What is the problem?
2. What is the hardest part?
3. What is the easiest part?
4. Do you need help? Who can I ask?
5. Can the problem be solved? If not, what parts am I in control of to change?
6. As the parent ask, what can I help with?
7. What caused the problem?
8. What can I do differently next time so this problem doesn’t happen again?
9. What are my possible solutions? What are the possible outcomes for each?
10. Which of these looks like it will work best?
11. Will my choice impact or hurt anyone?
12. Have I dealt with a problem like this before? What did I do?
13. What will be different when this problem is solved?
14. What can I do next?
15. What can I do differently?
16. If the solution doesn’t work out well, which solution is my next best option?
17. What difference will doing ____ make?
18. How would I help someone else solve a similar problem?
19. What skills can I use to solve the problem?
20. What skills did I use to solve the problem?
21. When can I apply these skills again?
22. What role did I play in this problem and the solution? Who else was involved?
23. What did I learn?
24. Am I surprised by the outcome? Why?
25. Why was I successful?

We can’t prevent all the problems our kids will face in life. But we can coach them and give them tools to overcome many of these problems.

By: Emily Scott, PhD

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You may also like:

Emotional Intelligence for Kids

Emotional Wellness for Parents

Executive Functioning Skills

Effective Strategies for Homework Battles

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This blog is written as an educational and general resource only. It should not be used to diagnose or as a substitute for parenting or relational therapy, advice, or counseling with a professional therapist or medical doctor. Renewed Hope Parenting is not responsible for results or use of the information provided in these pages if you choose to use them. Everything included in this blog and website is copyrighted to Emily Scott, PhD and Renewed Hope Parenting and may not be used without permission.

The post Helping Kids Learn Problem Solving appeared first on Renewed Hope Parenting.

Permissive, Authoritarian, and Authoritative Parenting

Parenting researchers and family experts have coined several types of parents. These labels aren’t a one-sized-fits-all kind of thing. Often, we tend to be more like one type than others. But before we get caught up in labels, remember that just being an intentional parent, who strives to do their best in each moment, is often the best parenting type.

Childhood development experts have found three main types of parents from cultural and family studies. These were found based on a parent’s involvement, acceptance of the child, how they controlled behavior, and how much independence was given.

These are generalizations based on research. Many of us may have characteristics of more than one type. And while each child and situation may require different approaches, research clearly shows that certain characteristics work better than others.

I encourage you not to get too bogged down in labels and whether you are fitting into a certain category. If you notice something you are doing that is hindering you, your child, or your relationship, make the effort to improve. Your kids deserve your effort. But also give yourself grace. Parenting is hard and we can’t always get it right.

The three main parenting types as discovered by researchers are the Permissive, Authoritarian, and Authoritative styles.

Permissive Parent:

• There are no rules.
• Often very loving and warm.
• Parent is often scared of their own authority or are scared to make their kids not like them.
• Doesn’t want conflict.
• Give in to kids or goes back on what they say.
• Research shows more runaways come from this type of parent.
• Usually not involved, attentive, or the opposite (overindulgent)
• Little behavior control.
• Allow kids to make decisions they aren’t yet capable of making.
• Grants too much independence.

Kids of permissive parents often (not always) are:

• Disobedient
• Demanding or dependent
• Impulsive
• Depressed
• Detached
• Rebellious
• Struggle with school, doing tasks, and relationships

Authoritarian Parenting:

• Not usually as loving. Attention usually only given when child does something well.
• Uses fear-based parenting techniques.
• Enforces rules or punishment without discussion or understanding.
• Consequences don’t match the offense, usually punitive in nature.
• More yelling, criticizing, threatening
• Gets desired behavior in the short term.
• Doesn’t give enough independence.
• Makes decisions for the child.
• Is often cold, unattached
• Tries to force more mature behavior than kids are capable of.
• Can be manipulative
• Doesn’t allow kids to express themselves

Kids from Authoritarian parents often:

• Have low self-esteem
• Hostility towards parents, sometimes with anger or force
• Often don’t like school, but do well because of parental force
• Have anxiety
• Are withdrawn from relationships
• Haven’t had a chance to develop their identity

Neither of these as a whole sound very great. The third style discovered by researchers is the Authoritative Parenting style. Many longitudinal and many cross-cultural studies have found this to be the most effective parenting style.

Authoritative Parenting:

• Give age and child appropriate independence, but still are involved and aware
• Are involved in their child’s life
• Use empathy and understanding
• Help build resilience in times of stress through support and problem-solving
• Are willing to change behavior management techniques
• Warm, sensitive, loving, affectionate, encouraging, communicate
• Help kids self-regulate
• Teach emotional intelligence
• Use teaching moments and preventative parenting
• Allow kids to make decisions within their ability
• Use natural or logical consequences with discussion
• Allow kids to be themselves and love unconditionally

These kids usually:

• Do well in school and relationships
• Have stronger emotional and mental health
• Have high self-esteem
• Are willing to take advice from their parents
• Are generally compliant
• Develop a sense of self

Please remember, you could be the best authoritative parent out there, and your child will still have bad days and will still make sad choices. The sad choices are part of the growing up process. We want our kids to make mistakes while they are young. They will learn and they can come to know we are always there for them. And even the healthiest people have a hard time sometimes.

Each of our children are unique with their own needs and wants. Additionally, certain personalities and temperaments may require parents to veer slightly one way or another off the authoritative pendulum. That’s part of what makes an authoritative parent great, their ability to modify things to fit their child.

There really isn’t a one-size-fits-all formula for parenting. But adapting the authoritative characteristics and being intentional in your parenting certainly has been shown to be effective.

By: Emily Scott PhD

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You might also like:

Emotional Intelligence: The Key to Raising Healthy Adults

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This blog is written as an educational and general resource only. It should not be used to diagnose or as a substitute for parenting or relational therapy, advice, or counseling with a professional therapist or medical doctor. Renewed Hope Parenting is not responsible for results or use of the information provided in these pages if you choose to use them. Everything included in this blog and website is copyrighted to Emily Scott, PhD and Renewed Hope Parenting and may not be used without permission.

The post Three Primary Parenting Styles appeared first on Renewed Hope Parenting.

We see it all the time. Being thankful or expressing gratitude for the good things in our life is good for us. We heard it from our grandparents, and now we see it from researchers and scientists. It’s all so true. Gratitude and thankfulness are good for us. Not only for us, but we can instill this attitude of gratitude in our kids to help them.

A habitual practice of expressing gratitude or constantly paying attention to what we have to be thankful for can wire our brains in a more positive way. Expressing gratitude can help our brains release the oxytocin, dopamine, and serotonin (the so-called “happy hormones”), all important for mental health and happiness.

This long-term practice has been shown to have many positive health benefits, from better sleep, to stress reduction, to the ability to overcome challenges, to healthier relationships, to more contentment. Researchers have also found that gratitude can lead to better physical and mental health. When we are thankful for those we share our lives with, we greatly enhance our relationships. Thankful people also often have a higher self-worth and can appreciate their own and other’s accomplishments. People can increase their happiness and reduce symptoms of depression. (Gratitude alone is not enough to treat depression. Please seek support from a therapist or medical doctor if you or your child are dealing with depression.)

Helping our kids make this part of their daily routine can help instill this important attitude. It can become part of their mindset. Making it part of our daily conversations makes it become real. I think most parents want their kids to be happy and content. Helping them create a habit of gratitude can help with this goal.

Kids who express gratitude typically:

• Have a high self-worth
• Feel more positive emotions
• Have the mindset of optimism
• Have a growth mindset
• Can overcome challenges
• Have stronger social skills
• Can have empathy for others
• Can foster relationships
• Are kind
• Sleep well
• Are mentally and physical healthy
• Can find the “silver-lining” in hard situations

Real Life Example:

You wouldn’t think it would be easy to have an attitude of gratitude when bad things happen. When our family lost our home in a California wildfire, we quite literally had nothing. We were homeless, with no toys or clothes or any of our sentimental things. It was true devastation. But in the midst of all that, we found reasons to be thankful. Even as small as a friend stopping by the hotel room we lived in for two weeks, with mac-n-cheese for our toddler. Or another friend stopping by with new coloring books. And then bigger things, like watching our home be rebuilt. It was all about perspective and how to choose to look at the situation. Finding something good in hard times can be really hard, and there are times we can’t find anything good while struggling through a hard time. Fostering resilience in ourselves and our kids can help us get through these difficult times.

Putting it into Practice:

So, how can we make this a habit in our families? Here are some ideas. If you already do something, we’d love to hear what it is!

• Share Bedtime/Dinnertime Daily Highs and Lows of the day (the good parts and the bad parts)
• Find the good in the bad. Try to find something good that came from a hard time.
• Journal daily blessings, good things.
• List 5 things you are thankful for each day.
• Thankful photo book. Make a photo album with pictures of various people or things you are thankful for.
• List one big thing you are thankful for, and one small thing. This helps us see that even small things are reasons to be thankful.
• Make a habit of telling others you are thankful for them. Send them notes. Leave lunchbox notes. Expressing gratitude for someone else to that person as even more added benefits.
• In the morning, tell yourself what you will do today. In the evening, remind yourself of everything you got done.

The key is finding what works for you and your family.

By: Emily Scott, PhD

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You may also like:

Emotional Wellness for Parents

Emotional Intelligence for Kids

Fostering Open Communication

Focusing on Your Child’s Mental Health

Empathy: What is it?

Family Conversation Starters

This blog is written as an educational and general resource only. It should not be used to diagnose or as a substitute for parenting or relational therapy, advice, or counseling with a professional therapist or medical doctor. Renewed Hope Parenting is not responsible for results or use of the information provided in these pages if you choose to use them. Everything included in this blog and website is copyrighted to Emily Scott, PhD and Renewed Hope Parenting and may not be used without permission.

The post Helping Our Kids Develop an Attitude of Gratitude appeared first on Renewed Hope Parenting.

We were created for connection. Study after study has shown that our ability to emotionally connect to others plays a huge role in our overall emotional and physical health. This connection happens through emotions, feelings, vulnerability, and relationship.

Teaching our kids emotional intelligence is one of the best things we can do to help them become healthy adults. But we don’t often talk about how to do this for ourselves. (I have an article on Emotional Intelligence for Kids and Emotional Intelligence for Parents.) The key to all of this is empathy.

So, what is empathy?

We tell parents over and over how important empathy is, but do we actually understand what it is and how to do it? What if we aren’t by nature an empathetic and compassionate person? What if we weren’t raised or been in relationships with empathy?

Empathy is our ability and our desire to feel with someone, to understand how they feel. To put ourselves in their shoes, or see things from their point of view and feel along with them. Once we become skilled at this and connected with someone, we can often sense how they are feeling.

Think of conversations you have with others. People who show compassion, listen, and feel along with you are often the easiest people to talk to and someone we feel we can open up to. We want this with our kids and in our relationships. We want our kids to know Mom and Dad will be compassionate and empathetic, not someone who shames or constantly lectures. When we show our kids we are empathetic, they are more likely to want to talk to us about their problems.

Benefits of Empathy-

• We feel connected.
• We can connect to others, strangers, family, etc.
• Empathy can help relationships grow deeper.
• When others show us empathy, we feel understood and comforted.
• Empathy helps with communication.
• Empathy helps with compassion, kindness, respect.

We are wired for empathy-

• Emotions are indicators and meant to be felt and expressed. We are born to be empathetic and emotional beings. But these things aren’t always comfortable nor to they always come naturally.
• Through our mirror neurons, we can pick up on others feelings (and stress).
• If empathy, understanding, compassion, or emotionally vulnerability do not come easily, it can take practice. If you find that empathy doesn’t come easily, I encourage you to take time to notice emotions and feelings in yourself and in others. Take note of how you are feeling and what’s going on. Developing the skills of emotional intelligence and empathy takes practice, but the benefits are worth it.

Empathy and Parenting-

• Emotional vulnerability in our kids, their ability to safely express how they are feeling to us, is a crucial part of our connection to each other. We provide for our child’s basic needs, and we also need to provide for their emotional needs.
• We don’t have to agree with our kids to empathize with them. We just need to be there with our compassion.
• Meet them with empathy. Be present and listen. Help them name what they are feeling and help them if they need help feeling better or solving a problem.
• Our sincerity matters. Many times, we can come off as sarcastic or phony. When we use our hearts to speak to our kids, we speak directly into theirs.

You can read more on The Importance of Empathy here.

Empathetic Statements-

We discuss these in our parenting classes all the time. When we respond with empathy, we reach out to our child’s emotional right brain. Once we do this, we can help them label how they feel and validate what’s going on.

Empathy more than just saying the words. It’s about being sincere and understanding. It’s about feeling along with them.

Here are some examples:

• “Oh man, I bet that didn’t feel good.”
• “It hurts when that happens.”
• “I completely understand how you’re feeling.”
• “I get frustrated/upset/angry/excited/scared when something like that happens to me too.”

By: Emily Scott, PhD

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You may also like:

Empathy with an Upset Child Can Look Like This

Emotional Intelligence for Kids

Emotional Intelligence for Parents

The Importance of Empathy

Teaching Kids to Argue

Becoming a Safe Place for Your Kids

The Power of Choices

This blog is written as an educational and general resource only. It should not be used to diagnose or as a substitute for parenting or relational therapy, advice, or counseling with a professional therapist or medical doctor. Renewed Hope Parenting is not responsible for results or use of the information provided in these pages if you choose to use them. Everything included in this blog and website is copyrighted to Emily Scott, PhD and Renewed Hope Parenting and may not be used without permission.

The post Empathy: What is it? appeared first on Renewed Hope Parenting.

Our emotions are there for a reason. We were created to connect and it’s through our emotions that this happens. When our kids are struggling, we can use that time to really connect and foster our relationship with them.

As parents, we experience a wide range of feelings. And how we feel is valid. Are you feeling overwhelmed with all the housework, work, kids, cooking, etc? That feeling is valid. Did your teen come home three hours after curfew? You have every right to be angry. Did your tween lie about who they were with? You have every right to be worried or fearful. Those feeling are valid.

But the feelings you feel are not dictators over your life. They don’t define you or rule over you. They are simply indicators about what’s happening in your body.

In parenting classes, I always stress the importance of teaching emotional intelligence to our kids. Research has shown it is one of the most important things for our kids to become successful and healthy adults. (Read more on EI for your kids here.)

But what about for yourself? Are you emotionally intelligent? What do you think about feelings (this is called meta-emotions)? A lot of our meta-emotions are formed in childhood and early relationships. Some of us think of any negative or uncomfortable emotion as bad and needing to go away ASAP. Some of us think we need to hold in any negative feeling or maybe get it out anyway possible and as quickly as possible. Sometimes, as adults, we have the meta-emotions as we experienced in our childhood, while other times we do a complete 180 and go in the opposite direction.

In order to be an effective emotional support parent, we need to be in control of our own emotions. We need to work to raise our own emotional intelligence. When we learn to label our own emotions, we are in a better place to help our kids do the same. And when we can express and manage our feelings, we can better help our kids do it too. When we take care of our own feelings before they become overwhelming, we can avoid blowing our tops, yelling, or becoming overly anxious. It is OK to express our anger if our kids do something upsetting, we just need to be calm and healthy.

This can look like this: “I am so angry that you hit your brother/broke curfew/lied. I feel so angry I need to take a break to calm down before we discuss this.” OR “I am so frustrated and I feel like I need to take a few deep breathes.”

Remember, it is healthy for our kids to see our emotions. They need to see us struggle, be sad, and be frustrated. More importantly, they need to see us constructively handle those feelings and see us model healthy coping mechanisms. So, when we have anxiety or fear, they need to see us handle it well. When we are so angry we feel like we are going to explode, they need to see us calm ourselves down or take a break before we do something we will regret or that might hurt a relationship. And when we are so angry that we explode, they need to see us apologize and repair the hurt in the relationship. It takes a big person to admit they did something wrong or hurt someone and it takes courage to say you are sorry. Repair is huge in healthy relationships. This is one of my favorite ways to phrase this, “I am so sorry I reacted by yelling because I was angry. (We aren’t apologizing for feeling anger, but for how we reacted.) I said unkind things to you that I didn’t really mean because I allowed my anger to take over. What I should have done is calm myself down before we discussed the issue. I hope you can forgive me for how I reacted.”

Here are a few important points on Emotional Wellness for Parents:

• We can’t expect our kids to manage their own feelings if they don’t see us do it.
• You are in control of you. We don’t have control over anyone but ourselves.
• Learn to recognize your triggers. What sets you off the most? What causes you to feel certain emotions? Take note over the next couple weeks. Try to recognize a small feeling before it becomes an explosive reaction.
• In every moment, there is a moment we can make a choice to react or respond. That spilt second can make the difference between yelling or taking a breath to calm down.
• We can’t do this 100% of the time. It is impossible to be a perfect parent. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t strive to do the best we can in each situation. Our kids deserve it. (The “best” we can in each moment doesn’t mean 100% perfect. It means the best we can under whatever the circumstances are.)

Here are a few questions to reflect on:

• How do you view negative/uncomfortable emotions?
• Do you hold uncomfortable feelings in or get them out as quickly as possible?
• How were you taught about emotions? Were negative emotions bad?
• Do you know how to express emotions in a healthy manner?
• Do you feel there is nothing to do when we are uncomfortable with our feelings?
• Do you yourself practice healthy coping strategies when things get hard?
• Do you know what triggers cause you to feel overwhelming emotions?
• Are you able to tell when overwhelming emotions are coming for you?
• Do you believe feelings should be kept private?
• Do strong emotions like anger make you feel like you’re losing control?
• Do you find expressing emotions as shameful or embarrassing?
• Do you think all your own feelings of uncomfortable emotions are valid?
• Do you see emotions like sadness as a weakness?

(If you struggle with anger or other strong emotions, please consider reaching out to a therapist. We can learn to handle many of life’s emotions with practice, but there are times we need outside help. Reaching out shows your kids how important it is to take care of ourselves. The better you take care of yourself, the better you can take care of your family.)

By: Emily Scott, PhD

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You may also like:

Emotional Intelligence for Kids

The Importance of Empathy

Empathy, What is it and How to do it.

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Being a Safe Place for Your Kids

Adverse Childhood Experiences

This blog is written as an educational and general resource only. It should not be used to diagnose or as a substitute for parenting or relational therapy, advice, or counseling with a professional therapist or medical doctor. Renewed Hope Parenting is not responsible for results or use of the information provided in these pages if you choose to use them. Everything included in this blog and website is copyrighted to Emily Scott, PhD and Renewed Hope Parenting and may not be used without permission.

The post Emotional Wellness for Parents appeared first on Renewed Hope Parenting.

Homework battles often top parents’ list of struggles with their kids long before the COVID pandemic made many of us homeschool teachers. The academic pressures our kids are facing is extreme. Academics and learning are certainly important. However, your child’s mental health and your relationship with them is always more important. Remember to keep those a priority.

Focus on your child more than your child’s homework.

Here are some effective techniques for homework battles:

• Choices: Giving kids control in their lives is important. Sometimes pushback is because kids feel like they don’t have any control.
  • “Would you like to do homework at the table or on the couch?” “Would you like to start with math or English?” “Would you like to do homework while eating dinner or before dinner?”
  • Don’t give choices you wouldn’t want them to choose: “Are you doing your homework now or not doing it?”
  • Don’t make threats within choices: “Are you doing your homework now or spending the evening alone in your room?”

• Use statements you can follow through on: “I am happy to take you to practice/the movies/your friend’s house, once your homework is done.” “I am happy to help you with homework, as long as you are working hard and being respectful.”

• Work From the Inside Out: When we develop and foster relationship, our kids feel better about themselves. Kids who feel good, tend to want to work harder. Although grades are important, they are not the most important. Foster their positive character traits.

• Look Behind the Problem: Do they not want to do homework because it is too hard and they’re missing a key point for it to make sense? Are they needing other needs met before their brain can focus on new knowledge?

• Point Out the Good: Do we tend to work hard for people who constantly criticize us? Or do we work harder for people who tell us what we’re doing well? When we constantly point out mistakes or criticize, we don’t make our kids want to try harder. Even what we may think of as “constructive criticism” isn’t really all that helpful to a struggling kid. When they do well on something, help them to identify why they did well.

• Empathy: Be sincerely sad when your kid gets a bad grade. This will be more effective than lecturing, yelling, or punishing. Most kids would rather not disappoint you. But they may not care if they make you mad.

• Foster a Growth Mindset and Resilience: How does your child view challenges? Do they instantly believe they aren’t capable? Do they believe challenges are an opportunity to grow and develop their brain? When your kids face a challenge, help them remember times they overcame something similar. Help them find ways to overcome the current challenge. Help them see why they were successful. Talk about times you overcame challenges.

• Redefine Success: Most of our talents and character traits can’t be measured by a standardized test. The things that make us successful in life aren’t found in textbooks.

Remember to keep your relationship with your kids as your top priority. When they are struggling, be sure to be empathetic and understanding.

By: Emily Scott, PhD

Followed Renewed Hope Parenting on Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter

You may also like:

The Importance of Chores

Executive Functioning Skills

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Fostering Self-Worth

Emotional Intelligence

This blog is written as an educational and general resource only. It should not be used to diagnose or as a substitute for parenting or relational therapy, advice, or counseling with a professional therapist or medical doctor. Renewed Hope Parenting is not responsible for results or use of the information provided in these pages if you choose to use them. Everything included in this blog and website is copyrighted to Renewed Hope Parenting and may not be used without permission.

The post Effective Strategies for Homework Battles appeared first on Renewed Hope Parenting.

Using empathy when our kids are upset can be hard. It’s hard to remain calm when they’ve made a sad choice or when we are exhausted from the demands of parenting.

Empathy and connection are the foundations of parenting. Empathy is your parenting superpower. The more we can relate to our kids, the deeper our connection can be, and the more positives we will see in our relationship. Kids who have their emotional needs met are more likely to take direction and guidance.

When our kids are upset, whether over a broken toy or a broken heart, or anything else, they need us there for support. Think about your own life. When we are having a hard time, it’s nice to have someone there to listen and support us. It’s not so nice to have someone say, “Get over it.”

Being empathetic to upset kids doesn’t make them weaker or reinforce their feelings. It gives them validation that their feelings are real to them. Our support can help them label what they feel and our problem-solving guidance can help them learn to recover from uncomfortable feelings.

Chaos and Calm

When a child is upset, whether because things are not going their way, or they made a sad choice and have to deal with the consequences, their minds are in a state of chaos. Having an adult add to this chaos with anger or distance will not help the child create calm or deal with the situation in a healthy manner. As an adult, we need to help the child find calm instead of adding to the chaos. Using sincere empathy is an effective way to help the child manage his or her emotions, while also helping the adult to stay calm when we may also want to have our own meltdown. Additionally, by staying calm (or taking a needed break, or apologizing when we haven’t been calm), we modeling an effective method for dealing with emotions.

Responding with empathy is so hard sometimes and it’s not possible to do this with every single moment. We can’t be perfect parents and don’t typically get things just right every time. So, do your best when you can. If you lose your cool and don’t respond with empathy, apologize for how you responded and make amends. Take note of what you can do differently next time.

Emotional Duct Tape

We don’t like when our kids are hurt, sad or experience discomfort. So, what do we do? We do a quick fix of emotional clean up. We make them feel better. And rightfully so, because we hurt when they hurt. But putting duct tape on emotions doesn’t really help. Kids need to experience these negative feelings sometimes. They will a lot when they get older and we aren’t there with the duct tape.

When our home was destroyed and we lost everything in the Carr Fire in 2018, our kids had many instances of sadness. Many kids experience the loss of a pet or family member. It’s hard to see our kids sad. I remember one specific time our daughter saw the same Jessie from Toy Story doll she had lost in the fire. Watching the sadness overcome her face and her trying to fight back tears absolutely broke my heart all over again. I wanted to buy her the new doll and make her happy again. But she didn’t want a new one, she wanted her old one.

In instances like this, the sadness seems like so much. I wanted to make our kids feel better instantly, but there really was no way to do it. This is true even for adults. We don’t need to tell our kids to “get over” their sadness, because they need to learn how to manage these uncomfortable feelings. Learning how to overcome uncomfortable feelings builds resilience.

Empathetic Statements

These empathetic statements will work when our kids are sad, hurt, or upset. They are quick and easy and can be very effective in helping us connect. Remember to come across as truly caring and not sarcastic.

• Tell me what’s going on.

• I am here to be with you.

• This doesn’t feel fair, does it?

• It’s hard when things don’t go our way.

• Let’s figure out how to feel better.

• I can see you are upset.

• That really hurt, didn’t it?

• It’s OK to feel sad when things are hard.

Learning to Feel Better

Once we provide empathy and understanding with an upset child, we can help them learn to problem solve and learn to overcome their uncomfortable feelings. How this looks will all depend on the situation.

• Problem Solving to fix the problem: A kid who is upset about a broken toy may be asked how he can fix it. Asking kids questions will stimulate their thinking. Allowing them to try out (safe) ideas lets them see how the process works. Kids need to see they are capable of solving problems.

• Problem Solving to feel better: Sometimes problems don’t have a solution. Sometimes the problem-solving step of this is helping our kids manage their feelings and feel better. Kids can learn to journal or draw their feelings or go outside for a break to calm down. In a truly heated moment, we can use spatial recognition to calm down (Name 5 blue things you see, then 5 circles). Taking slow and controlled breaths can help with anger and sadness. Once the big emotional reactions have calmed, we can talk about how feelings are temporary and how we can be proactive when we feel an emotional reaction coming.

By Emily Scott, PhD

Follow Renewed Hope Parenting on Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter

You may also like:

Emotional Intelligence: The Key to Raising Healthy Adults

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Resilience

Focusing on Your Child’s Mental Health

The post Empathy With An Upset Child Can Look Like This: 8 Empathetic Statements appeared first on Renewed Hope Parenting.

I can get exhausted keeping track of everything for all our kids. Life certainly gets easier when they learn to manage their own lives more. But that skill set won’t just happen on its own. It needs to be fostered. Helping our kids develop their Executive Functioning (EF) skills will make everyone’s lives easier and help set them up for success.

I have seen more and more available information on Executive Functioning, probably because it’s one of those things we desperately want our kids to work on. We need them to be able to remember, think about things from different angles, problem solve, organize, plan, set goals, and have self-control. These functions of the brain take place in the prefrontal cortex (which doesn’t fully develop until around age 25). Remembering that this part of the brain hasn’t fully developed allows us to have some empathy and patience when our kids struggle with remembering, or organizing, or problem-solving, or emotional self-regulation. And that’s also why we need to give them lots of chances to practice and hone their brains.

The key components of EF are:

• The ability to focus, remember, or organize
• Setting goals
• Planning ahead
• Regulating self and emotions
• Thinking abstractly with flexibility and creativity

A few ways to foster this development:

1. Guide kids to self-manage or monitor their school work or schedule: Planners, lists, calendars, and reminders are all great ways to help us organize our lives. Starting in elementary school, we can guide our kids to use these to manage their own lives. Some kids will be better at this than others, but we can sow the seeds at young ages and give more and more independent responsibility as they get older.

2. Allow kids to make choices and have control in their lives: To help our kids develop their ever-important EF skills, we need to give them chances to make decisions with lots of small choices. Anything we don’t need control over can be a kid’s decision. From what color shirt they wear, to which vegetable they choose for dinner, to what they pack in their lunch, to how they want to raise money to buy something. Giving them choices helps them think about things and gives them control over their lives.

3. Goals: Help your kids set their own goals or set weekly or weekend goals together. Help them evaluate if the goals are realistic and manageable and what steps they need to take to achieve the goals. Let them see you doing the same in your own life. If they struggle, help them see times they did hard things and accomplished something.

4. Have positive conversations about growth mindset and perseverance: Grit, growth-mindset, and resilience are all different, but they are similar concepts. We can talk to our kids about never giving up and that challenges help us grow. Ask them what they can learn from setbacks. Mistakes help us learn and grow. Failure is not final.

5. Allow for rest and downtime: Ever notice how after school some kids just need to power down for a little bit to rest? We can easily get worn out using our EF skills and we need to provide opportunities to rest and regroup. Unstructured play is huge here, and not just for the little guys.

6. Encourage healthy friendships and relationships: Surrounding ourselves with healthy and positive people can help us be our best selves. Unhealthy relationships can have a negative impact on our mental health overall life.

7. Have hypothetical conversations about what-if situations: Future talk or talk about situations that could happen can help our kids critically and abstractly think, as well as problem solve. What would you do if *this* happened? How would you handle *this* scenario? These conversations can be a fun family experience.

8. Play memory games: Games can help with memory, focus, and creative thinking. We can play family board games so they can learn to see how others are thinking and how they can use that knowledge to win. Make sure these things are as close to real life as possible. Sure, doing memory games on an iPad can help, but it doesn’t exactly mirror real life use of EF.

9. Openly model how you manage yourself: Not only should we show our kids how we manage our own schedules and to-dos, but we should also model how we manage our feelings. It’s healthy to show our kids we also experience big, overwhelming feelings and what we do to manage those.

10. Self-Regulation: Learning to self-regulate is a huge part of growing up. We can help our kids learn to self-regulate by modeling healthy ways to manage our own feelings, being empathic when they experience big feelings, labeling and processing emotions with them, and helping them find ways to solve problems or overcome uncomfortable feelings.

Remember: Empathy and connection are the foundations of our relationships with our kids. The stronger our bond, the more likely our kids will accept our help in helping them develop these skills.

By: Emily Scott, PhD

Followed Renewed Hope Parenting on Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter

You may also like these articles on:

Communication

Emotional Intelligence

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Preventative Parenting

Creating a Family Standard

The post Executive Functioning: Vital Skills for Our Kid’s Success appeared first on Renewed Hope Parenting.

I encourage you to make time for family meetings. When things are calm, you can discuss expectations and consequences if necessary. You can openly discuss your expectations on behavior and following rules. Your kids can even be part of the boundary making process. You can also see where your kids may be lacking in the love tank area and find ways to fill them up.

Creating a family standard needs to include the opinions of everyone and reflect your family values. Certain boundaries can be made together, like agreements on screen time or curfew.

Kids need to be part of the family team so they feel important, valued, and loved. Ultimately, parents are the the team captains, but that doesn’t mean we don’t include the ideas and opinions of the rest of the team.

Here are some key points on creating a family standard and family meetings:

• Kids are more likely to comply and help if they feel heard, appreciated, and part of a team.
• Ask everyone what kind of family they want to be part of.
• Ask everyone to talk about family values.
• Establish expectations for behaviors. (Like doing homework, not asking for things over and over after being told “No”)
• Discuss consequences. For instance, let your teen know they lose the privilege to drive if they don’t fill the car with gas or drive recklessly. Or, let your child know they may lose out on a movie if they don’t have their homework done or weren’t kind to you.
• Let them know consequences vary based on age and not every child will have the same expectations and consequences.
• Create mutual respect among the family by being empathetic, understanding, responsive, and allowing everyone to be part of the team.
• It’s OK to disagree. But we have to learn to respectfully disagree.
• Ask, “What can we do as a family to make us the best family we can be?”
• Discuss areas we all need to work on.
• If there are serious areas that need work, this may better be done in private with that child. We don’t want to embarrass them in front of siblings.
• Use helpful language: “I noticed we are having this problem. How do you think we can solve it?”
• Make lists of ways to solve problems.
• Set a good example. Be vulnerable enough to admit you have areas to work on too.
• Make sure you discuss love tanks. “How do you feel loved?” “What do I do that makes you feel loved?”
• Have regular check-ins.

Maintaining a positive and safe family environment can take work, but it is well worth it. Again, we can’t prevent all undesired behavior. Sometimes kids need to mess up to learn consequences. That’s when we meet them with love and empathy and follow through on the outcomes. We can take some small steps within our family to prevent some grocery store meltdowns or battles over chores. Our relationship with our kids is worth the effort.

By: Emily Scott, PhD

Follow Renewed Hope Parenting on Facebook, Pinterest

You may also like:

Preventative Parenting

Teaching Kids to Argue

Becoming a Safe Place for our Kids: Communication Tips

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The post Creating a Family Standard appeared first on Renewed Hope Parenting.

Preventative Parenting

Taking a few moments to consider Preventative Parenting steps and working to include these into your family life, can decrease many common childhood misbehaviors. When we fall into the trap of thinking we need bigger and better consequences, we often fail to miss how easy it is to prevent undesired behavior. The key to Preventative Parenting is being proactive, so that you don’t have to be reactive when kids misbehave. Including these in your family life won’t eliminate all undesired behavior, but these practices can have a large impact on preparing for difficult parenting situations before they arise. There are some situations we simply can’t plan for. But we can use these principles to guide our parenting through the hard moments.

Here are a few of the most common methods of Preventative Parenting, or parenting to prevent misbehavior. Remember, this is about being proactive.

• Relationship & Connection: The biggest thing we can do in our parenting is focus on our relationship with our kids. It is the foundation of all our parenting. When we focus on loving our kids, filling their love tanks, and connecting with them, they are less likely to have major behavior problems. Our kids will still make mistakes, but we can have them deal with the consequences while still being empathetic and loving.

• Be Aware & Recognize Triggers: Maybe you’ve had several grocery store meltdowns or numerous fights over homework. Or you just know there’s a sibling fight brewing. Constantly being aware of what causes undesired behavior or what causes kids to feel like their love tanks are running on empty sets us up to prepare for these moments before they arise. When you know what sets you or your kids off, you can talk about it in calmer times or discuss what consequences will be. Have a discussion in the car before getting to the grocery store and have consequences ready if our kids still make mistakes. Talk about homework before the battle starts and lovingly follow through.

• Teachable moments: We are our child’s first teacher. Not only for academics, but for life. We are their first and most important teacher for social norms, friendship, empathy, and how to love and live. This means we need to find teachable moments throughout our interactions with our kids. Not only showing them letters and numbers at the grocery store, but also finding opportunities to talk about discipline and following rules. We need to teach them the basics and build upon that as they grow. While driving to school, we can talk about why we don’t speed. Not just to avoid a costly ticket, but also because it keeps everyone safer. On the way to the grocery store, we can have a discussion about what we expect. We can let them know how we expect them to behave while things are calm.

• Questions will stimulate their thinking: Helping them focus on what they can do helps keep them positive. Creating a family blueprint or family standard allows everyone to see they are part of a team and a needed part of the family dynamics. Ask them what they think good choices will be.

• Emotional Intelligence: Sometimes when our kids are struggling, it’s because they are overwhelmed with their own feelings. There is often something underlying when we have behavior problems. We can teach them it’s OK to feel our feelings, but we have to manage how we express these feelings. We can teach them to label our feelings and what healthy coping mechanisms are. (Read more on teaching Emotional Intelligence here.)

• Work on Your Child From the Inside Out: Much like working on your relationship, this idea focuses on internal work. Notice your child’s positive character traits and things they do well. Point those out and foster their unique skills. The more we build up our child, the better they feel about themselves, and the better they want to behave. (Here is an article on building self-worth.)

• Choices & Control: Giving away control is both a preventative measure and a way to manage behavior. The more choices we give our kids, the more power they have in their lives. Power struggles typically happen because kids don’t feel like they have any control or power in their lives. This is also a common reason behind bullying. To prevent power struggles, we tell parents to give their kids as many choices as possible. This can be as simple as, “Do you want the red or blue cup?” “Do you want to eat three more bites or four?” “Do you want to come home at 9:30 or 10?” “How do you want to solve this problem?” The options you give are all fine with you but it gives your child the chance to have control over their lives. We all need to have that feeling of control, and when kids don’t have it, they try to fight for it. (Read more on The Power of Choices here.)

• Creating a Family Standard: Creating a family standard needs to include the opinions of everyone and reflect your family values. Certain boundaries can be made together, like agreements on screen time or curfew. Others happen in the moment, like the first time your toddler hits someone, or the first time you hear the words, “I hate you!”

I encourage you to make time for family meetings. When things are calm, you can discuss expectations and consequences if necessary. You can openly discuss your expectations on behavior and following rules. Your kids can even be part of the boundary making process. You can also see where your kids may be lacking in the love tank area and find ways to fill them up.

Maintaining a positive and safe family environment can take work, but it is well worth it. Again, we can’t prevent all undesired behavior. Sometimes kids need to mess up to learn consequences. That’s when we meet them with love and empathy and follow through on the outcomes. We can take some small steps within our family to prevent some grocery store meltdowns or battles over chores. Our relationship with our kids is worth the effort.

By: Emily Scott, PhD

Follow Renewed Hope Parenting on Facebook, Pinterest

You may also like:

Teaching Kids to Argue

Becoming a Safe Place for our Kids: Communication Tips

The Advantage of Affection

The Importance of Empathy

The post Preventative Parenting appeared first on Renewed Hope Parenting.

Our relationship with our kids is the foundation of our parenting. We need that strong attachment and firm relational base. One of the best ways to foster this relationship is through conversation. Here are a few of our favorite easy conversation starters with kids. These can be adjusted to any age. Have fun and answer the questions yourself!

Follow Renewed Hope Parenting on Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter for more on parenting!

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The post Easy Family Conversation Starters appeared first on Renewed Hope Parenting.

Over the years we have worked with many parents on renewing their parenting. Here are a few of our favorite quick tips on renewing your relationship with your kids and your overall parenting.

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All quotes and images (c) Emily Scott, PhD Renewed Hope Parenting

This blog is written as an educational and general resource only. It should not be used to diagnose or as a substitute for parenting or relational therapy, advice, or counseling with a professional therapist or medical doctor. Renewed Hope Parenting is not responsible for results or use of the information provided in these pages if you choose to use them. Everything included in this blog and website is copyrighted to Renewed Hope Parenting and may not be used without permission.

The post Quick Tips to Renew Your Parenting appeared first on Renewed Hope Parenting.

Emotional Intelligence

The Key to Raising Healthy Adults

Teaching emotional intelligence to our kids is one of the best things we can do for them. Emotional intelligence is one of the keys to raising a successful and emotionally and mentally healthy adult. It is also a huge preventative parenting step. The better we teach our kids what emotions are and how to deal with them, the better choices they can make and the less behavior problems we often have.

Research has shown that kids who have parents who emotionally support them and who become able to manage their emotions do better in school, relationships, can bounce back faster when distress hits, have resilience, and have fewer behavior problems. Having a parent who is an emotional support has also shown to act as a buffer to some the negative consequences of parental separation.

But in order to help them create a life that is full of better experiences, we need to help our kids learn the valuable lessons of emotional health.

We need to show them how to handle the many feelings and emotions that go into life.

We need to coach and support them.

We need them to know there are numerous emotions they will feel, and that they are usually only temporary. It is OK to feel a mix of emotions (as we often feel a mix of sadness and excitement as our kids grow up).

The emotions we feel tell us something about what’s going on inside ourselves and we can learn how to more effectively handle the uncomfortable emotions like anger and sadness.

Furthermore, modeling healthy emotions is important for our kids. If they see us blow our tops each time we get angry, what do you think their reaction will be when they get angry? They learn to live what they see. It is incredibly difficult to manage our own emotions as adults, especially when our kids do the many things that can lead us to frustration. (Believe me I get it.) And we can’t be perfect all the time. So, when we do get angry and yell, we need to show our kids how to apologize. When we get so angry, we don’t know what to do, we need to model how to take a break to calm down before we let a reaction become a regret.

Emotion Dismissing Parents

We will start this discussion with what an emotion dismissing parent looks like.

• Often emotion dismissing parents are impatient with negative emotions. We either don’t want to deal with the negative emotions, get overwhelmed with them, or just want our kids to move on and be happy again. We don’t need to tell our kids “to get over it” or “you shouldn’t feel that way.” Or anything similar. Their emotions are valid.
• We also don’t need to rush in a rescue from sad emotions.
• Parents who have a focus on emotions are also careful not to dismiss emotions simply because they came from a child. It is easy to tell our kids not to be scared of the dark, but that fear is very real to the kids. It is important for us to show kids that their feelings have value and are real for them.
• Allowing kids to feel their uncomfortable or inconvenient emotions helps them see that they are their own person with feelings. Instead of seeing their emotion as an inconvenience, we see it as a means to build our relationship and connect, or as a way to solve a problem.
• Sometimes we simply want our kid to feel better quickly or we are too busy to deal with the problem at hand. We all do it from time to time.
• We may also punish a child for their feelings. And important point to make here is that we don’t want to punish a child because of their feelings. All feelings are valid. But, kids need to learn that their behavior when they are angry or sad is what matters. So, while we don’t want to punish for anger, we should have logical consequences for calling Mom or Dad a name while they are angry, or hitting little brother.
• Sometimes this type of parent thinks that an uncomfortable emotion being expressed from a child is a bad reflection on them as a parent. If my kid is angry, I must be doing something wrong. Or I am a bad parent because I can’t keep my kid happy. Life is full of complex emotions and these are often strong for kids.

Emotional Support Parent

So, what does it look like to emotionally support our kids and help them grow into adults who can self-regulation and handle life when it gets hard?

Here is what an Emotional Support Parent often looks like — Think of this as a “How-To” of teaching emotional intelligence:

• Validate their experience and respect their feelings, however silly they may seem.
• Teach them to label emotions.
• Teach them to have healthy coping mechanisms or tools to work through emotion. Maybe that means taking a break, or hitting a pillow, or taking deep breaths, or special recognition (count 5 blue things in the room).
• We can open the lines of emotional communication with our empathy and understanding. Always, always, always lead with empathy before lectures, advice, or help. This opens their minds to thinking and shows them we are there in support.
• Asking questions is usually better than making statements. It’s gets them thinking. “How are you feeling?” “What made you feel this way.” What questions are typically best, because they can describe what happened.
• They also set important boundaries with love. Sure, it’s OK to get mad at your sibling. But it is never OK to hit them out of anger, and there will be appropriate consequences for hitting (not the anger).
• Emotional support parents also know it’s OK to show emotion while parenting. We can show our kids that we get angry and frustrated too. We label our emotions and find healthy ways to express and cope. We apologize when we get overwhelmed and yell.
• One key trait of an emotionally healthy and emotion supporting parent, is that they notice small emotions before they become big and overwhelming. You may notice your child feeling frustrated and intervene before it becomes full blown anger.
• Take these opportunities to connect. Give your child a safe place to get their feelings out. Some of the stronger emotions can be scary for kids. They can feel out of control of their bodies, and having us as a safe place to express that is important.
• Use preventative parenting. When things are calm, talk about what your child can do when they feel overwhelmed or angry. “Let’s figure out a plan for when you’re feeling angry, so we don’t hurt anyone.” “Let’s make a list of 5 things to do when you feel sad.” “Next time you feel angry, count 5 blue things, or list 5 things you are thankful for.
• Separate the emotion or behavior from the child. Your child is not the problem. But maybe, they don’t make great choices when they are overwhelmed. Those choices are the issue you want to help fix, not the child.

And remember, we can’t do this 100% of the time. But, we can take as many opportunities as we can do coach our kids. They deserve our time and attention when we can give it.

Impact of Emotional Intelligence at a Glance

• Kids who have had consistent emotional support as their brain developed, usually have a better response to stressful situations. Small stressors don’t usually bother these kids as much as other kids, who can easily become off balanced or distressed by small, uncomfortable moments. This ability to bounce back from hard moments is key in building resilience and building strong relationships.
• Kids with emotion support parents have also been shown to relate better with their peers, help themselves handle stress, have fewer behavior problems, and do well in school.
• They have a better handle on delayed gratification, impulse control, reading other’s social cues, and motivated themselves to feel better when times get hard.
• They have learned how to go from uncomfortable feelings or more comfortable feelings, giving them the ability to self-soothe.
• These kids see their parents as a source of support when they need it. They feel a strong connection to their parents and their family unit.
• These kids have seen how they can overcome uncomfortable feelings and problem solved. This is how we build resilience.

No matter your child’s age, you can support their emotional intelligence. And be sure to support your own as well! Our empathy, understanding, and support are absolutely crucial in helping them become successful adults.

(If you feel your child is dealing with severe anger or depression, or anything else that is causing problems or hurting someone, please reach out to a therapist or their pediatrician. We can help them handle the daily emotions of life, but sometimes things are too big for us to handle alone. Be their advocate and support, and get everyone the help they need.)

By: Emily Scott, PhD

Follow Renewed Hope Parenting on Facebook

Follow Renewed Hope Parenting on Pinterest

Follow Renewed Hope Parenting on Twitter

You may also like:

Tips for Trust and Communication

Focusing on Your Child’s Mental Health

Empathy

Building Self-Worth

Teaching Kids to Argue

This blog is written as an educational and general resource only. It should not be a substitute for parenting or relational therapy, advice, or counseling with a professional therapist or medical doctor. Renewed Hope Parenting is not responsible for results or use of the information provided in these pages if you choose to use them. Everything included in this blog and website is copyrighted to Renewed Hope Parenting and may not be used without permission.

The post Emotional Intelligence: The Key to Raising Healthy Adults appeared first on Renewed Hope Parenting.

Summer is here. Kids are out of school and parents everywhere are about to hear the phrase we dread (and I don’t mean, “Can I have another snack?”).

“I’M BORED!”

I am thrilled to have our kids out of school for the summer, but the boredom will soon ensue.

When kids go from constant entertainment and engagement to nothing, they easily get bored. They want and feel they need to get a quick fix of entertainment. So many times this leads to TV and iPads, or bugging Mom for something exciting to do.

But this summer, our kids are going to get to experience the true joys of boredom. I’m sure we will still have our electronic entertainment, because let’s face it, this technology isn’t going anywhere and our kids need to learn how to use it responsibly. And we still plan to go swimming, take a trip, and do lots of other things to create lasting memories of our time together.

Being bored is so good for our kids. One study done on boredom showed that kids needed to be bored for 12 minutes before their creative juices kicked in. When they don’t have something to entertain them, they have to find their own entertainment. This leads to their own unique development of creativity and interests, their own games and ideas, their own ways to solve problems and entertain themselves.

• Here are a few reasons boredom is so great:
  Stimulates creative and imagination thinking
  Helps kids find their own ways to entertain themselves, instead of getting a “quick-fix”
  Helps them learn to problem solve
  Helps them develop unique interests
  Helps them exercise their brain
  Helps with critical thinking skills
  Helps them unwind and process their day and what they have learned
  Kids don’t get as bored as easily
  Kids explore and learn at their own pace
  Learn time management

As parents, we often feel like it’s our duty to fill our kids’ lives with engaging and educational activities. This is often especially the case during the school year, when we have dance, gymnastics, Kung Fu, baseball, soccer, Girl Scouts, cross-country, plus hours of homework. We want to give our kids every opportunity to succeed in life. But overscheduling them can be detrimental. Many of today’s kids and teens have trouble with anxiety, depression, sleep issues, and mental health issues because of constant stress in their lives. 

It is important to note, that although we don’t want to give our kids things to constantly occupy their time, we need to be cautious of what they do. Kids left unattended or unsupervised can get into trouble. This idea of boredom means times when they want to watch TV or do something exciting, and you’re trying to teach the importance of downtime and entertaining ourselves.

Doing nothing is not wasting time. Doing nothing can be productive and beneficial for our kids. Allowing for downtime is just as important as many of the other things we feel we need to pack our schedules with. Boredom is not something that needs a quick fix. It is something to be embraced.

So, the next time your kid comes to you with that inevitable phrase, “I’m bored!” tell them how great it is to be bored!

• Ideas for “I’m bored!” statements for younger kids:
• Crafts
• Outside play- watch the clouds, play with sticks, etc
• Painting, drawing
• Random craft/lego/blocks to build and create
• Simple toys
• Pretend play, imagination play
• Cleaning
• Reading, books, magazines

For more on parenting:

Follow Renewed Hope Parenting on Facebook, Pinterest, or Twitter

Focusing on Your Child’s Mental Health

Calming the School Morning Rush

Why Chores Are So Important

This blog is written as an educational and general resource only. It should not be used to diagnose or as a substitute for parenting or relational therapy, advice, or counseling with a professional therapist or medical doctor. Renewed Hope Parenting is not responsible for results or use of the information provided in these pages if you choose to use them. Everything included in this blog and website is copyrighted to Renewed Hope Parenting and may not be used without permission.

The post Boredom Does Not Need a Quick Fix appeared first on Renewed Hope Parenting.

What are your memories of chores as a kid? Fun, punishment, tedious tasks, moments of growth?

How we view many of these things from our childhood will dictate how we parent our own kids. And despite how we may feel on some things, there is research on chores that cannot be denied. The longest longitudinal study ever done on people, which dates back to people living in the 1930s, found that the one thing that would lead to a mentally healthy, successful, content, and productive adult was doing chores as a child. Additional research has shown that regular chores help kids develop a strong work ethic and a “pitch-in” mentality. Chores teach kids how to serve, how to be part of a family, develop moral character, reduce selfishness, and promotes responsibility. (Kids certainly need many more things other than chores to become successful adults. But chores or jobs around the house are usually always on the list of things kids need to be ready for adulthood.)

Despite this information and many parents knowing how important chores are for kids, most of today’s parents do not have their kids regularly do chores. One study found that only 28% of parents make kids to chores. Not having our kids do chores isn’t sparing them from work; it is setting them up for difficulty in other ways.

I get it. Chores aren’t fun. Kids don’t always want to do them, and we don’t always want to listen to them complain about doing them. But we need to show kids that things won’t be done for us and that we need to develop the work ethic and skills of the world.

Are your kids too busy for contributing? Kids today are in school for long hours and usually come home to more hours of homework. Throw in dance class, a baseball game, a basketball tournament, and there often isn’t much time left. This “too busy being busy” aspect of our lives today is another issue in itself. But kids should never be too busy to help out.

It’s all in the Presentation

Now in my work with parents, I have found that the presentation of chores is crucial. Yes, learning to be self-sufficient in cooking and laundry will be useful as an adult. But the process of chores is what will lead to contentment and productivity. If we present chores as punishment or tedious tasks, our kids will not take on the full benefit.

When we present chores as “family contributions” that everyone needs to do in order for the family life to run smoothly, we are showing our kids how important they are to the family. This sense of worth and value is crucial to young children. From the preschoolers who can’t quite fold a towel, to the teenager who mows and rakes the lawn, contributing to family life should be presented as invaluable. When we are thankful for our kids helping, even when their abilities aren’t amazing just yet, we show them how much we appreciate their help and how valuable they are.

When kids know they are valued, they are less likely to have behavioral, academic, and social problems. They have a sense of purpose and worth. They have an important role in the daily functioning of a family. Making it a fun family affair and helping each other out is an excellent opportunity to bond. Kids who are not motivated to work at home won’t be motivated to work at school, sports, or adult life. Doing family contributions and dealing with consequences for not doing them are great opportunities for teachable moments.

To the Best of Their Ability

When kids are small and don’t have the ability to do things our way, it is easy for us to not want them to help. I do this often because I like things done my way. But perfectionism is something we have to let go of as parents. It’s OK if little ones can’t do things correct just yet. Encouraging them to help and making the process fun will set them up for wanting to help more as adults. It is more about the learning process than the end result. The end result for our kids doing laundry is usually messier than I like. But it’s done to the best of their ability and I will praise them for their help. With time and practice they will become excellent folders. (See Why I Let My Kids Do Chores: Focusing on the Learning Process)

Do Chores = Money?

What about paying kids for contributing? Financial decisions are best made within the family. But paying kids for every little contribution they make can set them up with a “what’s in it for me?” or “I won’t do that job because it doesn’t pay enough” attitude. Choosing to pay kids for bigger contributions is up to your family, but every kid should have work to do around the house that is free of charge. (See Chores- To Pay or Not to Pay?)

Service

I want to add a note on service. Having the family value of contributing will teach kids service, but as someone who values service, I want to show this to our kids. That means I will do things for them from time to time. Sure, they can pack their own lunches or make their own breakfast, but it’s nice to do things for those we love, especially if it is appreciated and fill their love tanks. I know my love tank gets filled when someone does something nice for me. And our kids deserve the same.

A child can never be too young or too hold to pitch-in around the house. Sparing them from helping isn’t helping them. We want to show our children they are valued members of our family and their contributions to daily life are important, noticed, valued, and beneficial. I don’t want our kids to think everything will always be taken care of for them. Sure, I am happy to help them out if they need it. Our family is a team and every member of the team must work together.

By: Emily Scott, PhD

Renewed Hope Parenting on Facebook

You may also like:

Focusing on the Learning Process

Chores: To Pay or Not to Pay

Communication Tips

Ways to Foster Responsibility

Working on Your Child’s Self-Worth

This blog is written as an educational and general resource only. It should not be used to diagnose or as a substitute for parenting or relational therapy, advice, or counseling with a professional therapist or medical doctor. Renewed Hope Parenting is not responsible for results or use of the information provided in these pages if you choose to use them. Everything included in this blog and website is copyrighted to Renewed Hope Parenting and may not be used without permission.

The post Key Thing Kids Need to Become Successful Adults appeared first on Renewed Hope Parenting.

Unfortunately, many children must face devastating events during their childhood. Thankfully, these events don’t have to be as tragic and disheartening as they often seem. Our family experienced this firsthand when we lost our home in the 8^th largest wildfire in California history. The Carr Fire destroyed almost 1100 homes in July 2018.

Although this tragedy was a difficult thing to experience, we were fortunate to be able to walk with our children through the experience. We have been asked many times how we parented through such an event. As I said in this article, we parented as consistently and as normally as the situation would allow, we parented with empathy, we allowed our children to be sad, and more than anything, we parented with hope and confidence that we could all form resilience from tragedy.

Below I have outlined several points to consider as you parent your children through tragedy. Keep in mind, it is important to remember that all children, all situations, and all families are different. Knowing your child is absolutely crucial in walking them through a devastating event in your lives.

Children and teens can experience extreme fear after a tragic event and can exhibit changes in their typical behavior. You may see a young child have trouble sleeping, eating, going to the bathroom, or any other form of regression. Kids of all ages may experience anger and frustration, sadness, or an inability to focus.

All of this is normal behavior when a young child or teen experiences toxic stress in their lives. The important thing to remember about toxic stress, is that it can be extremely damaging to a child’s developing brain. (See my article of Adverse Childhood Experiences.) BUT, it doesn’t have to be a detrimental experience. When adults walk alongside the child, work with them through emotions, and offer support, the stress can lead to resilience.

Additionally, it is important for parents to know where their child is developmentally. Younger children may react differently than teens. Younger kids may cry and be irritable, while teens may want to isolate themselves. Some kids may want to talk about what happened, while others may want to shut the event out of their mind.

Kids of all ages may not have appropriate coping skills for their feelings. Open discussion and healthy modeling are crucial at this point to help kids avoid risky and dangerous choices as a means to cope. (Think smoking as a way to calm stress, or driving recklessly to feel in control.) Some younger kids may benefit from drawing pictures, writing, or singing about what happened. Older kids may benefit from journaling or making gratitude lists.

Since many kids don’t have the ability to express themselves, teaching and modeling healthy emotional intelligence is another important step in this process. Giving feelings a name, and learning that all feelings are OK is the basis of emotional intelligence. Additionally, teaching that how we respond to our emotions is important. Feeling angry is OK, but hitting out of anger is not. Feeling sad is OK, but secluding ourselves into sadness is not. After loss or a tragic event, kids can feel powerless, afraid, sad, lonely, that life isn’t fair, and many other emotions. All of these are valid and OK. How we respond to them is what’s important.

Keep dialogue open. Make sure kids have factual knowledge of what happened and allow them to express any concerns they have. Many kids may fear something horrible like this will happen again or that the world isn’t safe. Be sure to listen to them when they express concerns, even if they seem trivial. To your child, these concerns are not trivial, but very real.

How you react to tragedy is as important as how you walk your child through it. They look to you for guidance and as a model for how to live and handle situations. Remaining calm is important, but it is also important for your child to see you handle sadness, anger, frustration, and devastation.

Make a plan for the future. Children find comfort in knowing what’s going on. It can be beneficial for kids to know what to do when emergencies happen. Have a meeting place, know what to grab in the event you are evacuated, sign up for emergency alerts, make a communication plan, make lists of phone numbers or documents or items to have handy, and pack emergency kits.

Teach kids its OK to ask for help. This one was a struggle for me. I don’t like asking for help, but in the days following the fire we had as close to nothing as you can imagine. With little time to evacuate, we weren’t able to pack much. I literally had one pair of shorts and flip flops. But when tragedy strikes, people want to help. We were blessed with so much from our community. When we get to the point we can give back, we plan to do that so our kids can be part of the giving. Let your kids know they are not alone in their struggles.

Get back to normal as soon as you can. For us, after our home was destroyed, we had to live in a hotel for two weeks and then moved into a rental house. Our life was chaos for several months as we started rebuilding and trying to find our new normal. But whatever aspects of life we could get “normal” we did. Our daughter still attended dance camp the following week. We still went swimming at the hotel pool and Grandpa’s house. We parented as close to normal as the situation allowed.

If you believe your child has experienced true traumatic stress from a devastating event, please seek professional help. It was months after the fire that our daughter mentioned having nightmares. Coincidently, it was months before I had reoccurring nightmares about the fire. Signs of traumatic stress may not present right away. But if you or your child need extra help, please reach out to a licensed therapist in your area. Your and your child’s mental health are incredibly important and worth the time.

Processing through trauma, loss, and tragedy can be an emotional rollercoaster. The grief process can be debilitating, scaring, and difficult. But there will come a time when the pain of grief isn’t as strong as it is in the beginning. When we make healthy choices during the grief process, we can build resilience and come out of the process stronger than ever.

You can read more on our journey after the Carr Fire on our Facebook page. Here are a few stories:

Be the Hope

Rebuilding

We Finally Found Home, Only to Lose it One Month Later on Her View From Home

By: Emily Scott, PhD

This blog is written as an educational and general resource only. It should not be used to diagnose or as a substitute for parenting or relational therapy, advice, or counseling with a professional therapist or medical doctor. Renewed Hope Parenting is not responsible for results or use of the information provided in these pages if you choose to use them. Everything included in this blog and website is copyrighted to Renewed Hope Parenting and may not be used without permission.

The post Helping Kids Process Through Tragedy appeared first on Renewed Hope Parenting.

How Are You Feeling, Momma?

Sometimes we are sent a person who we know didn’t come into our life by chance.

Sometimes we read a book or have a discussion that changes the way we think.

How Are You Feeling, Momma and its authors are exactly these things.

I became familiar with Lisa Leshaw and Shelby Spear through a writer’s network. We have written for some of the same online publications and I have followed their writings for years. And I have yet to find two women who are so differently perfect for one another in encouraging women and mothers.

(Please know that all opinions in this review are my own and I receive no compensation for this review or if you purchase this book. I recommend it from my heart because it touched my heart, and I believe it will touch yours too.)

What emotions and feelings have you felt today as a mother? Probably a range from happiness, to exhaustion, to overwhelm, to even anger. I think that many times, as moms, we feel these emotions and feel as if we are alone. Or we feel lonely in our parenting journey.

How Are You Feeling, Momma is proof that we are never alone in how we feel as parents. Not only do others feel the same, but Lisa and Shelby openly discuss how hard parenting can be. They provide support and love for those of us who are struggling.

Lisa and Shelby highlight many of the emotions of parenthood, including fear, loneliness, confusion, depression, guilt, patience, insecurity, jealousy, overwhelm, pride, sadness, thankfulness, exhaustion, motivation, and worry. They walk us through 31 different emotions of parenting, providing each writer’s individual feelings and reactions to each emotion. The authors discuss how they come from drastically different backgrounds and have a combined decades of parenting and grandparenting. They share stories, tears and laughter. They share their hearts and touched mine deeply. They are authentic, vulnerable, loving, and down-right hilarious at times. I loved reading through their stories of parenting, including so many I have experienced myself. They do not shy away from sharing the fun, the difficult, the messy, and the frustrating.

Particularly, on page 37 Shelby mentions that many people are given a gift of helping others, offering counsel, or sharing wisdom.

“God gave humans the wisdom to counsel, scientists the smarts to create healing elements, and angels on earth the ability to console and guide us. Accept these gifts. Be well. You have my heart.”

Shelby and Lisa and these angels on earth. They have been given the ability to express what we all feel as moms, and provide us with wisdom and support on our walk.

Not only does this book walk us through the many emotions of parenthood, especially for moms, but it validates so much of what we feel and what we experience. Through grace, wit, humor, and love Lisa and Shelby walk us through these feelings and let us know we are not alone. Never again do we need to feel isolated or alone in our parenting walk. Never again do we need to become overwhelmed with the feelings of insecurity, impatience, guilt, distress, or depression. We are not alone in our walks as mothers. We are all in this together.

My only criticism of this book is that it did not include a coupon for a coffee-chat with Lisa and Shelby!

You can purchase a copy on Amazon

Follow Shelby Spear on Facebook

Read more from Lisa Leshaw on Her View From Home

Review by: Emily Scott, PhD

Renewed Hope Parenting

The post How Are You Feeling, Momma? Book Review appeared first on Renewed Hope Parenting.

Calming the School Morning Rush

By: Emily Scott, PhD

Another morning of begging our TKer and first-grader to eat something before school. Another morning of rushing to get dressed. Another morning of running out the door by 7:30. Another morning of getting frustrated that a school water bottle was left outside. After dropping them off, I realized I hadn’t really even talked to either one. We didn’t make it past the first week of school before I felt bad for how our mornings were.

We hadn’t had a chance to connect because we were (and I mean “I was”) so focused on making sure their clothes were on, they ate something, little brother was dressed, I was dressed, both lunches were packed, all the shoes were found, all the teeth were brushed, I found my keys, everyone went to the bathroom, the show-and-tell item was packed, and we were out the door on time.

I hadn’t taken the time to work on my relationship with our kids and to make sure they felt loved before school. I always make a point to hug them as soon as they wake up and again when we drop them off or pick them up. But what about the time in the middle?

My focus has been on making sure we get out the door, when it should have been on having a great morning with our kids. What do we need to do to reframe our thinking away from getting things done to enjoying our time together?

Taking the time to focus on our relationship with our kids is one of the most important parts of our parenting. Our relationship with them is the single most important factor to how well they will do in life. They need to know we love them unconditionally.

I would rather send them off to school with mismatched socks than the memory of a frazzled mom who was rushing them around. I would rather send them off to school with their hearts full. I would rather take the time to make a connection, and give them time to move from one part of the day to the next. I would rather have a conversation about nothing in particular.

We have so many things to do between family life, work life, school life, and extra-curricular activities. These are all important, but nothing is as important as connecting with our kids and sending them to school with their love tank full. Take the time to get the stressful parts of the morning taken care of the night before, so you can take the time to connect every morning.

Let’s stop rushing our kids. From rushing them to school, rushing them to bed, rushing them to the next activity. Let’s slow down more to their pace and focus on our relationship with them.

Here are a few tips on making school mornings a little easier:

• Give the responsibility over to your kids. Chances are, if you are worried and stressed about their homework and backpack, they won’t be too worried about it. Important lessons can be learned from forgetting homework. School mornings are great practice for kids in preparing them to be responsible adults.
• Use charts or checklists for kids to help them remember what they need to do before bed or before leaving for school.
• Have your kids pack backpacks and lunches the night before. Sunday evening prep nights work great for many items.
• Pick out school clothes the night before, or Sunday evenings for the whole week.
• Have backpacks, folders, shoes, etc by the door, or even in the car ready to go.
• Make part of breakfast the night before, or freeze easy breakfasts. Keep things on hand you know they will eat and are easy to prepare. If you have a long commute maybe they can eat in the car.
• Have a routine that works for your family. Eat, get dressed, brush, shoes on.
• Eliminate distractions. TV while trying to get out the door isn’t helping.
• Talk and model. Show your kids how YOU get everything YOU need ready ahead of time. Model responsibility. Talk about what’s next. Give them warnings before changing activities or leaving. Take the time to slow down if they need time to adjust.
• Be ok if things don’t go smoothly. Today our daughter’s socks didn’t match. Last week I forgot to brush my own teeth. Oh well. Not every morning will go perfectly. And that’s okay.
• Ask for help. I am fortunate enough to have a husband who gave up going to the gym every morning to work out in the garage and be there to help with the kids. Ask for help with prep work or carpooling. Your kids can be great helpers too!

What works for your family? What are some tricks you use to calm the morning or bedtime rush?

This article was originally published on Her View From Home.

Check out my other articles on Her View From Home.

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