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Podcast 22: Gratitude vs. Entitlement

11/19/2020

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With Thanksgiving rapidly approaching we often drift to evaluate our parenting and ask ourselves if we’re raising children who are thankful.  Are we? 
 
Kids are self-centered from the get-go, no doubt about it. We have to teach them to be grateful for all that they have, all that we give them.  But, how on earth do we do that when there's so much taking and so little giving going on around us?  

First, I want to talk about entitlement – what it is and how it can grow out of control.  Then I’ll go over ideas on how to nurture an attitude of gratitude in your home.
 
Entitlement begins when we forget that our extracurricular activities and things that we have are privileges, not expectations. 
 
Simply put, it means that a person expects to be handed everything in life without having to work for it. They expect to treated better, they expect to have the best things and they expect others to provide it for them, because for one reason or another, they unrealistically think they deserve it.
 
Typically, we think of entitled children who are living on their parents’ couch in their 20’s, the ones who never get a job and won’t move out.  Right? They have all the internet they can possibly use, free food in the fridge and parents that cook and clean for them so there’s no need move out when there are only crummy jobs available anyway. 
 
That certainly sounds like an entitled child but, hey, what about if you have a younger child, maybe even a toddler.  What might that entitled child look like?  Hmmm….
In her book,  The “Me, Me, Me” Epidemic, Amy McCready describes a younger child that needs everything her way, can only see her own needs, and doesn’t take ownership over her needs and wants. We always want to believe that’s not our kid.  In her book you come to realize that entitlement comes in the form of time and attention we give it’s not just materialistic things. You see, our kids demand our attention. They need us. They want us. They will do anything in their power to keep our attention and not allow us any time to ourselves.  Ouch… we might be making entitled kids after all even from an early age.  Let’s talk about a few ways to recognize entitlement in our homes.  I’m going to go over examples of 5 areas to look at:
  1. Giving instant gratification
  2. Rewards are expected­
  3. Boundaries are not respected
  4. Life is supposed to be “Fair”
  5. Providing constant entertainment

ENTITLEMENT AREAS
Let’s go into more detail on each of these areas of concern.
  1. Giving instant gratification
    • Every time our kids want something and we give it to them they come to expect whatever it is – a toy, a sandwich, picking them up, waking them up in the morning, picking up their clothes, giving them your phone while at a restaurant, tying their shoes, When our kids are shopping and they see a toy and have to have it NOW and we give in, that turns into entitlement.  They come to expect it.  Our whole society is becoming dominated by getting everything now, now, now.
  2. Rewards are expected­
    • Giving money for chores and paying for good grades can easily fall into this category but so is going out for ice cream after your child has behaved nicely at grandmas or the doctor or wherever.  When our kids EXPECT to get rewarded, it’s not a reward and will lead to a child feeling entitled to that “reward”.  To see if you have an entitled child run this experiment, try withholding the reward and see what their reaction is.
  3. Boundaries are not respected
    • Lots of parents try to set boundaries but then their kids ignore them.  Why should they have to go to sleep at a certain hour or get off electronics?  Mom and dad always say that I should get off, but they never make me so why should I believe them when I really want to play more.  The expectation is that mom and dad can be ignored.
    • I don’t feel like sitting in my chair during dinner so I’m going to get up and play.  Mom always runs after me with food, so I’ll never starve.  I hate vegetables anyway. 
    • You can tell if this is a problem area for you by asking yourself, “Who’s running this show?”
  4. Life is supposed to be “Fair”
    • Our kids get the impression that just because their friend got a new set of boots or maybe a new iPhone, doll, Lego set, whatever, that they should too.  “It’s not fair!” is declared in many homes.  Entitled kids think that life’s supposed to always be fair.  My friend was telling me how her 7th grader was complaining that his best friend just got a brand-new iPhone, but he not only got an older and cheaper model phone he also had to pay for half of it.  It’s not fair is what he told his mom.   Mom is practicing empathy and going braindead with: “I know…” and “That’s so sad…”
  5. Providing constant entertainment
    • We program our kids to think they should be entertained 24/7, that mom and dad should make sure there are things to do for them all the time.  It could be sports, music or art lessons, playing in the park, playing Legos at home, playdates with friends or, heaven forbid, playing with electronics.  If there is a pause or silence, the void is expected to be filled by the parents.
 
In a society so concerned with building self-esteem, we often get it completely backwards and it backfires into entitlement. You don’t build self-esteem by praise and flattery. This actually breeds entitlement and selfishness. Instead, self-esteem is built by teaching responsibility and a sense of accomplishment and gratitude can grow from there.

WHAT TO DO
So, what’s a parent to do?  How can we raise grateful kids? 
If you want to raise grateful kids in an entitled world, you have to make sure you’re modeling a heart of gratitude.  I’m going to go over a long list of ideas, pick a few different that resonate with you now then expand the list over time!
 
MODEL IT
  1. Stop complaining.  Yep, this one is about you.  Our kids watch us like hawks from a very early age.  If every time something goes wrong in our lives, we complain about it, they will learn to complain as well.  Most of us don’t even realize that our complaining is an example of entitlement. Whether you’re complaining about traffic, the weather, a crummy boss or not being able to go on vacation, cut back your complaining.
  2. Reframe things in a positive way and give empathy that life’s not fair
    • When we do have disappointments, which will happen every day, show your kids how we can reframe them in the positive.
    • It’s a rainy day and we can’t play outside.  How disappointing.  Maybe we can make some hot chocolate and play a game.
    • Gosh, there’s so much traffic out here, it sure can be frustrating.   Maybe we can play a spelling game as we drive. 
    • I’m sorry your red shirt is in the washer.  It’s so fortunate you have so many other shirts to choose from.
    • Kelly got a new iPhone for her birthday?  Technology sure does change fast!  It sure would be fun to have all the latest and greatest gadgets but that’s not the way our family operates. 
    • Billy got a better grade than you did on the last test.  That sure is tough.  What can you do next time to do better? I love how you are getting smarter every year.  It sure is a challenge!
  3. Teach delayed gratification
    • It’s fine to address your child’s urgent needs like going to the bathroom or eating a meal.  However, when it comes to things they “want”, delay it.
    • Encourage your kids to have a “want” list going in your house.  Allow them to use their money to buy their own toys, the kind where they have to save up and remember to bring their money to the store in order to buy that precious toy.  Listen to my Money podcast to see how to set up how kids can earn money for their own rewards. 
  4. Teach the value of hard work and chores
    • By allowing our kids to help in chores they are more likely to appreciate efforts of others who are doing chores for them. 
    • Have your kids start chores at an early age so that they gain a respectful understanding that life consists of hard work and work that’s not always all that exciting.  My kids used to fold socks and set the table from an early age.  Starting early is easiest but if your kids are older and you haven’t given them any yet, start something.  Laundry is my favorite chore to give kids since it only affects them.  Check out my Chores podcast for more ideas.
  5. Set healthy boundaries and say NO
    • Our kids need to have healthy boundaries and know that when we say NO, we mean NO.  Lots of kids are always whining and pushing on us to get us to do things because they know if they push long and hard enough that sometimes they’ll give in.  It actually gives them peace of mind to know what the rules and limits are as long as we set loving rules and limits.  In my Family Meetings podcast I talk about how to set Family Rules in a loving and team-like manner.  One rule I love is when families let kids know that when they get up from the dinner table it signals that they are done with dinner.  Their plates are quickly cleared to demonstrate the rule even if the child hasn’t eaten much.  They’re welcome to have carrots but dinner is done. 
  6. Teach your kids about money
    Teaching your kids about money can help keep the “entitlement syndrome” at bay rather than feeling like everything should be handed to your kids.  Listen to my podcast about Money and learn all sorts of tips for getting gratitude into your kids’ lives through saving and giving in addition to spending. 
  7. Do a charity project.  You can do something as simple as helping out a neighbor. It doesn't have to be large but as your kids grow the projects you choose can grow too.  For years my family made bag lunches for the homeless and wrapped gifts at Family Giving Tree. Yes, I had to set it up and I’d try to gather other families with kids the same ages but, we did it.  We did it regularly.   A friend was telling me how his family of 5 boys always went out with their church to clean up a highway with Adopt-a-Highway once a month.  If you’re family loves the beach, do a beach cleanup either with or without an organized group. 
  8. Expand your family’s cultural experiences.  Encourage relationships and exposure to other cultures, lifestyles and economic levels.  When my son was in high school, I insisted we go build houses with our church in places of extreme poverty in Mexico.  My other son and I went to a remote village in Guatemala and helped with a medical mission.  But no one needs to go across any borders to expose their families to something that’s different.  Most of us can go just across town.  Find ways to explore.  Go to cultural festivals.  Learn about different religions or ethnicities or points of view.
  9. Practice acts of kindness together to teach empathy. We have two kids in our neighborhood who walk the dogs of an elderly couple who can’t walk them as much as they used to.  I fix soup for my elderly neighbor and pick up her paper when she’s not feeling well.  I gather the young families at my church together to pick up trash in local parks a few times a year.  Kids love to help and help with joy when we’re all together modeling the joy of giving back.
  10. Use gratitude in your daily conversations.   Some families have each person keep a gratitude journal and write three things a day in it.  I did this with my youngest and it was helpful in resetting his frame of mind.  It wasn’t a quick fix though, it needed to be modeled for a long time.  Other families go around the dinner table on Sunday nights and take turns saying things they are grateful for.  Still other families do that every night at bedtime.  It’s up to you.  Set it up. Do it.
  11. Don’t give rewards all the time.  This is super important.  Rewards are fine as long as they aren’t expected.  Your expectations for a standard for behavior should be high and every once in a while, it’s fine to go out for ice cream to celebrate some event but not every time. If your child ever starts expecting a reward it means that you’ve gone overboard as a parent and might need to dial it back. 
  12. Limit gifts – When kids expect to have all the latest toys and gadgets each holiday or birthday, we’re creating entitled kids.  I will talk more in my next podcast about gift-giving, but I want to mention one family who put really great rules around their gifts to entitle-proof their family.  Each family member gets four things for the holidays: something to wear, something to read, something they want and something they need. So simple!  I love it. 
  13. Donate!  Be generous!  Have your kids donate their old clothes and toys they grow out of.  It's easier for us to pack them up and ship them out but resist the urge, have them participate.  I love how some families before birthday or holidays make room for new things by clearing out things no longer used.  One family I know has a family rule where for every toy that comes in the house, one goes out.  That would be tough for me to do but I love that family’s commitment to not allowing our materialistic society get the better of their kids. 
  14. Write Thank You notes. Every child should write personal Thank Yous for gifts and experiences.  If grandma and grandpa took them to the zoo, have them write a thank you.  I even taught my boys to make the cards and over time learned to address and stamp them too. 
 

I love this list that Mandy posted on her blog called Motherhood Maniac that I think helps get us into a mindset of gratitude:
 
What every child needs to know
  • Money doesn’t grow on trees.
  • If you want money, you work for it.
  • You may have to save up for big-ticket items.
  • Everything in life is earned, money, power and respect.
  • There are people who have it worse than them. 
  • Responsibility starts with them.
  • You aren’t going to always be there to bail them out.
  • Life is not fair.
I just love how that list sounds.  If we are able to accomplish those things, our kids will be in good shape and be able to have an Attitude of Gratitude. 

If you’d like some practical ideas about gratitude activities you can do with your family head to my Parenting Decoded Pinterest board on Gratitude.  I’ll put a link to it in the show notes as well as a link to a list of picture books to read with younger kids on thankfulness and gratitude. 
PINTEREST BOARD ON GRATITUDE

20 FAVORITE THANKSGIVING BOOKS

Final thoughts: Practice patience.  Gratitude takes years of practice so we as parents need to practice patience and keep modeling for them.  Do it over and over in lots of different ways.  It will make a lifetime of difference. 
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Podcast 21: To Quit or Not to Quit

10/25/2020

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THE AUDIO PODCAST IS AVAILABLE HERE:      ​LISTEN​​​

It seems that many parents have to cross the threshold of their child wanting to quit an activity.  It could be piano, basketball, soccer, violin, clarinet, tutoring, gymnastics, karate, whatever.  Sometimes it's just private lessons that only impact your child.  Other times, quitting impacts a whole a team which adds a dimension of guilt either by your child or maybe you especially if you’re the coach and your child no longer wants to play. In this podcast we’re going to talk about things to consider when running up against this issue in your own home then we will go over some real-life situations to make all a little more real.

I just want to start out saying that the reason this is so tough is because there IS NO RIGHT ANSWER.  Yep, you really have to take lots of things into consideration, it's not a one-stop-shop.  David Elkind, author of The Hurried Child has some helpful ideas for parents who are dealing with children who they think might be wanting to quit an activity. 
  1. Children under the age of nine don’t have a clear sense of what they want.  We should let them keep testing out different interests.  Don’t get too resistant to your child is wanting to move on, be there to help them figure out how to try other activities instead.  When my boys were little there were some soccer games where some kids picked more daisies in the field than ran, however, it didn’t mean they were terrible kids, they just plain weren’t interested.  One kid moved on to piano where he was amazing and he still plays to this day more than 15 years later.

  2. Dr. Elkind agrees that just because a child wants to quit one thing doesn’t typically mean they want to quit everything all the time. Don’t panic when your child wants to quit something. 

  3. We can’t really force our kids to love something they truly don’t.  Trying to force kids to do an activity they truly hate can make them develop anxiety and make them even more reluctant to try other activities in the long run so be careful of pushing too hard.  When kids are embarrassed at their lack of performance in front of others their anxiety can easily snowball to many other areas of their life.

  4. You need to involve your kids in the decision-making process but also bear in mind that kids tend to want to do EVERYTHING.  Don’t let your kid’s enthusiasm in the moment allow you to overcommit them only to have to back out later.  Karate or a new soccer team might sound so fun to do with friends but when you already have basketball and gymnastics with other friends it might be a bit much even if they promise to keep up with their schoolwork, chores and other activities.  Keep in mind what’s a reasonable amount of activities for your child.  Maybe 3 sports and after school Kumon for math tutoring and violin is too much.  I know this sounds like a lot, but in Silicon Valley with our high-pressure environment, it’s not unheard of.  

  5. With older kids, negotiate how long a period they will try a new activity before giving up.  It does take time to master skills so don’t let them give up too early just because things get hard. Brainstorm with them to see if there are other issues involved or other ways you can help them over the hard parts.  One family negotiated up front that their son would play an entire season of soccer but he could quit soccer if he didn’t like it after the season was finished.  This worked out well since mom was one of the coaches. 

  6. You do want to check in to see if kids want to quit because they are over scheduled, fatigued, or bored with an activity they’ve been doing too long or if they simply need more time to relax and regroup.  One family who poured in years of hard work on the baseball field was shocked when their son gave it all up in his senior year of high school to pursue golf.  That was a hard pill to swallow but he did move on to another sport, he didn’t stop moving.   I do want to point out that in today’s world we have to be aware if our kids want to quit something just to stay home to play video games.  Allow them to choose wisely what they do with their newfound extra time if you know what I mean.
 
I know you all like it when I make my podcasts more real so I’m going to tell you a few things about my journey with quitting as a parent. It wasn’t always easy and whining is never fun but things can turn out fine in the long run.  Here are some things I thought about when my  boys wanted to quit piano in early elementary school.
  • How miserable is your child and your family with the whining and complaining?
    • Yes, I'm being totally honest.  This was a hot button for me.  Every week we had to nudge and cajole our kids to practice before the next lesson.  My one son loved his instructor but never wanted to practice.  It's good not to give up too quickly since sometimes a child struggles when things get harder and they really can push through and get to a better place.  However, sometimes it is a true lack of interest, talent or there are other competing issues.  With my younger son after a year of whining we agreed to switch teachers to someone more “fun” with “fun” music selections.  After another year that pretty much went through the same pattern.  We had had enough.  We agreed we were done.  Some families do things like we did where you switch instructors, use rewards, modify schedules for breaks or practice and you really should try lots of those things.  I tried many of those things but they didn't last long.  Don't give up just because I did on piano, but think about it.  

  • Who chose the activity in the first place?
    • In my case, it was me who really wanted the piano lessons, something I never got as a kid.   My boys were ok signing up for lessons when we started, they were even excited.  But, I shouldn’t have been surprised if they didn’t like it yet I am really glad I had them try it.

  • Is there a natural stopping point to exit gracefully?
    • In sports there is often a team that your child will be disappointing if they quit mid-season.  In our case with piano, we didn't have a team, just our son.  We figured out a good time to quit and just quietly ended the lessons.  Later on, in high school, our son wanted to quit band in the middle of a season.  Ouch.  That was a tough one.  After meeting with the director and discussing things with lots of emotion and anguish, we agreed that, although it was a hard decision for him to make, one that had lots of consequences, he could live with it.  Having loving people around you when decisions that are hard is what being a good parent is all about, that was the role my husband and I played.  EMPATHY is the best tool at times like these.  

  • When one ends, choose another
    • I love it when a family agrees to end one activity and as part of the brainstorming they allow and/or help the child pick a new activity to try.  Be careful not to let your child give up activities only to replace them with electronics or other sedentary activities like I said before.  In my house the boys got to choose their activities but they had to choose something, not nothing (aka electronics).  

I use my piano story here but want to let you know that it wasn't my only parenting journey into lessons that involved quitting or moving on.  I had a star soccer player who, after investing in goalie lessons in addition to club teams and such, decided he wanted to play basketball.  No problem, we moved on to basketball school teams and club teams in addition to shooting lessons.  It worked!  He was great!  But then he went off to college and he got totally hooked on rock climbing and never picked up a basketball.  What's the theme?  He's active and athletic.  Yeah!  He does play electronics but at least he has the bigger picture of taking care of his health and he truly enjoys being active.  

It was worth all those lessons and all that whining.  He wasn't a quitter; he was exploring life and we helped him on his journey by brainstorming and problem solving these issues when we came upon them.  It wasn't always easy but life wasn't meant to be.


In retrospect, would I have done things differently?  No.  My journey worked out just fine.  My boys moved on to start and stop many interests over the years.  They didn’t stop learning and growing but did take a big pause with music.  The happy ending was that when both our kids got to middle and high school, they both knew enough music to do really fun things with it.  One even got to go to march in the Obama inaugural parade and both were in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade as percussionists.  Today, one son is even writing his own music, investing his own money in lessons and equipment.  Their journey wasn’t a quitter's journey and neither was mine.

I hope you found this all encouraging as you are challenged with kids who want to quit.  
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Podcast 20: Calming the Chaos with Boundaries and Limits

10/3/2020

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THE AUDIO PODCAST IS AVAILABLE HERE:      ​LISTEN​​​

Our kids are smart.  They really know how to manipulate us into getting what they want – crying, whining, nagging, having tantrums, giving us the silent treatment.  It can be overwhelming.  In my last podcast we were learning how to use choices early to avoid power struggles from the get-go.  In this podcast we’re going to follow along that positive path by using another technique that is a companion to choices – setting boundaries and limits. 
 
Sometimes, without realizing it, we put our kids in the driver seat.  We think they know what they should do, and by golly, they do the opposite.  Take eating dinner for example.  We put them at the table and give them food.  We expect them to sit and eat it.  However, after 2-3 minutes they hop on out of their seats to get a toy to play with.  We, in an effort to make sure they don’t go hungry or become malnourished, run after them with a fork or spoon to try to get them to eat another bite.  Or we put them back in their seat with threats and yelling but it happens all over again.  So frustrating, right? 

Or how about your child playing on electronics?  You tell them they have 30 minutes to play a game and they never get off.  If they do, you’ll find them sneaking some extra time in here or there. 

Why does this happen in our homes?  How do we get it to stop?

Kids Need Rules
It’s been pretty well documented that kids do better in life when there are safe and loving boundaries, but boundaries have problems. 
  1. Boundaries are Undefined
  2. Boundaries are Too Flexible
  3. Boundaries have Too Much Negativity
  4. Boundaries have no Consequences
  5. Too Many Boundaries
 
How to Set Good Boundaries
  1. Define the Boundaries
    Be up front!  If something is important to you then even be willing to write it down and explain it if you need to.  Make a poster.  Make a list of family rules!
    • Electronics are charged in the kitchen
    • We brush teeth twice a day.
    • Backpacks belong in the mud room.

  2. Make it positive!
    I love how Love and Logic calls boundaries “loving limits”.  You want to tell your kids what they CAN do, not what they CAN’T do.  Removing that air of negativity from your home as much as possible is such a breath of fresh air and helps to combat our negative tendencies.
    • I serve snacks to children who have washed their hands.
    • I let kids play computer games who’ve finished the dishes.
    • Kids can play with daddy when he comes home from work who have picked up all their toys.
    • You’re welcome to ride your bike with a bike helmet.
    • I read books to kids who are ready for bed by 8:15
    • I help kids with their math homework who are treating me with respect.
    • I drive kids to soccer practice who have their gear bag packed.
    • I let kids drive a car who are paying for half the insurance.

  3. Have Consequences 
    If you’re using positive statements, then there is usually an implied consequence.  Like kids who don’t do the dishes, not getting to play computer games.   Or kids who aren’t ready for bed by 8:15, won’t get books read to them.  Kids need to know what will happen if they choose to disobey you.

  4. Be Consistent
    This is a tough one for lots of parents.  If you set a rule, it needs to be followed through on.  Saying that you serve dinner from 6 to 6:30 then you only enforce it 70% of the time because one kid has been up and down getting in and out of their seat and hasn’t finished their dinner yet so you’re worried they haven’t had enough to eat, sends the message that the rule isn’t the rule. The kids aren’t even confused, to tell you the truth, they know you’re just kidding when you set a rule, that you have no backbone and your rules don’t need to be obeyed.  If dinner really ends at 6:30pm, you need to end dinner.  If you’re kids aren’t supposed to be riding bikes without helmets then, if they do, you need to lock up the bikes which is such a natural consequence to their choice to ride without one.

  5. Be Reasonable
    I mentioned that it’s great to make a list of Family Rules but be careful not create so many rules that the kids feel they don’t have choices and will start to rebel.  It’s best if you can incorporate ways for our kids to have a feedback loop especially when setting up new rules as your kids grow.  I did a podcast on Family Meetings and that is an amazing place to set and review Family Rules.  It’s podcast #17 if you want to go and review it.

  6. Be Calm and Loving
    When letting our kids know about the limits we have, we need to state them calmly using love and empathy and we need to respond to them in the same way if we get grief from them.  “I don’t want to wash my hands!” or “That’s a stupid idea, Mom!” might be responses to your positive, calm requests.  If that happens, which I’m sure it will, use empathy and love and the classic “I knoooooowwww” in a boring but loving tone.  Kids aren’t going to like every limit we set.  Your remaining calm will bring peace to the whole process.  You can always talk with your child at later time to ask for feedback if you get too much grief but not in the moment when their emotions are activated. 
 
That’s basically it.  Use limits in a loving way and you’ll avoid lots of power struggles with your kids before they start.  Choices will help give them some control over things you don’t care about and adding loving boundaries and limits helps smooth out communication as to what is expected in our homes.  Using words with positive and loving actions seals the deal to helping your family grow in a positive and healthy way.

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Podcast 19: Calming the Chaos with Choices

9/21/2020

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THE AUDIO PODCAST IS AVAILABLE HERE:      ​LISTEN​​

Do you feel like you’re always battling your child?   You tell them to do something and you immediately get a “no” followed by whining and complaining or outright defiance?  A simple request that turns into a war is enough to send us over the edge sometimes. 

In this article we’re going to talk about how to avoid power struggles by using a secret weapon -- Choices!


Battle for Control
When our kids are putting up a big fuss, whether it’s about going to bed or getting off electronics, they push our buttons so quickly that our brains go into resistance mode and we allow ourselves to be pulled into a power struggle.  We want the best for our kids and we know how to get it to them efficiently and effectively so they should just do what we say.  Some of us are extra frustrated because when we were kids, we didn’t give our own parents such grief and that thought makes US even more frustrated with this whole situation. 

We’ve talked a lot about helicopter parents in my previous podcasts but now I want to talk about another type: Drill Sergeants. Parents who always want to tell their kids what and how to do things are called “Drill Sergeants”.  Kids of drill sergeants grow up feeling they’re not listened to and their opinions don’t count.  They are ignored. 

Well, for parents who want to raise kids who are followers that might work well.  But who is really trying to do that?  Anyone?  No way, our society tells us we’re supposed to be raising leaders, right?  Now I do want to mention that most of us fluctuate between being a helicopter parent and a drill sergeant depending on the circumstance, our kids’ mood and our mood.  It’s nothing to be ashamed of but it is something to be aware of.  It’s when we switch into our drill sergeant mode that our kids start joining the army to battle anything coming their way.  Yikes!

What’s a parent to do?  Shut down our natural drill sergeant tendencies and bring choices into play.  We should give away control as much as possible especially about things we don’t really care about and as many times a day as we possibly can.  Allowing our kids lots of choices gives them the power over their lives that they are seeking.  It not only will build confidence about their ability to make decisions but also reassure them that they can control some things in life.  It’s soothing to not only their hearts and minds but also to your mind and spirit.  Who wants to go through life feeling like we have to battle our kids at every turn?

One thing to note is that you need to give choices when things are going well, before any power struggle erupts.  How do you do that? 

Offer Playful Choices When Young
When kids are little, I find that parents can have a lot of fun offering playful choices that help to serve as distractions that wind up easily preventing battles.

Here’s a classic drill sergeant parenting move: It’s time to go to bed.  Please go change and get ready.

Often, you get the classic answer: No!  I don’t want to go to bed!

In this case, emotion is already engaged so you’ve got a battle on your hands.  So, what can you do instead BEFORE any resistance happens? 

Try this:
“It’s time to go to bed…” and then offer some of these options:
  • Would you like to walk backwards to your bedroom or hop on one foot?
    Would you like to race daddy or mommy back to the bedroom?
  • Would you like to take a bath first or brush your teeth first?
  • Would you like to brush your top teeth first or your bottom teeth?
  • Would you like to wear your pajamas tonight to bed or put on your clothes for tomorrow so you don’t have to do in the morning?
  • Would you like to go to bed in 5 minutes or 15 minutes? (knowing full well that 15 is your goal)
  • Would you like to read one book or two? (knowing you are prepared to read two!)

Offer Just Two Options
Notice how I’m giving just two choices, not a huge menu.  You want to focus the options to be things that you’re ok with.  Just like the time for going to bed I offered two times that I liked – 5 minutes or 15 minutes.  If an hour isn’t an option, then I don’t offer it. You also don’t want to put yourself in a situation where you’re waiting for a response. 

Decide for Them If They Can’t Decide
Choices, when offered, should be decided within 5-10 seconds.  If it takes longer, you’re being held for ransom, so you need to go ahead and decide for your child.  It’ll sound something like:
“Oh, this is so sad.  It looks like you’re having trouble deciding.  I’m going to give you a bath before books.  I’m sure tomorrow night you’ll be able to choose on our own.”

Now some kids might have a tantrum at the prospect of you choosing for them but you need to brace yourself for that and give them empathy and love but their time to choose has passed.  This might seem crazy at first but after a few rounds of this your child will know that if they really want some control over things in their lives, they’ll have to do it on a timely basis. 

You just keep churning out the choices when things are calm.  One thing is certain, if a kid’s brain is triggered into an emotional battle, choices won’t work.  Their brain is “off” so don’t start trying to load in choices right then.    Sometimes we try to fix things by using choices like a kid having a tantrum over what you’re serving for dinner: “Oh, you don’t like the chicken nuggets for dinner?  How about mac n cheese or spaghetti?”  When your kids are upset, let them be upset.  Give them love and empathy and maybe a few hugs until their emotions have settled down and then, and only then, would you try to solve the problem and might offer some choices to do that.  “Wow, I can tell you were upset earlier about having chicken nuggets.  That’s so sad.  Tomorrow would you like spaghetti or mac n cheese?”  This is all assuming you don’t mind having spaghetti or mac n cheese for dinner. 

Teens and Choices
Those of you who have older kids might say to yourselves that those fun-filled choices of hopping and skipping to bed or the car for are beyond you and you might just be right.  However, your battles can be bigger, can’t they?  Those tweens and teens really want control over their lives.  When kids don’t have control, they can set the whole house into a tailspin of tension and mistrust that can make every day miserable.  To counter that tendency, as kids grow, we need to transition them to making more and more decisions so they are prepared for the real world.  You aren’t protecting them from anything by being over protective and restraining them.

You need to up your game by allowing them more choices that are more advanced.  Here are some examples,
  • Instead of, “go brush your teeth” you give them a choice of brushing their teeth twice a day or paying for extra cleanings.  
  • Instead of dealing with a stinky teen who won’t bathe, let them know they are welcome to shower either before dinner or in the morning, dinner or breakfast will be served accordingly.
  • Instead of doing their laundry for them and demanding they bring you their dirty clothes, let them know they can do their laundry on Saturday when you’re not using the machine or after 5pm during on Mondays.  In that example, notice you’re not only giving choices but you’re helping them with a life lesson in laundry.
  • Instead of hearing them complain about what you’re cooking for dinner, ask them which day they’d like to make dinner, Monday night or Sunday.
  • Would they like take out the trash before dinner or after dinner?
  • Would they like to use their laptop in the kitchen or the dining room?  (notice their bedroom isn’t an option)
  • Would they like help with your to help with math or would they like to have a study group?
  • Would they like to join a soccer team or a baseball team?

Not Everything is a Choice
I do want to let you know that you don’t need to make a choice about everything.   Brushing teeth in most families isn’t a matter of a choice but allowing them to pick electric or hand brushing or which toothpaste or what timer to use to know they’ve brushed long enough can all be options offered as choices.  You get to choose the topics that can have choices. 

In a previous podcast, I talked about a mom who was having trouble getting her kids to wear their helmets when bike riding.  It’s a safety issue that’s non-negotiable.  The only choice I would offer would be do you want to ride with a helmet or not ride a bike?  That’s more like a threat.  I’ll talk in my next podcast about how to use well defined boundaries in situations like that instead of choices so stay tuned for that. 

Resistance to Choices – How to Handle It
Now there are lots of you regular listeners who tell me that choices are amazing, but they don’t always work.  Maybe they work with one child but your other child just likes “no” a little too much.  Here are some tips:

  1. If they won’t choose quickly enough or want to make their own options, hold fast and let them know they can choose next time, but you go ahead and choose for them this time.
  2. If you’re consistent then they know you’ll be true to your word.  Give them empathy if they start giving a major fuss that they don’t like the options given.  Feel free to go brain dead and say “I knooooooow” as a response.   It’s ok for our kids not to like all our choices so we need to make sure we keep our emotions in check in the event our kids don’t like our choices.  Saying something like: “This is so sad.  That’s not one of the choices right now.  I’m happy to let you choose something else at a different time.”  Then you go ahead and pick one of the choices.  Don’t let getting grief from your child throw you off. 
  3. If your child really won’t choose and a major battle still ensues, I’d recommend you go listen to Podcast 10 on Consequences and Punishments.  You’ll get a lot of ideas on how to react in a calm and loving manner. 
  4. Feel free to email me as well or connect with me on Facebook.  I love brainstorming with parents their challenging situations!

Using choices and giving kids lots of practice with making decisions is super healthy.  As kids learn to trust that you value their opinion and hear what they have to say, their self-worth and self-esteem can grow and blossom.  You will see your child empowered and wanting to cooperate instead of going to battle with you.  In the end, you’ll be looking for more ways to give your child choices.
​
Bottomline: use choices, use them often, use them with just a few options that you like.
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Podcast 18: Distance Learning During COVID

8/31/2020

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THE AUDIO PODCAST IS AVAILABLE HERE:      ​LISTEN​​
​
I'm not sure what to say about living through history at this moment in time.  I live in California where virtually all schools are doing remote learning.  I know my podcast reaches outside of California so hopefully not everyone has to deal with all the issues I’m going to talk about.  We never expected to be having distanced learning due to a worldwide pandemic.  We certainly have to get through to the other side and we will get through it.  This article is meant to give you some food for thought in setting up your family for success with remote learning.

You all know I love practical parenting so I’m going to start with the physical setup ideas of how to get things running smoothly then move on to things like setting up routines, family rules and how to keep things fun and flexible. 

Let’s dive in!
​
Lots of you have already started your distanced learning this school year so just listen for some ideas to make adjustments if you’ve got some bumpy areas going.
 
1 - Physical LEARNING AREA
  • Organize - I’m sure your school has already recommended you set up a quiet and organized area for your student with a desk and chair, not a bed.  Having bins or shelves with supplies can really help keep things organized so your child doesn’t get frustrated trying to find different items.  If at all possible, you want to make sure the table height and chair height are appropriate for the size of your child.  Kids sitting in adult-sized chairs for long periods of time can be really uncomfortable and distract from learning.  If you’re on a limited budget, ask your school if you can borrow a desk for the duration of online learning. 
 
  • Get rid of distractions – One of the biggest helps for learning at home is to get rid of distractions, meaning toys and stuff, from the work area. 

    One family I work with has the option of having their kids in their bedrooms with a desk and supplies.  To prepare, they spent the week before school clearing out any visible toys from around the study area.  Their son loves Legos so that meant not only Legos off the floor but also off the shelves and out of the room.

    Another family with a 1st grade daughter found that even though she was blessed to have her own room that it wasn’t going to work for them.  It was too hard to pack up all her toys and too far away from mom watching over her.  They got creative and set up a workspace on the dining table using one of those tri-fold poster boards to create her own little cubby area.  They even had her decorate it.  She had all of her supplies nearby but also a buffer from things like anyone else in the house walking by.  If your child is in a public space, you might want to try to build a cardboard barrier like that.

Lastly, you also need minimize other types of distractions like the family pets and siblings who are babies or toddlers who might cause disruptions not only for your student but for the entire online classroom.  Your child’s teacher will often help manage some distractions but please, please discuss not having excess noises like eating, doing dishes, vacuuming, cooking and such going on while your student is learning and trying to concentrate. 


  • Provide quiet and focus – Next we’re going to talk about how to get a quiet environment.  Lots of families are using headphones to block out noises from the home while helping to keep kids focus.  I love the idea.  If you have the flexibility, have your child select the headphones. If they aren’t comfortable, you might try different types or figure out another location in your house that they can be alone and not have to have headphones on. 

    I talked to a mom who felt it odd that she can’t hear what’s going on in her daughter’s classroom since the headphones block out what the teacher is teaching and what other students are saying. She’d really like to listen in, but she had to remind herself that if this was a real classroom, she wouldn’t be able to do that.  We do need to trust our teachers and let our kids know we are here to assist, not to attend school with them. 

If you have an older student, you might run into this other issue with headphones.  One student objected to their very functional headphones because they didn’t look cool enough, so she didn’t want to use them, but it disrupted the whole family when she didn’t since her sister and parents were also all working from home.  What do you do with that?  We should show empathy for that child and allow them to use their own money to purchase any other headphones they deem more appropriate.  You provide the basics is what I’d recommend and allow them the flexibility to use their own money to upgrade if they want to. 


  • Moving around – Now some families are finding that their kids need to have different locations through the day or week to keep things fresh.  It’s really hard for kids to sit in one place for a long time so they are getting out of their chairs and wandering when things get boring or hard.  Maybe they do online in one location but do their required reading on their bed or a comfortable chair.
    • If you have multiple kids who need some variety in location, set up a schedule of who goes where and when.  Maybe one location is the kitchen table and another is more private.  If both kids want the same location feel free to ask them how they’d like to rotate – daily, weekly or maybe even throughout the day.  Let them have input if at all possible.  You know I love Family Meetings and this could be a topic for your family. 
    • If you have other areas of your home, feel free to use them as long as they are set up ahead of time. One family is working to figure out how to rotate to the backyard picnic table while the weather is still nice out for a few hours a day.  It might take some trial and error to figure out how long and what time of day, but it’s worth a try.  You allowing for flexibility in keeping kids engaged in fresh ways to learn is really helpful.

  • Charge devices - Keeping devices charged and ready to go is also super important.  When devices fail families get crazy stressed out with anxiety about missing out on work or being embarrassed that they aren’t online when everyone else is.  Many families are finding that chargers with extension cords or power strips that remain plugged in all day and night works best.  The rule should be:  If your kid is online, they should be plugged in.

  • Check video and audio connections – You also need to make sure video, audio and connectivity is working.  Someone should test all of these out probably 30 minutes before class starts in the morning.  If you have a child in 3rd grade or higher, they should be the one testing everything out.  If there are problems, work with them to train them on what was done to fix the problem.  Some schools have special hotlines set up for students and parents to call for technical assistance.  If you’re fortunate to have that support, have that number or web address printed out on a paper and posted somewhere really obvious so you can call or email without a struggle if you need outside help. With school starting up the this issue is probably the most stressful for just about every family I talked to.  Prepare for problems and know what you’ll do if they happen.

  • Keep online safety in mind – Now I want to talk about online safety.  If you’ve listened to my podcasts on Screen Time Issues, episodes 11 and 12, you know how highly I press home the point to keep all electronics in public places.  Well, for some of you with multiple kids learning at home in addition to adults working from home, you might have to compromise and let kids work in their bedrooms, sometimes even with the door closed.  In this difficult time we need to be flexible, I think it’s fine to revise some of those screen time rules but not to throw them out the window. 

    During the times of the day that online learning is happening, room time screen time is fine.  Once online learning is done, all devices come out of the rooms or get powered down.  If that doesn’t happen and you find your kid on YouTube or Fortnite, make sure you have consequences defined just like you have in the Digital Contract for your home that was talked about in the Screen Time podcasts. 
    I would also recommend letting everyone know that once we return to in-person learning that the family screen time rules will go back to being what they were with no screens in bedrooms.  Mention that every so once in a while so that it’s not a big shock when the rules are imposed again later on. 

    Just to let you know how serious this is, I already heard from one school that they had to deal with a 5th grade boy logging on to porn during class time.  Just imagine what can happen if you left the device in the bedroom day and night with no supervision. 

 
2 - ESTABLISH CLEAR ROUTINES
Now I want to move on to how to keep things running smoothly in your home through all of this by establishing clear routines so everyone knows what to expect, it’s not a jumble every day. 
  • DAILY SCHEDULE -Have a daily schedule not only for academics that most schools are already providing, but also for family routines.  When does everyone wake up?  Eat breakfast? Make it be as much like “real school” as possible.  You won’t have to get “out the door” but being “in your seat” and having guidelines for getting there is really helpful to everyone. Do the same for after school and bedtime routines so that things feel “normal”.

  • POST INFO - You might want to post their routines on a bulletin board or on the kitchen fridge so that they can, or you can, refer to them. 

  • WEEKLY SCHEDULE - In addition, have a weekly schedule to show assignments and assessments plus other fun activities both with school, family and friends.  Have your child make the schedule if at all possible.

  • I found a fun resource on Pinterest that I’ll include in the show notes that has blank daily and weekly schedules and even some useful signs to print out so your kids can let others know if they’re online or taking a test or on away from their computer. 

  • Next, set up regular CHECK-IN times with your child especially if they are in elementary school.  
    • Morning – it could just over breakfast
      • What subjects are today?
      • Any tests/assessments coming up?
      • What resources do you need?
      • What can mom/dad do to help?

    • End of Day – maybe right after online learning ends but could be at dinner or before bedtime
      • How far did you get in your tasks?
      • What did you discover?
      • What did you do great?  (“Glow”)
      • What was hard? (“Grow” opportunities)
      • What could we do to make tomorrow better?

    • Most reports I have from high school students and their parents is that the students are tracking their own schedules, but parents should still lovingly check in to see how things are going.
 
  • YOU NEED TO HELP WITH TIME – Another area to assist with time.  Time is a tricky thing.  If you’re too young to tell time, it can be stressful to know if you’re on time, if you’re older you can get distracted and not even look at a clock.  Using timers and alarms can be a godsend.  Figuring out if you need an alarm for a specific time like 8:30am to get online vs. setting a countdown timer that shows how much of a 90-minute session is left can be really helpful. 

    One family told me their son was so anxious about getting back online after lunch that he was short-changing himself time allocated to lunch.  Setting an alarm really helped him but a countdown timer that starts at noon and counts down for 60 minutes can work too.  Ask your child and experiment with what works for them.  You can get timers from Target or Amazon or download timer and alarm apps from the internet. 

3 – Another thing you want to do is ENCOURAGE INDEPENDENCE
  • There are a few things you can do to help to do that:
  • Let the teacher teach! Don’t assume you have to do the teaching.  Yes, you might answer a question or two, but you don’t need to learn how to teach algebra, that’s what the teacher is for.  
  • Let your child own their work.  The more you can let your child own their education, the better off everyone will be.  Training your child to take charge of their schedule, devices and school work is where we need to head.  Let them make mistakes and you be around to help problem solve.  From what I’ve heard kids who are 4th grade and older are doing pretty well understanding that their school is their school and they don’t need a parent hovering very much at all. 
  • Train them to ask their teacher. Let them ask the teacher for help, don’t step in and ask the teacher for them.  Show them how to ask for help, model it for them.  Model anything and everything they need to be successful.  Don’t do things for them, if at all possible.  If you feel that you need to talk to the teacher make sure your child is around to participate.

4 – SUPPORT FAMILY LEARNING
  • When school isn’t in session, try to look for creative opportunities to include learning in the rest of the day:
    • Cooking - Math/science/reading– measure things, fractions, weigh things, read recipes – make cookies, make dinner, make sourdough bread, just make anything and include your kids
    • Laundry – Math – count socks, matching, sorting like things
    • Gardening – science
    • Vacuuming or sweeping – PE!
    • Just have fun!

  • BOREDOM BUSTERS – It would also be helpful to have ideas ready in the event that things are going sideways with either learning or the environment.  If they can’t connect, make sure they know there are options of other things they can do.  Keep a list of those nearby so they are easy for them to find.  If they can’t read yet, make picture posters of ideas but the point is that you are prepared with things to do.  I’ll put a link to my Pinterest pages with activity ideas. 
https://www.pinterest.com/maryeschenparentingdecoded/boredom-busters/
https://www.pinterest.com/maryeschenparentingdecoded/kids-fun-indoor-activities/
https://www.pinterest.com/maryeschenparentingdecoded/activities-for-teens/
 
5 – LEAD YOUR TEAM THROUGH CHALLENGING TIMES
The last point I want to go over is tying in what some of you heard in Episode 17. I encouraged families to come together as a team to solve challenges, so burdens are shared and solutions celebrated.  We need to do this with distanced learning issues.  When problems arise, you need to lead your family team to solutions!  Here are some topics I’ve run across in my discussions with parents lately are probably affecting quite a few of you:
  • Quiet times – when are they?  When can people run the dishwasher or play music?
  • When can you interrupt mom/dad when they’re working?  Is it any time or a set time of day?
  • How are the interruptions done? Is there a signal?  One family has their kids slide a note under the office door to let dad know they need help.  Another family can see mom through a glass door into her office and stand quietly outside till mom can give them a hint about how long it will be till she can see them.
  • How are emotions handled? If there are problems that are serious, how can everyone keep their wits about them?  What can we put in place if the work gets hard for our kids to let off some steam?  Or if they’re bored?
  • Time with friends- is there a schedule?  A time limit? Can they meet their friends online or do they form a pod with a few other families so they can see each other in person?  What are the rules for meeting in person, how can it be safe?
  • Special time with parents per kid – when can each kid have some special time with mom or with dad?  What schedule can work for your family to make sure you have time to connect?

I want to tell you about a single mom who reached out to me at her wits end.  Her 5th grade son was getting so bored with his online school during the day that he’d constantly get up to get snacks, go to the bathroom, do art or Legos.  He wasn’t paying attention.  It was so frustrating for mom.  Now when we’re upset our brains often go offline and we just can’t even think straight.  After chatting with her for a while, it became obvious that she needed to set up a Family Meeting and go over some of these challenges.  They needed to solve them together.

The two of us brainstormed for a bit so that she’d have some ideas for the meeting.  We talked about if there were other locations rather than just the kitchen table that her son could be at where mom was also trying to work and couldn’t get anything done with her son roaming around.  They are in an apartment so there aren’t many options, but no one was using one of the bedrooms and there was also a balcony available.  Could they work something out so that he rotated to different areas throughout the day?  He also has a really great teacher and we talked about how they could enlist her help in either coming up with more challenging work or different ways to engage her son so that he doesn’t get so bored.  Also, maybe there are some quiet toys he can keep nearby that will keep him in his seat or how about a “no snacks till recess” rule?  It’ll be trial and error for a bit but at least they can be a team to tackle the boredom problem so that mom can get back to work and so can he. 


BE FLEXIBLE AND STAY IN TOUCH
The final and most important thing I want to go over is to do what you know is right for your child.  Some kids will be emotional roller coasters with anxiety.  Please be gentle and be flexible in this challenging time that none of us have ever been through before. Nobody expects parents to replace classroom teachers. And no one expects children to perfectly mimic a classroom situation at home.   Positive intentions, love, consistency, and grace will go a long way towards helping all of us survive this period of isolation and emerge as better people on the other side. Hang in there!

I hope this was helpful.  If you’d like to spend some time brainstorming your challenges with me, I’m happy to assist.  You can either email me at mary@parentingdecoded.com or join my Facebook Group called Parenting Decoded and post your issues there for others to learn from.  It’s a “private” group and if you have any trouble joining it, just email me.
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Podcast 17 - Calming the Chaos using Family Meetings

8/13/2020

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​Many of us struggle with kids who whine, disobey and maybe even lie just to get their way.  We get so exasperated we want to explode and some of us certainly do explode.  Our buttons are pushed and we just don’t know what to do.  In this podcast we’ll explore what happens in our families if we’re always operating in “crisis mode” then talk about ways to avoid ever getting into that mode by using Family Meetings to set boundaries and limits while communicating as a family what behaviors are acceptable and expected. 

WHAT BOUNDARIES ARE BEING EXCEEDED IN YOUR HOME?

Let’s start off with the obvious list of which parenting traps you might be falling into:

WHINING
Do your kids wear you down with whining until you either explode or give in?  It works often enough for the kid that they keep doing it over and over.  Do they want another cookie?  Or maybe to interrupt you on a phone call? 

NAGGING
Does your child ignore your requests so you then proceed to nag them into compliance? Every time we remind, we’re training them that what we say doesn’t mean a thing. 

LYING
Has your child told you a lie in order to get their way?  “No, I didn’t hit Jimmy.” Or “I still have 15 minutes left of computer time” when you know they’ve had more than their fill?

TOO MANY RULES
Are you good about setting up lots of rules but your kids are always ignoring them?  Or are you a Drill Sergeant who has lots of rules but get compliance from yelling and telling your kids what to do?  Often times kids will become defiant when too many rules are constantly enforced especially when they don’t agree with all the rules.

SHAMING
Do you use phrases to motivate your “lazy” or “dirty” kid to do things?  “What a slob!” “You smell like a pig, go take a shower!” “No one would want to be with you, you’re so stupid.”  “You are such a cry-baby.” “Why do you always break things?”

BRIBING
Or are you a parent who gets compliance with money or other currency like computer time?  You tell your child if they do their chores, they get money.  If they clean their room, they get computer time. I’m all in for having levers and knowing our kids’ currency but I want to put such a valuable commodity to better use.
In all of these circumstances we’re reacting to our kids without a thoughtful plan and easily become overwhelmed and often irritated.  I was working with a family last week and the mom was just so frazzled having her 4 kids, ages 3 to 11, home all summer.  She felt her kids just totally ignored her.  It was pretty much mayhem and every day seemed like a bad day.  Just going to the pool for what should have been a fun time swimming wound up being a struggle from getting into the car to the pool and back. 

So, fine, we’ll all admit that we’re weak in at least one or two of those areas.  Ok?  Now what? 

BOUNDARIES – What do they look like?

First, let’s recognize what a boundary might look like since we all need to understand the basics of setting good boundaries. As we do this, I want to point out that we want to keep things as positive as possible.  We have so much negativity that creeps into our homes, we want to keep our limits positive and simple. 
  • I read books to kids who have brushed their teeth.
  • I wash clothes that are in the hamper.
  • I drive kids to soccer practice who have all their gear. 
  • I serve dinner to kids who’ve washed their hands.
  • I drive when everyone is buckled in their seats.



I think you can all guess what the negative approaches sound like and how they cause us to not only create negative energy but we often stumble into fighting and arguing with our kids as well creating even more of the negative vibes that we want to avoid.  

CONSEQUENCES
We have to be true to our word when setting our boundaries.  When we say “I wash clothes that are in the hamper.”  We need to make sure we only wash clothes in the hamper.  Yes, even if clothes are lying all across your teen’s room and you know they need their workout clothes for tomorrow, you have to be willing to leave them where they are and not touch them.  If you do, you just violated your boundary and have lost your leverage. 
 
CONSEQUENCES NOT WORKING
Ok, we all understand the basics of “setting a boundary” and “following through on consequences”.  It seems so easy but what happens when you know you have rules and everyone is ignoring them so often and so much that you’re worn out and frazzled like our swimming pool mom?  You are ready to cry and run out of the house it’s so bad? 

You need to bring out the big guns.  You need some real brain power to solve issues like these and you’re going to recruit your family’s brains to help make that happen.  As parents we often feel we’re on the hook to solve every problem.  It’s totally not fair and it’s not good for the development of our kids to leave them out of these amazing opportunities to solve big interpersonal problems and learn to work as a team.  What’s the “big gun”?  It’s called a Family Meeting.

Here’s how a Family Meeting will work.  First, decide on just one area of your family life that is either easiest in your mind to make progress on or the one that dives you the craziest.  In our example the mom decided to just focus on going to the neighborhood swimming pool but for you it could be kids picking up toys or getting off electronics, cleaning their rooms, whatever it is, you just take one and work on it first.  We need to start somewhere and trying to overhaul everything and none of it working just makes us feel like failures and we give up so let’s not do that.
 
Step 1: SET THE MEETING
You’re going to announce to your family that tonight you’re having a Family Meeting at a particular time like after dinner. Explain that you need help in solving an issue and really want everyone to help brainstorm solutions.  You and your spouse might want to have a pre-meeting just to make sure you’re on the same page in selecting which topic will be worked on and maybe a general goal for the meeting. 

Step 2:  START THE MEETING, LIST THE ISSUE
Humbly admit that you are struggling and need your family as a team to come up with some possible solutions.  Ask one of your kids to be the secretary since there will be lots of ideas generated and you need someone to help keep track of them.  If your kids are too young to write yet, that’s fine, then you or your spouse could do it.  The idea here is to get them involved.  Set a positive tone by letting everyone know that no idea is a bad idea and all ideas will be considered, no disrespecting ideas since they are just ideas.  Tell everyone that you as a family will be selecting a few ideas to TRY for the next week and will be meeting again to go over the results and make modifications.  Tell them that this is not just mom or dad dictating this, you need lots of brainpower to solve this one.  Be the cheerleader for your family telling them they are awesome and as a team you can solve this one but you need everyone’s help.

Step 3: BRAINSTORM
Describe the issue and what is hard for you that you feel needs solving.  Things like getting kids to bed or getting off electronics aren’t just one step solutions so you need to list out the different parts you see that need to be worked out.  Open up the meeting for ideas from everyone.  Write all the ideas down.  Make sure there are ideas for consequences as well.  Your goal is to get the kids to decide the rules and consequences so that everything is known up front, that everyone is informed.  This will save you from having to make things up on the fly which often doesn’t go well. 

Step 4: SELECT IDEAS
Once the list is done select one or two ideas for each area to TRY.  Assign someone to make a poster or a list of what is going to be done.  Decide how long the first experiment will run and when the next meeting will be to go over results.

Step 5: EXPERIMENT
Run the experiment.  Don’t get mad if things don’t work out.  Have a place where people can submit things that aren’t working well so that you can keep track throughout the time period.

Step 6: REVIEW & REVISE
Hold your follow-up meeting and go over the results.  Be sure to give praise where things went well! Ask for new ideas to improve the process and possibly bring out the old list of ideas you didn’t use from your first meeting.  Keep holding this review/revise meetings until you work out all the kinks in the system. 
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Step 7: CELEBRATE!
Celebrate!  Take time to celebrate your family’s amazing ability to solve problems as a team!  You are all awesome and love each other!  Go out for ice cream or have a picnic in the park.  Do something!
 
Now that you have the steps, I was to show you how one mom solved her swimming pool issues using them. 

Step 1: SET THE MEETING
She announced that they were having a meeting to discuss how to better get to the swimming pool and back.

Step 2:  START THE MEETING, LIST THE ISSUE
She explained that she was tired of going to the pool when kids weren’t helping get ready.  There was always someone who couldn’t find their swimsuit or towel and things like water and snacks were always her job.  On the drive kids were unruly and when at the pool when someone broke the safety rules, they ignored the consequence since mom was too busy keeping the other kids safe, especially the 3-year-old.  What could they do?
Step 3: BRAINSTORM

Her oldest son, a 5th grader, took the notes.   They talked about what items were needed to bring to the pool each time.  They had ideas for which ones were problems and how to solve them.  Each kid could have a list of what all they needed or they could each pick one item to get – towels, bathing suits, water, snacks, sunscreen.  They also talked about safety at the pool and came up with consequences as to what would happen if someone didn’t follow the safety guidelines.  Her one son tended to be the one who disobeyed and would get out of the pool then sneak back into the water when mom wasn’t looking.  An idea that mom and I talked about was having each kid pack a “land bag” of things to do if they were made to be outside the pool so that it was a consequence to be out of the water but it wasn’t miserable.  She proposed that idea to the kids too.

Step 4: SELECT IDEAS
Next they talked about the different options and came up with a first pass.  The 3 older kids decided to pick an item – one got the waters, one the snacks, the other the towels.   They also decided to select one area in the house that all the swimming gear would be in – towels and swimsuits would all reside in the laundry room instead of all over the house.  They would each pack and carry their “land bags” to the pool.  For kids not obeying safety rules they decided on a 3-step approach – 1st offense was 10 minutes, then it got upped from there.

Step 5: EXPERIMENT
Mom proceeded to take her crew to the pool the next day to see how their new plan would work.  She was amazed at the huge improvement.  Her kids all brought their agreed upon items and the really cool part was when one of the kids started to stray or maybe forgot something, they could remind each other.  It wasn’t just mom vs. the kids!  It was a team!  Now that they all agreed on what was happening and knew what the process was, they could all own it.  Mom couldn’t have been prouder!

Step 6: REVIEW & REVISE
Mom was so impressed and so were the kids that the only modification that they added was to review the “pool contract” each time before going to the pool

Step 7: CELEBRATE!
Mom hasn’t celebrated yet but plans to!
 
As you can see from this family if you set this up right giving your kids a format where they have a voice and a choice, them feeling validated and heard can make everyone’s lives a lot easier.  These same kids are more invested in the rules if they help set them.  I’m not saying that parents should give in to any and all ideas their kids think up, you still can put limits on what they can request but a lot of the time we don’t care. 

I had another family who was refusing to let their daughters make GAK in their house, it’s that goopy, gooey glue kind of art gunk.  They felt it was way too messy.  They made a “no gak” rule and that’s the parent’s prerogative, of course.  However, one of their daughters was sneaking making gak.  Yikes!  That was worse than anything. 

I brainstormed some ideas during a coaching session with the parents to get them to dig down into what it really was they were looking for.  They just didn’t want the mess in the house.  Wow!  We live in California and they had a backyard.  Would they be willing to compromise with their daughters about setting up something out there?  They were also having a problem with their daughters taking laptops out in the yard which was a separate issue but they decided to have a meeting about both issues since they involved the outdoors. 

They held their first family meeting and agreed the girls could come up with a proposal of what it would take to set up an outdoor art station – what supplies, tables, etc. they might need.  They also agreed that the girls could take the laptops outside as long as they knew they’d be replacing them if they were damaged.  In the subsequent meetings they came up with a great solution that worked for everyone.  No more indoor gak and, as it turns out, it’s been months and neither daughter has brought a laptop outside since it seems they weren’t comfortable the cost of replacing one.  I love it!  They were no longer the mean parents who didn’t let them do stuff.  They were a team who solved problems and took responsibility. 
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Podcast 16 - Money Matters: Teen and Tween Edition

8/1/2020

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THE AUDIO PODCAST IS AVAILABLE HERE:      ​LISTEN​​

In this blog I’m going to cover issues relating to money with middle and high schoolers.  I will go over how to give money and how much, when to give money, and how to set up responsible money habits including how to use an ATM card, checking account, credit cards. 

Money is a huge challenge for us all and at this stage your high schooler or middle schooler is at a huge crossroads with learning life skills.  Dealing with money is a much-neglected skill during these years yet they are the most crucial years to allow as many affordable mistakes as possible. This makes money a prime target for small mistakes now to avoid big mistakes later. If you know someone who can’t manage money as an adult, I’m going to guess their parents didn’t teach them much about it, might have given in to every whim just to keep them happy when they were young.  Hey, that adult might even be you! 

If you listened to my podcast about money for younger kids, you’ll have already heard how to start a small budget for vacations and special events that I call a trinket budget.  We’re going to expand on that concept greatly by including more of the day-to-day expenses our kids encounter, not just vacations and special events. 

With older kids I want to help you introduce money concepts so that by the time they graduate from high school they know about budgeting, credit cards and debt.  I’m even going to show you a way to tie in getting chores done which is such a bonus.  You want to launch a financially responsible child into the world so that you won’t be paying their bills for the rest of your life. 
 
Let’s get started!

Middle School – start budgeting using what I call the
Setting Limits Method - During this phase you want your child to really understand that there are limits to what they can spend instead of just opening up your wallet and spending YOUR money.  

Didn’t it get you in pre-COVID days when your kid said they wanted to go to a movie with friends and you had to fork over money on the spot not only for the movie but also for the popcorn and a drink?  It was for their happiness, right?  That parent guilt just gets to us when it’s done in the moment.  All practical thought sometimes just goes poof, right out of our heads.  Or, how about your kid going to Starbucks and getting a Frappuccino and a snack because they’re hungry. That can easily be a $15 transaction if you’re not careful.  I had one friend whose child went to Starbucks every day without any care as to the family budget.  Another friend was conned into buying extravagant birthday presents for their kids’ friends just because mom and dad hadn’t set a reasonable spending limit. 

So, here’s what we’re going to do, you will set YOUR limit of what YOU will give them by category. You will also set a money allowance that’s in an unlimited category they can do what they want with.  Have a family meeting or a private meeting with each kid if you have lots of different age kids.  Just do this all up front with thought and planning, no puppy dog eyes as they’re leaving for some event.  Feel free to have your kids help decide on what has limits and how much.  The important thing here is that they start to learn that there are limits and it’s helpful to know what they are up front so no one is surprised.

Here are some ideas for some different types of things that you can talk about but keep in mind that some of these will only apply after we move out of this COVID time that we are now in.  

school supplies
birthday gifts for friends
clothes
Starbucks or other snacks 
activity supplies for sports, music, etc.—like sports shoes or warmups or instruments and reeds or drumsticks and related equipment
activity fees (monthly, quarterly, by season, etc) if they are in sports, clubs or educational activities
school lunch money
movie tickets

You’re going to add up what you think is reasonable for you to pay for and give them that amount per month or when it’s appropriate.  Some things you’ll still have to pay for that you can’t quite define like how many birthday presents are needed per month but you can establish a amount of what you will add to the birthday budget per birthday. 

Here are more specific ideas of what a sample parent could allocate:

One Starbucks drink per week of not more than $5
School supplies of $50 per year
Lunch money for school lunch for 2 lunches per week
One movie ticket per month
Birthday gift budget of $25 per gift
Clothes budget $25 per month

Keep in mind this is for middle schoolers who don’t have a lot of freedom to roam.  Put into this system whatever you can.  Some parents will put in budgets for sports equipment like $75 for new basketball shoes and your kid can add their own money if they want to spend more on Air Jordans.  Maybe they’ll be willing to get last year’s model instead of getting the $100 version?  You won’t care, you’ll just be paying $75. 

For me one of the first limits I set was for school supplies.  For years prior we would head to Office Depot with the school shopping lists in hand.  My boys would convince me that they needed new this and that.  I was such a pushover. I caved just about every time. 

Well, once I learned budgeting, I set a limit of $50 per kid, per year.  I met with them and explained that they could use the money to purchase any supplies they needed but that was a yearly budget.  They could choose to reuse what they already had or buy all new stuff – pencils, binders, paper, markers, erasers.  I let them know it was all up to them.  I loved them and was sure they’d learn to make good choices over time.

However, I also let them know, if they didn’t use all of the $50, they were welcome to use it for anything else.  This incented them to be conservative and reuse much of what they chose not to in previous years.  Yeah!  I want to confess in previous years, I had been spending more than $75 on supplies. This was a total win for me and them. 

I had friend who, after her two daughters constantly overran the data budget for their phone plans, switched them to pay-as-you-go plans and gave them a budget $15 per month.  It was amusing for mom to watch how quickly her daughters used up those $15 and learned to look for Wi-Fi hot spots or wait until they got home to the house Wi-Fi instead of just constantly streaming data to their phones whenever they felt like it. 


Allowance Amount
Now that we’ve talked about a simple budget I want to talk about an allowance.  That’s the unrestricted money we give to our kids that they can spend on whatever they’d like.  How much do you give and when is the question.  As much as you think is appropriate and can afford, could be a dollar per week or $10 per month.  It doesn't matter, but be consistent.  I used monthly.   The amounts can change as your kids get older; I usually gave them a “raise” on their birthdays. 

My calculation was one dollar for each year they were old, per month.  Yep… not much by some kids’ standards but that’s the point.  You want kids to have to stretch and think about where to spend that precious money and how they can maybe save some on of their budget items that can move money into their unrestricted funds area.  Like if they find an older pair of Air Jordans for $50 somewhere, they can pocket the extra $25 to use on something else, maybe snacks at Starbucks that you’re no longer funding? 

You also want to encourage them work to earn extra money by doing extra jobs around the house or put out flyers or a post on NextDoor to offer to help their neighbors with things like dog walking, picking up mail, cleaning up dog poop or watering plants while neighbors are on vacation.  A girlfriend’s son wanted a new, cool skateboard so he worked his buns off to earn the money for it.  That mom also posted a list of what she’d pay for her kids to do her jobs if they wanted to earn money at their house. 

All this was communicated in the open so no one was surprised by any of it.  No whining and begging for “stuff”.  Give them love and empathy if they don’t like it.  “Oh, I know it’s hard to earn money.  I’m so sorry.  Let me know if you’d like some ideas.  I sure love you.”
 
What about Giving?
When kids are young and we give them allowance and we ask them to allocate some to their “share” jar.  We still want to encourage the “share” concept at this age and we can budget this item and put it in a “restricted” category that they aren’t allowed to move into their unrestricted “spend” area.  They need to “share” it with a church or charity.  No exceptions. 

If they get birthday or holiday gifts, help them allocate some of that money into their “share” budget as well as to their savings account.  Keep modeling for your kids your own giving and have discussions about how to help others with their share money.

One last thought before I head into the area of high school budgeting.  There’s a super cool app that you can use for any age kid but it would be great to use for middle schoolers.  It’s called GreenLight. It allows you to set up a debit card that’s controlled and monitored by you and used by your kids like a real debit card with restrictions on what stores and what amounts can be spent at certain places.  It’s $4.95/month per family so it does cost a bit but it might be a good transition tool prior to high school. 

Ages - High School
Speaking of high school… Every parent should jump at the chance to really step up budgeting with high schoolers.  This is a crucial learning ground that will be backed up by affordable mistakes and really set up your kids for independence in college and beyond. Here are the basics:


Step 1 - Set up a checking account in their name with real checks and an ATM card that you can electronically transfer money to and from.  It will probably be an account where one parent is a co-signer, that’s fine. You want your kid to swipe that ATM card to get used to our electronic payment-oriented society.  If they run out of money the ATM card will stop them unlike a credit card.  You can also set them up on Venmo, a popular payment app with students.  Don’t be afraid to let them use it. Have them write checks occasionally too!  Some kids really struggle to establish a decent signature especially since cursive is a dying art in schools these days.


Step 2 - Decide as many things as possible that your kid can pay for with YOUR money, yep, YOUR money like we did in the middle school exercise but WAY more detailed.  Hey, you pay for all these things anyway so let's leverage that money to work for future independence!  We’ll call this the INCOME side of the budget. 
What kind of things could be added to the list:
  • all the items listed in the previous age range
  • private lesson fees – academic tutoring, sports, music, dance, whatever!
  • sports fees - school sports, club teams, travel for sports, etc.
  • lunches/meals - whether at school or outside
  • college applications/testing fees
  • prom tickets and expenses
  • grooming – haircuts, nails, etc.
  • student fees for things like yearbooks or school spirit gear

Step 3 – Next calculate things on the DEDUCTION side of the budget.  Some families will have their teens pay for things like car insurance, the data plan for their phone, gas for using the family car on trips with friends, that sort of stuff.  My kids had a monthly deduction for both their car insurance and data plan.  Sure, I could have afforded it but I wanted them to have some skin in the game.  Where did they get the money for those deductions?  They could earn extra or use savings if they had to.  Didn’t matter to me, not my problem. 

Here’s the kicker.  I talked about incorporating chores into this budgeting process and here’s what you need to do.  Post a price list in your kitchen of what you’re willing to charge for doing your kids chores for them.  Then, if a chore isn’t done at the agreed upon time, no problem!  You just happily do the chore for them and charge them for your services.  I’d advise you to pick charges that really do make you happy, don’t skimp.  Taking the trash bins to the street could incur a $10 charge.  How about picking up that dog poop?  $10?  $20?  Cleaning the dishes?  Making their beds?

When you actually do a chore, I’d recommend posting a note or keeping a log somewhere that a snarky teen can’t rip it up if they’re mad.  When it comes time to do the budget add the DEDUCTIONS for what I call “mommy chore” charges to the other monthly deductions.  If they want earn as much income money as possible, they will learn quickly to keep their mommy chore charges to a minimum or do one of mommy’s chores to even out the deduction before the next pay period. 

Cars for High Schoolers
Just a side note, no one should be buying their high school kids' cars, much less new cars.  If they really need access to a car and you can afford to get one, find an older model car that’s not classy and buy it as a family car.  We had grandpa’s old car for one boy and their aunt’s car for the other.  A Toyota Corolla that’s 8 years old was not what my kids wanted to drive but both got them around until they could afford to buy their own cars. 

Step 4 – Now, back to our budgeting. Step 4, calculate the money needed to cover the income and deductions in Step 2 & 3 and transfer that electronically to your child once a month.  I would have my kids balance their checkbooks by hand before they got their next month's money just so that they could see the money come and go.  They switched to online balance watching after a few years but their first years with an old-fashioned paper checkbook to balance was a good exercise.  Sort of like we all learned long division but always use calculators now, right?

Step 5 - Sit back and watch them use their money.  If they forget to pay their tutor or music teacher... GREAT!  That teacher will help them learn to pay bills on time. If the instructor tries to get the money from you, I’d just redirect them to your kid and explain this is a learning process. 

If they bounce a check... GREAT!   Nothing like learning how much bouncing a check costs.  Whatever you do, don’t get overdraft protection for their account.  One dad did that and was only charging his son $25 instead of the bank’s $35 fee and his son didn’t blink an eye.  We need to get our kids to blink and look the payment monster in the eye.  This is real stuff so make it real.  These are all affordable mistakes that you can give them love and empathy for when they happen. 

Now, on the other hand, if they manage to save extra in areas of their budget that they decide they’d like to use the money elsewhere, great.  Say you give them money for two lunches a week and they decide to make their lunch all days of the week.  Let them pocket the extra to encourage their saving habits.  Remember how in adult-life we have to save for a vacation or a new car?  These balancing activities will help plant those saving seeds in their brains that they’ll use later on when purchases really need to be saved for over a long period of time.   

Ok, you’re ready to launch!  Those are the five steps.  I do have a few more comments on money and teens. 

Encourage Jobs to Earn and Learn!
One area I want to encourage is for all parents to allow and promote the idea that their kids should earn money by having a part-time job while in high school.  I know.  I know.  There are lots of parents in Silicon Valley where I live who feel that doing homework and school is a job for their kids so they refuse to let their kids work outside the home.  However, doing homework doesn’t prepare them for all aspects of the real work and I want you to help them get those extra skills. 

Crummy, low-wage jobs are such an amazing place to learn all sorts of life-lessons that are never, ever taught in schools.  Having to punch a timeclock on a schedule that your boss only tells you one week in advance and one that changes just about every week.  Getting a real paycheck – do you auto-deposit or not.  Dealing with taxes.  Getting tipped or not tipped – they start learning how it feels to not get tipped even though they’ve been doing a great job.  Dealing with co-workers that you didn’t choose – ones that gripe and don’t work hard are tough to work with.   

My one son didn’t have much time between his academics and athletics but he managed to get a weekend only job at a local burger joint.  It was a God-send if you ask me.  He learned about all those things and more.  Dealing with cleaning tables and taking customer orders.  Priceless.  Did you know that when we walk into a place like that, we often ask a 16-year-old what’s good on the menu?  Haha!  So funny!  Kids that age are amazed that anyone would bother to think that they might know the answer.  Precious lessons in building confidence and self-esteem.  Please, please let your child work!
 
College Finance Ideas
Lastly, I just want to make a few comments to those of you who have college kids or will soon.  You need to practice these budgeting things but scale it up even further.  Have your kids pay all their own bills, yep, even tuition and room and board if they are going away.  Agree ahead of time what you are willing to pay for and when you will be transferring money to them. 

In my practice, I see too many parents just opening up their wallets whenever their kids call to say they’re out of money.  I want to encourage you to set the limits up front and use empathy when they run out of money.  If you’ve set up their high school budgeting experience appropriately this will not be hard or a surprise. 

My boys knew in advance that they paid for all their own entertainment and eating out with money they earned from their summer jobs or jobs they got during the school year. 

I think having a limit for food spending is really wise as well.  Freshmen in dorms are usually required to buy a food plan.  If they have a food plan, in my opinion, that means they have food even if it’s not the best.  If they’d like to eat out, fine, it’s on their dime.

A friend could see her son’s bank account draining down and he only had $5 left in it at one point.  What a bummer!  He wound up getting an on-campus job to help even things out.  Another friend just wound up paying for the dorm food that her child wasn’t eating in addition to all the food her child at out.  Crazy, isn’t that?  Picky eaters can have a tough time in college but at that stage it’s their problem that they need to navigate, not mom and dad’s. 

Last topic, credit cards.  It is important for our kids at some point to start building up credit for future purchasing power.  I’d say as they go off to college is the time to research a good card for them and encourage them to start by choosing one type of purchase that they always pay for on their card and then pay off every month.  There are lots of companies who will offer students cards that have really high interest rates that can get kids into trouble.  Avoid those.  Shop around!
 
Learning to deal with money can be an amazing journey and allow our kids to have choices when they manage money well.   You being in their lives communicating and allowing for mistakes in loving ways is what’s going to get your kid into the right place.  They will blow it occasionally, embrace those times with a growth mindset and love them though the process. 

Whatever your child's age, please take the time to work with money.  
 
If you found this information useful, please forward the link on to your friends and family. 
 
Here are a few of my favorite books about kids and money. 

Millionaire Babies or Bankrupt Brats
Parents are Not ATMs

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Postcast 15 - Money and Allowance: Early Childhood (3-10 years)

7/9/2020

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THE AUDIO PODCAST IS AVAILABLE HERE:      ​LISTEN​

Money, money, money, what a challenge for us all!  It is so important to pass along to our kids a firm foundation for money in their lives.  However, in our love and protectiveness we tend to over-protect this essential skill-building opportunity while they are young.  

There are things to do at different ages and stages to help introduce money concepts to your kids so that by the time they graduate from high school they know about budgeting, credit cards and debt.   In this podcast, I’ll concentrate on what to do with younger kids, from toddler years up through elementary school using a simple spend-save-share method.  In the next podcast, I’ll go into more advanced topics that will cover the middle and high school years including budgeting and handling credit cards.

I talked a little about allowances in the previous podcast on Chores, and I want to make sure we’re all on the same page, we don’t give allowance for regular chores.  This allowance money we’re talking about is money that we give our kids for them to learn how to use money.  Please listen to the Chores podcast to if you want to understand more about why chores are separate from allowance since I already covered that topic there.

Let’s dive in!

For those little ones, how many of us, when relatives give our kids holiday or birthday money, stash it away in a bank account that our children can't get to?  Probably most of us!  Why?  Because "we don't want to them to blow it", right?  That money would be "wasted" on stuff that isn't important and we just can't let that happen.

Most of you know about helicopter parents and this money situation is a perfec t storm for us recovering helicopters.  We mean well, but it hurts our kids in the long run.  How will they ever learn that if they "waste" their money there won't be any left over for future wants and needs?  When our kids are young is the time to allow as many affordable mistakes as possible; money is certainly a prime target for small mistakes now to avoid big mistakes later.  I love this topic since it pays off big-time in the long run.

When to Start Allowance
I want you to start allowance at about Ages 3 to 5 and use this method until about 10 or 11.   I’m going to go over the method of giving them money, how much to give them and then how to set up learning opportunities for them to learn how to use it.  

First, Method
There’s something called the Three Jars Method - this is a classic!  You set up 3 clear jars so that your child can visibly see the money in them.  One is for spending, one for saving and one for sharing.  Let your child see the money build up.  Dave Ramsey, the financial guru, said a Cambridge study found that kids money habits are formed by about age 7.  Wow.  That’s early so let’s get them up and running as soon as possible.  With kids who are 3 to 5, you’ll be getting them used to seeing money and using money in very simple ways but those jars will grow to have meaning by about 6-7.   Do start, even if you have really young kids.

Next, Amount
How much do you give as allowance and when?  As much as you think is appropriate and can afford, could be a quarter or a dollar.  It could be per week or per month, doesn't matter, but be consistent.  I used monthly.   The amounts can change as your kids get older; I usually gave them a “raise” on their birthdays.  You’re going to have them split the allowance between the 3 jars.  Some number that can be easily split by three would be nice too.  You do want to not give so much that they’re running out every week and buying stuff.  Make them save for things they want. 

If they get birthday or holiday gifts, help them split the money between the jars.  Help them count it as it grows so you can build math skills along with money skills. 

Opportunities
Next, you let them have opportunities to Spend-Save-Give.  Let’s go over some ideas now.

SPEND - When you are at the store and they ask for a treat, let them use THEIR "spend" money instead of just using yours.  If they didn’t bring any of their money, I would encourage you to give them empathy in the form of, “Gee, this is such a bummer.  You didn’t bring your money and you’d really like to buy that toy.  Darn.  Maybe next time we come back you’ll have money to buy that.  Mommy buys things on our shopping list, not extra items.  I’m so sorry.”  Even if it brings on a tantrum just stick with it.  If it brings on whining try, “And what did I say?”  Your child is learning that money doesn’t grow on trees, that you have to have some and have it with you if you want “stuff”.

However, if you really think that is too mean then you can lend them the money and have them pay you back when they get home.  I would charge some sort of interest in the form of extra money like a real loan would have or maybe an extra chore around the house since it’s an energy drain that you had to use your money since your child forgot theirs.  However, your kids learn to carry their money when they go to a store with you pretty darn fast if you give them the empathy routine.  You want them to know shopping takes money, it’s not just a “look, see, buy” event but a “look, see, do-I-have-money-to-buy” event.

SAVE – Whenever you think there’s enough money in their SAVE jar, go with them to open a simple savings account once they get to about 6 or 7.  Have them put their savings in that account at least once a year, you might even match the amount dollar for dollar or at a 50% rate.  Let them see it growing.  Allow them to "save" for something special so they can practice delayed gratification - a bike, a large LEGO set, an expensive doll, etc.  Research says that mastering the art of delayed gratification is a SUPER helpful indicator for future success in life.  

Some families will call this account “college savings” to promote the idea that their kids will be going to college but it could have some other name but you need to differentiate it from the “spend” money  in a way that’s farther and less immediate in nature.  One of my friends had an accounting book instead of using a real bank.  She labeled it “Bank of Mom” and put all the money transactions in it.  Do what works for you but the more you can make it be a realistic banking situation, the better.


SHARE - If you go to church, let them take their "share" money for a donation, not yours.  Maybe once a year you have them pick a charity; they can use their "share" money on.  We used Heifer International for years as a "share" when my boys were little-- super fun to sponsor cows and chickens or even beehives in third world countries that help people get out of poverty.  But work with your kids to figure out what they might care about – Make A Wish?  Habitat for Humanity, Humane Society, Doctors without Borders.  It’s great to model for our kids that money and the sharing of money can help others, not just themselves.

SPECIAL MONEY/Early Budgeting
The last skill with money for younger ones that I want to pass on to you is an early introduction to budgeting.  If you, as a parent when traveling or going to a special event like a theme park, typically give in to your kids who always beg for souvenirs, this simple budgeting practice will allow them to have independence to make more choices on their own. 

Many of us don’t mind the concept of buying our kids something to remember a trip. However, we often get roped into buying things at every stop and often spend more than we want to.  Those adorable puppy eyes pleading with us for one more set of polished rocks are just sometimes beyond us to resist, right? 

Here’s the new plan: Before you head off on vacation, set up a travel trinket budget for your kids.  They can spend it on anything but when their trinket money is gone, it's gone!  So sad... ;). Sure, your kids will pick some throw-away items that you think are stupid and a waste that you know they’ll lose interest in a day, but what a great time for them to learn this lesson.  By keeping our judgements of what they buy to ourselves, this new budget process will help regulate their future purchases so you won’t have to.  Your job is to set up that budget ahead of time and stick to it.  I’d even give the kids the cash dollars and a wallet so they have a chance to physically deal with bills and change. They might even learn what it’s like to lose a wallet.  Ouch!  Ya know? I would probably wait until 5 or 6 to institute trinket budgeting when your kids have mastered some basic math. 

How much should your vacation trinket budget be?  It will really depend on what your family can afford but the overall idea is “not enough”.  For my boys when they were in elementary school, I gave them $20 each for a 3-week vacation. This was way less than I would have spent in previous summers before I figured out this trinket budget, but it totally worked. When they wanted something, I could just ask them if they had money left. It was so freeing!  They were also welcome to bring some of their SPEND money out of their spend jar if they’d like to have more.  It was totally up to them to bring that extra money.  It certainly wasn’t on my packing list for vacation. 

That’s all for now!  Good luck on getting some money understanding into your young ones.  Don’t forget to listen to my next podcast as your kids get older so you can learn about more advanced budgeting and spending habits that will get them really ready for adulthood.  I do have a Pinterest board with more ideas for teaching about money.  

PINTEREST BOARD 
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Podcast 14 - Chores - Why and How

6/24/2020

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THE AUDIO PODCAST IS AVAILABLE HERE:      ​LISTEN​

I’ve had quite a few people asking me about chores – how to set them up, do you pay for them, how much do you pay, is allowance tied to chores, do I need chore charts with rewards, what do I do if my kid won’t do their chores.  In this podcast I want to address all those issues and more.  Chores let your kids develop life skills that, if taught well, will launch them into a good place in life.  I’ll start with the research behind why chores are important and then I’ll get into the nitty-gritty of how to implement chores with kids of various ages. 

First, the research…

Research shows that kids who do chores grow into happier, healthier, far more successful adults, and the sooner parents start them on them, the better off they are.  There have been two ground-breaking studies looking at success and correlations with behavior and upbringing.  One is the Harvard Grant Study which gathered data on individuals over 75 years and the other is a University of Minnesota study looking at individuals over 20 years.   Both published a ton of results in 2015.  Here are some brief observations I want to highlight for you:

  1. It starts young: The best predictor of success in young adulthood, on measures related to education completion, career path, and personal relationships, was whether they had begun doing chores at an early age — as young as 3 or 4.
  2. Professional success – doing chores was significantly correlated with academic and career success but there are even indications that early chores were linked to higher IQs. 
  3. Relationship skills - “A kid who learns early to do chores will be a more generous and cooperative partner. It’s easier to live and work with a person who has learned to take care of his or her own stuff and to be responsible for some of the boring work that adult and family life requires.”  Chores teach kids vital relationship skills like cooperation, teamwork, and respect for others. I bet we all know someone in college who was the biggest slob and thoughtless roommate ever - never picked up after themselves, didn’t do the dishes, left the counter dirty and disgusting after cooking.  Yuck. 
  4. Mental Heath - researchers found that participation in chores as children was a better predictor for mental health in adulthood than social class and family conflict.
  5. Organization, Time Management and delayed gratification - Kids who do chores learn to organize their time and to delay gratification. Both of those are vital skills for later success.  If you have to do the dishes before playing video games and your friends are playing at 7pm then you’d better get those dishes done before then.  Having to fit in chores forces kids learn to manage their time. Julie Lythcott-Haims who wrote the book How to Raise an Adult said, “While it can be tempting to give kids a pass on busy homework nights real life is going to require them to do all of these things. When they're at a job, there might be times that they have to work late, but they'll still have to go grocery shopping and do the dishes."






Taking Time for Chores

In the Harvard Grant Study, researchers identified two things that people need in order to be happy and successful: The first? Love. The second? Work ethic.

What's the best way to develop work ethic in young people? Based on high-achievers who were part of the study there's a consensus of what gave them a good work ethic - A "pitch-in" mindset.  This is a mindset that says, there's some unpleasant work, someone's got to do it, it might as well be me ... that's what gets you ahead in the workplace.

The drawback we have as parents, however, is that having our kids do chores doesn't necessarily wind up being less work for us, does it?  It takes more time to teach our kids to do chores and to do them well instead of just doing the chores ourselves.  How many of us look forward to nagging our kids and reminding them day after day to do their chores away?  Now that we know the benefits of doing chores for the long-term, let’s take a close look at the practical side of what we can do to help us arrange for chores in our households.

PRACTICAL SIDE OF CHORES

To Pay or Not to Pay For Chores

I want to start by addressing one major issue - should we pay for chores.  I firmly believe we shouldn’t.  A family is a unit of people who need each other and love each other.  It takes work to take care of a family and there’s no reason why kids can’t learn at an early age that pitching in is just something they need to do.  Remember that life skill we learned about earlier?  The “pitching in” skill?  We do need to set up chores with love and encouragement though instead of nagging and threats. 

When we pay our kids for chores, they start to think that if they don’t get paid then they don’t have to work.  Or, if they don’t need the money, then they don’t need to do the chores either.  They become workers for hire and not contributing family members.  We threaten to withhold money when they aren’t done and this shouldn’t be about money, it should be about pitching in.

I do want to say that I believe in giving kids an allowance as a means to learn about handling money but it should be separate from chores.  Teaching kids about money is so important actually that I’ll do separate podcast soon on it so stay tuned for that. 

By Age

To help you on the practical side of things, I’m going to go over my recommendations for chores by age.  I’m going to give you some basic examples but after you’re done listening feel free to visit my PARENTING DECODED Pinterest board on Kids Chores.

For kids 2-3 years
You want to start young.  Yep, really young.  I’d start as early as two.  Richard Bromfield who wrote the book How to Unspoil Your Child Fast put it nicely, “When kids are really young, they want to help you rake leaves or prepare dinner.  Take those opportunities to let kids help. Those moments are infused with love and connection. By the time they're older and really able to do [those tasks] competently, they've lost interest."  Cape diem!  Seize the day!  A 2 or 3-year-old helping to sweep the back porch, dust the book shelves, or make a snack in the kitchen with a parent is a happy kid.  When they grow up and inevitably have to accomplish these things, they’re less likely to rail against them if you started early and naturally. 

What can a 2 or 3-year-old do?
  • Pick up toys
  • Wipe up spills
  • Dust
  • Clear places at meal times
  • Help put away groceries
  • Sort recycling
  • Put dirty clothes in laundry​







For 4-6 year-olds you start to move into chores that are more helpful and they can learn to do these without you but still aren’t too hard. 
  • Make their bed
  • Sort laundry and put away clothes
  • Feed pet
  • Set the table
  • Make a small snack or help with dinner
  • Pull weeds
  • Water plants
  • Vacuum
  • Sweep porch

For 7-9 years there is LOTS they can do. 
  • Get themselves out of bed in the morning
  • Make lunch for school
  • Do their laundry or at least fold it
  • Cook a simple meal
  • Load/unload dishwasher
  • Clean up after the dog
  • Clean the bathroom
  • Take out the trash

For 10-18 and beyond
  • Do all of their own laundry
  • Mow the lawn
  • Cook a complete meal
  • Wash the car
  • Mop the floors
  • Babysit
  • Help with younger children
  • Basic home repairs (light bulbs, dust a fan using a ladder, tighten loose screws)

Older kids Starting Chores Ideas

I want to talk now to families with older kids who haven’t been doing chores or almost no chores yet.  I’m mostly talking about families with teens or tweens but if you have elementary kids who aren’t doing chores this can be helpful to you as well.

If you have kids in this category,  it will be a huge adjustment for them, that’s for sure.  Our society has transitioned to valuing homework more than teamwork so we’ve given our kids a “pass” when it comes to contributing and they’re likely to resist your efforts to get them to contribute. 

For starters, I am going to give you the number one chore you need to have your teen or tween start doing right now.   It only involves them.  If they don’t do this chore, it only hurts them – not you, not the rest of the family, not even the family dog or cat.  What is it?  LAUNDRY. 

Set up a Family Meeting and announce that starting in one week you’ll allow your children to do their own laundry whenever they’d like as long as you’re not using the machines yourself.  You allow them to choose when to have a lesson on how to use the washer and dryer.  You also let them know that once they are trained, they are responsible for using the appliances appropriately or paying for the repairs.  Lovingly let them know that you will always provide soap and answer specialty questions that arise but their laundry will now be their laundry.

Then, you implement this.  Things might get stinky in their rooms.  Just shut the door.  They need to take care of themselves and this is the perfect life skill and chore for them to own. Some parents think they’ll waste water but that is much less likely than them not cleaning their clothes often enough. 

Here’s what else you need to do: no yelling, no reminding or nagging.  If you have an athlete, all the more reason to get them in the groove early.  They might come to realize they need more underwear to stretch out washings to once a week or once every two weeks.  Great!  Let them buy more underwear!  They can use their own money.  If they dye a load of laundry pink because they didn’t separate their colors correctly, let them wear pink or replace things with their own money.  If your child won’t fold their laundry, won’t put it away?  Don’t lift a finger.  Let them wear wrinkled clothes.  Let them figure out what is clean and what is dirty.  Just stay away.  Assist them by answering questions by all means, just don’t do their laundry.

Ok,  feeling better?  Do you think you can get that one implemented at your house?  Good!  This laundry chore will get you on a path toward where you really want to be, getting them more involved in chores around the house.  So, what’s next?

Here’s what I did with my boys when they hit middle school.  This process I’m going to describe takes a bit of time to implement but I really think it is worth the effort.  It absolutely was for me.

Start by taking a piece of binder paper and taping it to the fridge in your kitchen.  Every day, many times a day, write the chores that everyone in the family does on the list.  Take about two weeks to write all the chores so that you get a really good cross section of things that need getting done.  Add pages as they get full.  I told my boys about the list and encouraged them to write down their chores if they didn’t see them on the list but it was a list of all our chores, not just theirs. 

What was on the list? Grocery shopping, driving kids to school, making breakfast, lunch and dinner, paying bills, earning the money to pay the bills, vacuuming, planting the garden, making beds, cleaning the dishes, setting the table, etc.  Our list was about three pages long in the end. 

Next, organize the list into categories – daily (making beds, setting the table), weekly (taking garbage bins to the street, combing the cat), monthly (clean their bathroom) and random (changing light bulbs, refilling TP, washing the car). I happen to put all mine into a spreadsheet so I could more easily manipulate them and add columns for who will do each chore but do whatever works for you. 

Last step, have a Family Meeting and brainstorm who does what.  True confession, the first time I did this I hadn’t categorized by daily/weekly/monthly and it was a disaster.  I had to re-think my process and hold another Family Meeting a few days later which is what I’m describing now.  Haha… you can learn from my mistakes! 

My kids had already had chores but this magic list showed them that mom happened to be doing LOTS of the chores with dad in second place.  I was a stay-at-home mom at the time so it wasn’t all that surprising. 
For their daily chores I just asked before school for two simple things in their rooms –straighten up their beds and open their blinds.  I love light in my house and I really wanted that help.  They agreed it seemed reasonable.  They had other daily chores but those were my wins by doing this.

For their weekly chores, they got to decide when they did them – which days worked best in their busy schedules.  This is where using choices was key.  I wanted them done,  they could say when! They also chose that some chores they would own and others would rotate.  It seemed that neither wanted to clean the litter boxes for our cats so they rotated that one with taking the garbage bins to the street.  I was flexible!  It didn’t matter to me when, just that they helped. 

I also had commitment from my husband and boys that if I cooked, they’d clean the dinner dishes. We would all take our plates over to the counter but then one boy would help dad wash the pots and load the dishwasher and the other one was responsible for cleaning up the leftovers and counters.  Again, choices!  I could chill while they happily picked their after-dinner music and cleaned up.  It never took more than 15 minutes.  This again was a chore I used to pretty much do all by myself and not always happily.  Another win!

However,  my real coupe, if you ask me, came when I showed them the “random” list of jobs, the ones that don’t have a schedule.  It had about 40 jobs on it.  I was pretty much doing most of the 40 jobs and they all could see that now.  Before we created this list,  they had no idea how long it was.  I asked them to each pick 4 jobs from the list.  I didn’t care which ones, just pick and be responsible.  Their eyes lit up.  Only four!  Wow!  That’s a steal!  They were expecting 15 or something.  While that doesn’t seem quite fair in some ways to me, I was thrilled to have one son now be the permanent light-bulb-changer and the other the toilet-paper-refiller and foaming-soap-refiller. 

I can’t even remember the other ones but it was awesome.  Just the week before we did this list I had asked one of my sons to replace a lightbulb. They had no interest whatsoever especially since we had high ceilings and a lot of them needed a ladder to get to.  Well, the very next week after the new jobs were selected, I got 4 light bulbs changed from a happy teen. Yep!  He smiled and just went off to change them. 

I encourage you all to make your list and get buy-in for some assistance.  Chores are good for your kids even if they won’t admit it. 

Chore Charts, Chore Jars and Chore Events

Next,  I’m going to talk about how you might track and set up the chores.  There are quite a few clever ways I’ve been researching that parents accomplish getting their kids to know what chores to do - chore charts, chore jars and chore days or mornings.

Chore Charts – a simple chart that has chores listed and maybe the days of the week.  You can use a marker or stickers that the child can show they are done with a chore.  Simple.  Some families collect stars and give a reward but since rewards are kinda like paying for chores I’m not all that keen on rewards, just charts for tracking what’s to be done.  If your child can’t read, by all means use pictures.  If your child is older, have Family Meetings to discuss what chores will be done by whom and when.  The more choices you can give your kids over chores, the more ownership they will have in completing them.
 
Chore jars - I love some of the Pinterest ideas where you take popsicle sticks and write all the chores on them and put them in a jar.  Each person in the family can then pick a stick, do the job and then put it in the “completed” jar when they’re done.  Have different jars for different ages if you need to.  Be creative! 

Chore days or mornings - Some families pick one day on the weekend, maybe Saturday morning, where they all do chores together.  A list is posted that morning of what needs to be done and everyone pitches in until they are all completed.

Consequences for Not Doing Chores

Let’s move on.   We might agree on the concept of chores but what if our kids won’t do them without lots of nagging and threats?  We need to stop nagging and threatening.  I need you to go back and listen to Podcast #10 on how to set up good consequences.  Using the Love and Logic® technique called Energy Drain that those of you who came to a class learned, as well as setting some good limits as to what will happen if chores aren’t done, is the direction you need to head in.  If you don’t know the Energy Drain technique I’ll put a link to the audio you can download it from Love and Logic®. 

When kids are younger a simple limit stated positively like: “Anyone who has finished their chores is welcome to sit down at the dinner table.” Or “I read books to kids who have put their clothes in their hamper.”  These work really well for little ones.   For snarky teens and tweens you might need something more like, “Gee, it really drains my energy to see all those dishes sitting in the sink. What are you going to do to put my energy back?”  If they refuse, just like I describe in Podcast #10, the next day might look like: “I drive kids to school or soccer practice who have put my energy back.”  Or, “I allow kids to use electronics who’ve put my energy back.”  You need to keep calm and you need to not nag or yell.  I know it can be hard but, believe me, if you’re consistent, your kids will trust that you mean what you say.

I do want to cover one more advanced concept that worked great for my own boys.  I never yelled or nagged about doing chores.  I let it be known that I’d be happy to do any chore for them and I posted a list of charges on my kitchen bulletin board.  It was only $20 for me to take the garbage bins to the street, $5 to refill TP  and $10 to comb the cat. Everything had a price.  I collected my charges once a month from the pink note cards that went on the bulletin board to track when I did a job for them.  It allowed me to be a happy mom and they got to be responsible since they didn’t like giving me their money.  This whole setup I’ll explain in a future podcast on how to teach kids about money but for now put prices on things.  I also bargained to take down a pink card if they did one of my jobs.  I was flexible!  I’d even tell you to feel free to post what you’ll pay kids to do your chores if they want to earn money as well. 

Did I give you enough practical ideas on how to get some chores done at your house?  I hope I haven’t overwhelmed you.  Realizing that our kids need chores is what I hope I’ve accomplished here.  Let your kids grow and experience real life, get them out of the academic and performance-oriented bubble our society has been forcing them in to.  Help create humans who care to pitch in and understand that life isn’t all about them; it’s about creating a loving environment where we can work to solve problems together. 

I loved how Julie Lycott-Haims wrote in her book, How to Raise an Adult, “By making them do chores -- taking out the garbage, doing their own laundry -- they realize I have to do the work of life in order to be part of life. It's not just about me and what I need in this moment."

​Here's the link to PINTEREST KIDS CHORE BOARD

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Podcast 13 - Anger Managment for Parents

6/7/2020

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THE AUDIO PODCAST IS AVAILABLE HERE:      ​LISTEN

Wow. What a week.  Writing this podcast has sure been a journey in tough times.  First, COVID-19 hits in March.  I’ve been blessed to have ventured into podcasting so that there’s a way I can still come into your lives.  Now, in June, with #blacklivesmatter, our nation is being rocked by anger and fear.  It’s overwhelming.  In this episode I’m going to talk about the anger in our own homes that we have that gets directed at our children and some ideas for how we can get it under control. 

I know anger isn’t helpful, caring and thoughtful action is helpful.  Being cool, calm-headed, and working together is what can move us forward as a nation but also as families.  Today I’m going to start in your home and deal with the anger your precious, adorable children bring out in you when they don’t obey, won’t listen, when they argue with you or when they fight with each other.  Your kids manage to push your buttons so easily when you’re tired or in a rush, right?  Some days you’re the epitome of amazing parenting and then the next day you’re on your knees with anger and frustration at your kids and yourself.  It’s exhausting. 
  
ANGER - COMPLICATIONS
I want to talk about how anger and threats create certain complications in our homes that we might not be expecting - an atmosphere of fear and children who become followers or rebels.

1 – Fear
First, when we use anger and threats with our kids, I’m mostly talking about yelling but some parents don’t yell but they certainly still get angry, they just don’t yell. We might grit our teeth and say “Do that right now”.  It’s still intimidating even if it’s not loud. When talking about parenting types the Helicopter is the nagger but the Drill Sergeant is the yeller/teller type.  They tell their kids what to do and expect immediate obedience; if there isn’t, then there are consequences mostly using fear and intimidation.  Don’t get me wrong, I firmly believe in consequences but they need to be delivered in a fashion that will be impactful for the long term.  Listen to Podcast #10 for more on that if you haven’t yet.

2 – Followers
But, you do it because anger works!  Certainly, it does.  Intimidation and being more powerful than your child works in your favor especially in the early years when you are physically bigger than they are and they are completely dependent on you.  But, how do you feel when someone yells at you?  Ever had a boss yell at you?  Did it make you feel good?  Did it make you want to be around that person? 

When I was working in hi-tech myself and some of my staff were in a meeting with a top VP who totally blasted one of his direct reports in front of 15 other people.  It made me cringe.  I was shocked and appalled.  If this happened to you, most likely, you felt small and stupid.  It might have made you want to hide.  I know when my dad would yell, we would all want to scram as fast as we could.  He wouldn’t listen to us even if we had a defense.  He shut down our feelings and minds just like that VP did. 

Some of us fall into Drill Sergeant mode when we get angry and frustrated.  This is when we want to yell and tell our kids what to do and we will yell louder and longer if our message isn’t being heard.  When I talk to live audiences about Drill Sergeants, I ask them who wants to raise a child who is a follower.  How about you?  Are you wanting to raise a follower?  Of course not, our society is always telling us to raise leaders.  We need leaders.  We need GOOD leaders.  And here you are, you might be raising a follower without even realizing it. 
As you yell or firmly tell your child what to do and how to do it, you shut down communication and their brains.  They aren’t encouraged to think for themselves, just to obey you.  They will FOLLOW you out of fear.  That’s not what we want.  We want them to THINK with their brains and know how to use their brains to fix things when stuff happens that isn’t right.  We need to communicate with them and allow them to problem solve and brainstorm with us, not go sit in a corner pouting or crying by themselves because we’re mean and yelled at them.  If you want to raise a leader let’s take anger out of the equation for raising your kids. 

NO THINKING
I’ve talked about brain science in a few of my other podcasts #2 probably has the most details.    When we are angry, our brain is in “fight and flight” mode.  This is true for our kids’ brains but also for your own brain.  If we need to guide our families, we need to use the thinking part of our brains, our prefrontal cortex.  I want to talk about ways to keep out of fight-and-flight and what to do if you do get there.
 
ANGER RELIEF
Assuming you recognize that you sometimes lose your temper, here are a few ways you can stem the tide. 
First, acknowledge you’re angry.  When you feel your body start to tense up and you start to go up what my good friend who is an MFT calls “anger mountain”, you need to embrace that feeling as it goes up your spine or face.  Once you can feel that feeling coming on, get some help to diffuse it.  I’m going to give you a few ideas of help you can use in your own home but if you have a major issue with anger, please get professional help or email me and I’ll be happy to connect you with appropriate resources. 

1 – Enlist your spouse or significant other, if you have one

This can work two ways – giving your spouse a signal or your spouse giving you a signal. 
When things are calm, set aside time with your spouse to work out a signally system.  If one of you sees or hears the other getting angry or yelling, use the agreed upon signal to help them recognize they are losing it.  I want to encourage a signal that doesn’t sound like “Hey, quit yelling.  You’re upset, go outside and cool off.”  While that may sound helpful even if it’s in a nice tone of voice, I want to suggest just using a phrase that signals “Hey, honey, I can tell your getting upset.  I’ll take over.  You go calm down.” Without saying all those words.  In my house we tried something verbal for a while like “Gee, honey, I think the cat’s water dish needs new water.”  Or it could be where you physically signal by pulling on your ear or patting your head.  The point your signal will convey the message without further irritating the situation.

I love signals like this.  My husband and I developed one many years ago to help deal with my I getting really nervous when my husband would tailgate, especially at high speed.  Now, he’s a good driver, and it doesn’t happen that often but when he used to do it I would verbally say “Honey, slow down!  You’re not using the 3 second rule.” “Or, it’s not a 1 second rule, it’s a 3 second rule.” And he’d snap back getting irritated with me nagging him again, wanting me to chill out.  Both of us would be angry and annoyed, not understanding each other’s point of view.  Not a win-win situation at all and we didn’t even have kids creating this tension. 

Well, we had a heart-to-heart one day while not in the car when both of our brains were calm.  I explained my point of view and how it really scared me and he explained how it kept sounding like he was a bad driver.  We both agreed to use a signal and no words in the future.  I gently tap him on the knee when I feel uncomfortable, he knows I love him and I’m scared and he has time to react without getting defensive.  It’s been amazing.  I know it’s not a parenting situation but I think you get the drift; communication can lead to real progress in relationships.

You and your spouse need to come up with something like a knee tap.  I really think a “no word” option is better than even the cat water bowl words.  I’d suggest maybe even having a teddy bear or a blue card or a pack of gum that you just hand each other that says all those words without saying anything verbally, an “I got your back” secret signal. 

2 – Enlist your kids

This next idea is to recruit your entire family to help get yelling and anger under control.  Have a way that ANYONE in the family can signal “warning, anger erupting!” without using words.   Some families might use a card – red, blue, one with a bird or a dog on it.  Other families might have teddy bear, doesn’t matter as long as everyone knows and agrees on what the signal means.  The person who receives it needs to have some calm down time.  It’s not a punishment but a loving encouragement. 

In order to enlist your kids in helping get your temper under control, you’d have to have a family meeting to brainstorm how to make it happen.  You have the meeting at a time when everyone is calm, maybe a Sunday afternoon or Friday night before a movie.  Talk about why you need help and how you need love and support to make it happen.  This type of family support can show that everyone needs help in life, even parents, in dealing with emotions.  I’d have an option that mom and dad can also hand the calm down signal to a child so that everyone can have the same love and support to improve emotional skills.  If it doesn’t work at first, have more family meetings until everyone can get on the same page with empathy and love.
 
3 – Use reminders

Some people find reminders a really useful way to help break bad habits.  Anger can certainly be a bad habit so try some to see if it will help you.  One parent I work with has trouble with anger but a lot of that is caused by having a lack of empathy for what her kids are going through.  We brainstormed a bit and she decided to place yellow stickies all around her house with “empathy” on them.  It did work for a while. Another mom just put stickies with an “E” on them around.  Some of you are tech-savvy and might create automatic texts, calendar entries or emails with nudges for you to be more empathetic or ask yourself to rate your anger for the day on a scale of 1 to 10.  Use anything but try something!
 
BAD FEELING RECOVERY

Now that we’ve talked about some ideas on how to try to stop yelling, I want you to think about ideas for what we can do to counteract the feelings incompetence and self-esteem that we often damage in our children when our anger lashes out at them. 

Our kids are fragile and words can break them. Often times, those words spoken by us in anger stay with them for a life time.  When we say “You’re so stupid!” often enough, they start believing it.  When we tell them they are clumsy, they stop taking risks.  When we get angry at them for breaking something or falling or missing a ball at a soccer match, they absorb that anger.  They start internalizing that they really aren’t good enough.  They might try harder in an attempt to win your love but it comes out of fear and hurt. 

Sometimes the hurt becomes so great that they stop trying harder or they withdraw from you.  That’s often what happens when teens start rejecting everything their parents say to them.  The parents have brushed off every possible opinion their child had when they were young so the teen learns that their parent could care less what they think.  They close down and rely on their friends for ideas and exchanges.  Super sad.  Let’s figure out how to be a parent who understands that parents are human and make mistakes and is willing to take time to repair damage before it becomes permanent. 

There is a lot of psychology around how impactful negative comments are.  The research says that it takes 5 positive interactions to negate just one negative one.  Ouch.  That’s a crazy imbalance, isn’t it?  We really need some creative ways to balance those negative interactions out. 

I came across a fun solution last week while on Pinterest.  There’s a therapist who has a website called idealistmom.com.  She has some great resources if you like this podcast and want to learn more.  The thing that she had that caught my eye was what she called the “Five Hair Ties” solution to getting this negative/positive imbalance back in line.  She says to put five hair bands on your wrist in the morning when your kids wake up.  If you have a bad interaction, you lose one hair tie to the other wrist. You then have to spend the day trying to earn it back to the original wrist.  If you have more negatives you’ll lose more ties and have more work to do, so you’re motivated to even the score as soon as possible.  It’s a gentle, physical reminder that there’s more love needed. 

What types of things can you use to recover?  Simple!  Things as easy as a hug (she says a 6 second hug is best), sitting and reading extra, putting a note somewhere they can find it with something nice on it, go outside together, play a game, give them an extra smile, tell a joke, have a dance party in the kitchen,  there are lots of ways!  I’m going to put a link in my podcast notes on how to sign up for a really cool printable chart with 25 of her ideas you can post on your fridge.  It’s super worth clicking on!  I love her SAY-PLAY-DO-SURPRISE quadrants.  You have to sign up for her newsletter to get it but it’s totally worth it and you can always unsubscribe after! 

BRAINSTORMING

I want to talk about one more thing I think can help families a great deal with trying to overcome anger issues, Family Brainstorming sessions.  I mentioned it a bit when suggesting you enlist your children in helping you recognize when you’re getting angry. I really think it’s an amazing tool that should be used all the time.  Setting up open and honest discussions with your whole family about issues that are upsetting family harmony is super healthy for establishing family bonding and love. 

Your children deserve to hear from you when things are calm in your brain as to what gets you upset and then you all work together to understand how to overcome the issues.  If you’re getting upset at everyone for leaving their shoes all over the house and you yell about it every day and no one does anything, having a place to air grievances like this in a kind, calm manner can be helpful and harmonious. 

Your kids should understand why it upsets you and maybe you all decide to create a new shoe area in your house together.  Or maybe shoes stay in the garage or on the porch on a new shoe bench that you all create and paint together.  Showing your kids how problems can be solved with words and creativity is the best lesson you can give them in life.  Anger solves nothing but if anger isn’t addressed it explodes as we can see now.  Address the anger in your life so that your kids can have a good role model for solving issues.
​
I hope this has inspired you to think about issues that bring anger into your family.  Be creative.  If hair ties aren’t your thing, try rubber bands, bracelets or coins in your pocket.  Remember your words can wound for a lifetime.  I’d love to challenge anyone to try the hair ties for one week and write to me about it.  I’ll provide a free phone coaching session to anyone who does it, that’s how important I think this is.
 
If you found this information useful, please forward this link on to your friends and family.  It would be helpful to me but what I really want is for us to work together to help the world take steps to control our anger in a positive, healthy way.

Here's the link to the idealistmom.com website article:
https://happyyouhappyfamily.com/angry-mother/

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Mary Eschen, ACC - Parenting Podcaster and Educator
Independent Facilitator of Parenting
​the Love and Logic Way®​

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