|
|
SKILLS FOR HEROIC PARENTING FOR DIVORCING PARENTS Judge Michele Lowrance
INFORMING YOUR CHILD ABOUT YOUR DIVORCE
The first step and maybe the most difficult is telling your children about your divorce. Following are suggestions to use when scripting what you are going to tell your children about your breakup. Ideally, both parents together will have this talk with their children. It will make the child feel safer if it appears the parents are going to work together on the reinvention of their lives. This may be the most important discussion you will ever give your children, so there is no such thing as too much preparation. These suggestions may be appropriate for children of any age:
“MOM AND DAD HAVE PROBLEMS WITH EACH OTHER AND CANNOT LIVE TOGETHER. We have tried very hard to work out the problems and decided that living separately would be better. It has nothing to do with you; it is strictly between Mom and Dad. We are sorry that this is causing you pain, but we are going to work …
[Continue reading PARENTING FOR DIVORCING PARENTS]
Video games have been with us for well over a generation now. Many parents have been around long enough to have played through their own parents’s concerns for gaming while growing up themselves. Still, parents may wonder how to think through today’s games. On one end is, “I did fine with them,” and not give much of a thought to their own kids’ playing. Alternatively, the realism and depth of interaction available in today’s games may warrant a different concern.
When thinking about whether video games may be a problem, a better means of measurement than time is responsibility. While many say that today’s games are different from before, our responsibilities and tasks of development are largely the same. If responsibilities are met, if friendships are being developed, and interests are being pursued, then playing games may even enhance these same life activities.
Looking at game play this way gives families and individuals a better understanding and more fluid control over gaming, than by a time related approach, for example. If grades are falling or if social activities are lost, one may even use these as conditions for future game play. It may be easier to enforce a …
[Continue reading VIDEO GAMES A PROBLEM?]
Helping your child master these simple rules of etiquette will get him noticed – for all the right reasons.
By David Lowry, PhD.
Your child’s rude ‘tude isn’t always intentional. Sometimes kids just don’t realize it’s impolite to interrupt, pick their nose, or loudly observe that the lady walking in front of them has a large behind. And in the hustle and bustle of daily life, busy moms and dads don’t always have the time to focus on etiquette. But, if you reinforce these 25 must-do manners, you’ll raise a polite, kind, well-liked child.
Manner #1
When asking for something, say “Please.”
Manner #2
When receiving something, say “Thank you.”
Manner #3
Do not interrupt grown-ups who are speaking with each other unless there is an emergency. They will notice you and respond when they are’ finished talking.
Manner #4
If you do need to get somebody’s attention right away, the phrase “excuse me” is the most polite way for you to enter the conversation.
Manner#5
When you have any doubt about doing something, ask permission first. It can save you from many hours of grief later.
Manner #6
The world is …
[Continue reading 25 MANNERS EVERY KID SHOULD KNOW BY AGE 9]
It is the parent who brings their child to us, not the child who comes asking for help—and this could complicate matters!
OUR OBJECT RELATIONS THEORIES OF DEVELOPMENT can be misused to support a view of the child as passive recipient of parental input. This might lead one to have no appreciation of the complicated active processes within the child. Appreciation of the child’s role in assigning meaning to perceptions in the light of developmentally determined capacities and drive propensities, is essential to a reasonable stance with parents who come to us with their concerns.
A misrepresentation of the classic analytic model can be used to distance the analysts from parents who make them anxious. It is easy to see parents as pathogenic, intrusive, disruptive, and unempathic with “the child’s needs”—the analyst may ask why can’t parents just let their child have the experiences or treatment that he/she needs and leave us alone? It is not easy for analysts to see the treatment process, itself, as an intrusion into the family and recognize their own aloofness, unavailability, criticism, exasperation, and even discourtesy as a problem. It is hard to examine the disinclination to understand the parental resistances and work with …
[Continue reading WORKING WITH PARENTS AND THE DIAGNOSTIC PROCESS]
The Raleigh News and Observer, Friday, February 28, 2003
CHILDREN, PARENTS AND PERIL Easing Youngsters’ Fears as Talk of War Comes Closer to Home
By Donald Rosenblitt
Cary, NC – We are all living with a sense of an impending yet undefined national crisis. At the Lucy Daniels Center for Early Childhood we have discovered that Triangle area children differ widely in the extent to which they are sensing and reacting to the current climate. We can help children cope successfully with these times by providing: Protection, Discussion, Reassurance, and Perspective.
PROTECTION:
1. Control access to information: Children six years and under do not have sufficiently abilities to manage information about dangers without experiencing excessive anxiety. Parents can best support their development by shielding them from scary information, including all radio and TV news.
Children ages seven through twelve years can benefit from knowing basic information, but may also suffer excessive anxiety if exposed to overly detailed information or images. Teenage children should have full access to information and images, but still require protection from media bombardment, which can increase anxiety for teenagers and adults alike.
2. Diminish other family stresses: Parents can reduce controllable sources of family stress by …
[Continue reading CHILDREN, PARENTS AND PERIL]
|
Login Requires login credentials |
