2010 October | Positive Parent Plus | Practical Parenting Help

Does Your Child Sit Out Group Activities

To download this as a PDF that you can print and send home in a weekend packet, click here

"I visualize things in my mind before I have to do them. It's like having a mental workshop."

- Jack Youngblood

Little Brian brings home a flier from kindergarten about basketball tryouts for 5 year-olds. As soon as he gets home he gives it to you and asks if you can go right away. You have to explain that he will have to wait a few days because the event will be on Saturday and today is only Tuesday. Brian practically sleeps with his basketball the rest of the week.

Finally, you get there on Saturday morning and, all of a sudden Brian clings to your leg so tightly that you practically loose circulation to your toes! He just will not let go. What the heck happened??

Brian may have been very enamored with the idea of basketball but simply did not realize everything that went along with it. He didn't think of the 100 other kids that would be there or the level the chaos and commotion and he simply was not prepared to deal with it all. So he shutdown, clung to you and would not listen to any words of reason.

The worst part is that you know that he would enjoy himself. How can you help him get over this shyness or crowd aversion so that he can enjoy himself?

One possibility may be that part of Brian's personality is having difficulty in large crowds. But that would be VERY very unusual. Most kids will do fine. But kids like Brian need a little help.

Brian was probably a little shocked by the commotion. Perhaps if you had sat Brian down beforehand and told him there would be lots of kids and lots of commotion, he may have been able to deal with it. Perhaps it was only the shock and a little preparation may have been enough.

Going just a little further up the scale, perhaps Brian needed a little more preparation. You might tell him that all great athletes visualize situations beforehand. Perhaps if you would have done a visualization with Brian beforehand, he would have been okay. You would ask Brian to close his eyes and picture a big gym with 100 kids in the gym. There are 20 basketballs being bounced. There are parents screaming to kids from the sideline. Kids are screaming to each other on the court. While Brian is visualizing this, ask him how he feels. If he feels stressed during the visualization, you can be sure he will be stressed when you get there. You might want to help him to visualize staying calm and sticking with it. You might help him to visualize dribbling the ball, passing it to teammate or making a basket. The more you prepare him beforehand, the easier time he will have when he gets there.

So the way to make sure that your child takes part in activities is to help him or her prepare as much as possible beforehand. Talking about it might be enough or you might have to do a full blown visualization. But take the time, because this skill will serve your child for a lifetime!

Did You Forget To Schedule You Into Your Day?

If you would like to download this so that it can be printed in a newsletter, click here.

“The key is not to prioritize what's on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.” Stephen R. Covey

Parents are often super-busy these days. They work a full day, they have to run a household, usually without help, and they have to raise the kids. So we make schedules. 6-8 in the morning is set aside for the getting the kids ready for daycare or school, 8 to 4 is set aside for work where every minute is scheduled, 4-7 is pick up the kids and make dinner, 7-8 is time for baths and bedtime, 8-10 is laundry, washing up miscellany and if you are lucky you sleep from 10 to 6 (hah hah!) Oh yeah – the work you brought home to finish! When will you do that?

If that schedule looks something like yours, you have blocked out time for your kids, your boss, and your house. You forgot you!

I love the Louis E. Boone quote that goes, “I am definitely going to take a course on time management… just as soon as I can work it into my schedule.” You immediately see the irony of it. Yet you don't see the irony of not having time in your schedule for you. If you never take any time for yourself, you will not be functioning as well as you can for everyone else.

“But”, you say, “I don't have time.” “I am doing it for my kids.” “I'll rest when I'm dead.” You know these don't hold much in real life. But if you do want to be selfless and do it for your kids, how about teaching your kids to take time for themselves! Don't do it for you, do it to teach them! After all, do you want your children to grow up and have a crazy schedule like you?!

The very first step to getting some time into your schedule for yourself is to recognize that it should be there. If you don't make yourself a priority, no one else will!

Step two is to get some help. You need someone else's time so that you can have some time. The first person you might turn to is your spouse. You go out Monday night and they go out Wednesday night. Or you switch off every other Saturday morning.

That obviously won't work if you are a single parent or if you would like to have a “date night”. So you may turn to your parents or in-laws. But many people don't live near their own families. So what can you do?

What about a time-off exchange program. What if you took your neighbor's kids every Monday evening and they took yours on Wednesday? Then you both benefit.

Jack Canfield tells a story of welfare moms in the projects of Chicago who finished college that way.

So there are solutions for how to go about getting some time – now what? What do you do with your new found time?

Anything you want. If you need some mental health time, have coffee with a friend. Or perhaps you can go for a walk on the beach or in the park. Exercise is always a good idea. Perhaps a massage. You should do whatever will rejuvenate you and make you feel good.

The bottom line is that if you see the value in taking time for yourself, you will make it happen. And if you do, you will thank yourself for doing it. Your kids will also thank you.

How To Help Your Child When They Are Feeling Overwhelmed

To print this out to send home to parents, click here.

“When you do nothing, you feel overwhelmed and powerless. But when you get involved, you feel the sense of hope and accomplishment that comes from knowing you are working to make things better.”

Unknown

Last year, when my sister-in-law came to visit from Los Angeles, my little one missed a few days of fifth grade. While missing a few days of fifth grade is hardly the end of the world, he did have a feeling of being overwhelmed when he was trying to make up the work that he had missed.

So what is the best way to help your child when they are feeling overwhelmed?

Jack Canfeild's advice from his book The Success Principles which is aimed at adults, applies equally to kids in this case. His first piece of advice is to “chunk it down”. What this meant for my son was rather than look at all the homework he had to do, first we looked at the math homework that he had to do, then the English homework, then the history and the science. We then broke it down further to two different sections of math homework and an English essay and some workbook pages. It sure looks a lot more manageable when you look at it that way!

The next idea we used was an idea I heard that was used by a old-time copywriter. He used to set an egg-timer for 33 minutes when he was working. He would work for 33 minutes, then take a break. I didn't expect my 5^th grader to work for 33 minutes, but we figured he could work for 15 minutes straight and then take a 10 minute break. Again, this helps to cut down on the feeling of overwhelm because all he has to do is work for 15 minutes. The he gets to take a break. That is not too bad.

Finally, this was not a one-day project so we also broke up all the work based on when he would get it done. We knew that on his “kung-fu” day, he would not really have a chance to get a lot of work done, but on his “early-day”, the day he gets out at 1:30, he would have a chance to do 4 or 5 of his 15-,minute sessions. This is actually similar to short-term goals (the homework to get finished today) and long-term goals (catch up on all the homework).

By breaking it up this way, he finished all the work in less than a week while keeping up with newly assigned work.

So what should you do if your child is overwhelmed? Step one would be to “chunk it down” – break it into smaller pieces. Step two is to break up their work period into manageable times with breaks scheduled in. Step three is to schedule work times so that it gets done.

By the way – this strategy works very well for adults as well!

Does Your Child Sit Out Group Activities

Did You Forget To Schedule You Into Your Day?

How To Help Your Child When They Are Feeling Overwhelmed

Recent Posts