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Love And Respect

“Men are respectable only as they respect” Ralph Waldo Emerson

I was recently asked if we can get our kids to both love and respect us. My answer was, “Sure!”

Some people seem to believe that the way to have their kids respect them is to be very disciplined, to “show the kids who's boss.” As I have written before, I think the best way to get kids to respect you is to teach them by being a role model.

What does respect look like? One thing it might look like is when people stand in a courtroom when the judge walks in. This is a very formal, perhaps old school type of respect, but I think it does have value. I remember when I was in high school, when a teacher or principal walked in, we stood up. There was certainly never a question of who was in charge and where “the buck stopped.” But I think it lacked a certain warmth and closeness. That was the atmosphere that my school was shooting for. This still exists in some schools where teachers are addressed by “Mr.” or “Mrs.”

At home, this might might be seen as a child never sitting in their parents chair at the table or never interrupting their parent. While this system certainly teaches a child to respect the institution or the position, I think there is a deeper respect that is not taught through this system.

As an example, when I was doing my doctoral studies, I called my advisor by his first name and there were few formalities between us. But with or without those formalities, I very much respected his ideas and opinions on education. I respected him because of his knowledge and wisdom. More than that, I respected him because he respected my ideas and opinions on education and life. Every question I asked was worthy of a thoughtful response. Every one of my opinions was worthy of consideration.

When I think about teaching my sons to respect me and my wife, this is what I think of. It would bother me much less if they sit in my chair at the table and much more that they dismiss my opinion without considering it. And I teach this by modeling it – I consider their opinion and if, in the end, I reject it, I give them a very good reason for disagreeing. This show of respect is much more important.

As for love, I think that is also an easy one. I get my kids to love me by loving them. And that love is unconditional. So for example, when my son vehemently disagreed with me, storming out of the house and slamming the door, the next time I saw him I told him that I loved him even though he was hurtful. And my actions toward him did not change. I did not punish him or stop talking to him or anything like that. I loved him just the same.

So as an answer to the question, “How can we get our kids to both love and respect us?” my answer is, “Love and respect them!” And when you practice this day after day, in every interaction with your child, you end up with a relationship that is the envy of all your peers!

Feel free to use this article on your website or ezine. If you do, include the following bio. If you would like to print and distribute this article, click here.

Shaya Kass, PhD is a parenting coach.

I help parents create relationships with their kids that give a lifetime of smiles. Sincere, deep, loving relationships. Having a parent coach can help you create one of these fabulous relationships. I offer tips and techniques for growing happy, inspired kids and parents at http://www.PositiveParentPlus.com.

Visit now for a free report on The 7 Key Steps to Being A Positive Parent.

Shaya can be reached at DrShaya@PositiveParentPlus.com

Be Nice

Today I bent the truth to be kind, and I have no regret, for I am far surer of what is kind than I am of what is true. ~Robert Brault

I recently read a list of “101 Things You Should Do If You Are Divorced With Kids” or something like that. It was things like “Don't ask your kids what happened at your ex's house” and “Don't fight in front of your kids”. Advice that is pretty commonsensical. I don't think most people who are divorced need to be told this, but a reminder never hurts.

There was one thing missing that really bothered me. The list did not include being nice to your ex!

Of course, we all tell our kids that they should be nice to the people in their lives. It is easy to be nice to your friends, it actually comes quite naturally. If you ask most people why they are nice to their friends, they would have a hard time answering. Just like it is difficult to explain how to breathe! We just do it! We rarely have to remind our kids to be nice to their friends.

We sometimes have to remind our children to be nice to new people. For example, when a new kid joins the class we often encourage our children to make the first gesture of friendship. Here the obstacle is, perhaps, awkwardness. But there usually is not a lot of resistance.

So far, we see that it is easy to be nice to someone we like. And it is not difficult to be nice to someone “neutral”. Now comes the more difficult part.

The difficult part comes when there is someone we don't like. Here is the real challenge and here is where the “teaching moment” with our kids comes in.

Yes, you should be nice to the people you don't like. There are many benefits to being nice to people you don't like, and the best possibility is that you will eventually like them and they will like you. Perhaps we don't like them because of a misunderstanding that, once cleared up, can become a point of partnership and friendship.

Also, when you are nice to many people, you increase your social circle. Research has shown that having a bigger group of friends has many benefits in health and happiness. Other people will notice your extra effort and will be willing to help you when needed. You can also widen your sphere of influence this way and become the “go to” person.

I am, in no way, advocating that you tell your kids to become a “sucker” for other people. They can actually extend a hand of friendship from a position of strength rather than a position of weakness. They don't need the other person's friendship, they are simply offering their own.

Of course, the best way to teach this is to model it for your children. And if you happen to be divorced, there would be so many benefits of acting this way. You would be teaching your children an important lesson, you would be lowering the stress with your ex, and you will truly be improving yourself!

This would truly be win, win, win all around!

Feel free to use this article on your website or ezine. If you do, include the following bio. If you would like to print and distribute this article, click here.

Shaya Kass, PhD is a parenting coach.

Care!

If you find it in your heart to care for somebody else, you will have succeeded. ~Maya Angelou

I have to begin with an admission. While I write this, I am a little angry. Perhaps I should calm down before I write, but if I go overboard, my editor (my wife) will “clean” it up. If you are reading this newsletter, I guess I was okay!

I teach English at a local college. I work in various departments, one of which has an administrator that I often don't agree with. I have been an administrator in the past and I always tried to make sure that the quality of the educational experience of the students was my guiding principle. I don't feel that this administrator shares that value.

Yesterday a colleague said to me, “They don't care, why should you care?” My response was. “The day I stop caring, please fire me.”

We live in a world where many people have become numb and have ceased to care. I know that many people are overwhelmed, but caring is so important. Perhaps if we can pass this on to our children, even if we are ourselves are numb already, the future of the world will be better than the present.

Often people say, “It is not my business, I don't want to get involved.” The best analogy that I once read for this argument is that if an elephant is standing on the tail of a mouse, the mouse will not appreciate your desire to stay neutral.

If your child sees another child being bullied at school, it may or may not be appropriate to intervene in the moment. It is possible that your child will be hurt. But it is completely appropriate, and you should encourage your child, to talk to the victim afterward. The last thing the victim needs to feel is that not a soul in the world cares about him or her.

The self-centered reason to care about others is so that they will care about you. Having more people that you care about and that care about you has been shown to increase happiness, health and success. It is a way to grow your social network. Having close relationships with family and close friends is important. Having many relationships in a “second circle” of friends is also important for creating a healthy social network that will increase many positive psychological outcomes.

One way to get ahead in the world is to be recognized as outstanding. My mother used to say that in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. In an era when most people don't care, it doesn't take a lot of caring to stand out as a special person. That is not to say that we should teach our kids to care only enough to get ahead. But we can point out that a little caring goes a long way, a lot of caring goes even further!

And of course, if our kids are caring, they will care about their parents and siblings as well, which will lead to a peaceful and loving house!

Feel free to use this article on your website or ezine. If you do, include the following bio. If you would like to print and distribute this article, click here.

Shaya Kass, PhD is a parenting coach.

Visit now for a free report on The 7 Key Steps to Being A Positive Parent.

Shaya can be reached at DrShaya@PositiveParentPlus.com

Do You Want To Raise A Courageous Child?

Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear. -Ambrose Redmoon

Courage is certainly a character trait that we want in ourselves and in our children. But what makes someone courageous? How can we foster courage? And, perhaps most important, Can we even agree on an answer to “What is courage?”

As Redmoon tells us, courage does not mean that we have no fear. In fact, quite the opposite, if you have no fear, you have nothing to overcome so you don't need courage. You can only be courageous when you have fear and you figure out a way to overcome the fear and do what needs to be done anyway.

This tells us that there are as many kinds of courage as there are fear. To help your child be courageous, you have to find out what they fear.

A child who is afraid to feel foolish if they try to make a goal and miss, will build courage by trying to make a goal that is “iffy”. A child who is afraid that his or her classmates will laugh at them if they get up in front of the class shows courage by making that speech in front of the class.

Now one might say that you can live your whole life without these forms of courage and you can still be happy. After all, many people have never made a goal in soccer and I have seen that as many as 75% of people have a fear of public speaking.

But think, for a moment, about the courage of Rosa Parks, or the courage of Gandhi. Or for a more modern example, think about the courage of the many dissidents in China or Iran who are jailed for speaking their views in public.

Does your child have the courage to ignore ridicule if a classmate is being treated poorly? Does your child have the courage to speak their mind if all their friends will disagree? Being courageous is important if it means that a victim will be saved.

The way to become courageous is by doing courageous things. Talk to your child about what they fear and about overcoming those fears. Talk to your child about doing the right thing even if it means others may not agree with you.

Another way to teach courage is by talking to your child about situations in which you overcame fear. Perhaps it was a fear of public speaking. Perhaps it was a fear of asking for a raise.

When children get to practice courage and are taught the value of courage, they will learn to be courageous. This is an important skill and value in life.

And by sharing their values, you will create a better relationship with them and help them to become great kids and great people!

Feel free to use this article on your website or ezine. If you do, include the following bio. If you would like to print and distribute this article, click here.

Shaya Kass, PhD is a parenting coach.

Visit now for a free report on The 7 Key Steps to Being A Positive Parent.

Shaya can be reached at DrShaya@PositiveParentPlus.com

Are Your Responses Just Right?

“Personal relationships are the fertile soil from which all advancement, all success, all achievement in real life grows.” – Ben Stein

I recently read about some research on what makes good marriages. Of course, there is a ton of research about why marriages go bad. Dr Shelly Gable looks at what goes right in a good marriage.

One of the important factors, not surprisingly, is how one spouse responds to the other's news. You might think it is all about showing empathy when your spouse relates bad news. For example, how you respond when your husband comes home and tells you he has been laid off of work. But Dr Gable actually looks at how we respond to good news.

There are four possible responses. As an example from my own life, I was recently asked to create a new course at the university where I teach. When I told my wife this news, one way she could have responded was by being both positive and enthusiastic – “Wow, great, I'm so proud of you.” Another possible way was positive and subdued – “Good news.” A third possibility would have been enthusiastically negative – “Oh my, that will be a lot of work, and what if they don't accept your proposal after you do the work. And that may mean another evening class.” The final possibility was passive and negative – “Oh, okay, by the way, the market was out of your favorite kind of cereal.”

It is pretty obvious which is the best way to respond. (And, yes, my wife was very positive and very enthusiastic and immediately began to tell her family and our friends. I think she was more positive and enthusiastic than I was!)

To give you another example from my life, seven or eight years ago when I decided to run a marathon, I told my father. His response was, “Don't hurt yourself. You know running a marathon can be bad for your ankles and knees” or something to that effect. Now I know that my father said this only out of love and concern for me, I have no doubt about that. But that love and concern did not make me feel very good at the moment.

The reason the first response is so powerful is because of something psychologists call “capitalizing”. You take the pleasure of the present moment and capitalize on it and spiral the positive emotions upward. And this is a key to strong relationships.

Some of us are very good at responding actively and enthusiastically. And we reap the rewards in wonderful relationships with our spouses and kids.

Some of us have trouble responding enthusiastically when we are distracted. So if we are at the game when our child's team wins the game, we will pick them up and jump up and down. But what if they tell us when we are in the middle of watching a football game? Or reading our email? (The email is my downfall!)

And sometimes, out of love and concern, we respond negatively, like my Dad did. I am not saying we shouldn't be concerned. But perhaps we should bring it up later on. First, let's give an enthusiastic response and then brainstorm how to overcome any problems.

So think a little bit about how you respond when your children (or spouse) come home with good news. And think about if there is room for improvement. If you keep improving, you will create a better relationship with your kids!

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Feel free to use this article on your website or ezine. If you do, include the following bio. If you would like to print and distribute this article, click here.

Shaya Kass, PhD is a parenting coach.

Visit now for a free report on The 7 Key Steps to Being A Positive Parent.

Shaya can be reached at DrShaya@PositiveParentPlus.com

How Meditation Can Help You And Your Child

I first heard about Loving Kindness Meditation in a podcast with Marci Shimoff, the author of Happy For No Reason. It is a really beautiful mediation that can be done all day long, not just in the lotus position in a quiet corner of your home.

There are different versions of the Loving Kindness Meditation, but all of them have a similar intention. The version that I like to do goes like this:

Start thinking about yourself and say (or think), “May I be happy, may I be healthy, may I have love, may my life be filled with ease. Then think of someone close to you. For example, I usually go to my wife next and I say, “Tova, may you be happy. Tova, may you be healthy, etc”

I can do it in the lotus position in my living room in the morning before my family wakes up or I can also do it while I am driving my car.

After going through your loved ones, you move on to people who are neutral in your life. For example, you may be stopped at a red light, look over to the driver next to you and send him or her loving kindness.

The challenge is to then think of the negative people in your life. The person who cut you off in traffic, Your boss who gives you a hard time every day, or perhaps your mother-in-law (if you're not as lucky as me to have a mother-in-law that I loved) and send them loving kindness.

When I first heard this and started practicing it, it always made me feel good and I knew that it helped me to stay positive. Now I find out that a group of psychologists tested the Loving Kindness Meditation and found that it truly helps people to build positive emotions.

Dr Barbara Fredrickson and her colleagues taught this to 100 employees at a hi-tech company. They had another 100 employees who did not learn the technique (until after the experiment) and they compared the two groups. The group that learned the technique, let's call them the meditators, were more mindful and savored the past, present and future. They had more gratitude, more hope, more love and more pride.

The meditators were able to both give more social support and to receive more social support. The meditators were able to create more positive relationships with others.

Finally and not too surprisingly, the meditators reported fewer illnesses and better sleep.

So how can you use this with your kids? Would it work for you to do a loving kindness meditation every night when you tuck them in? What if every night, with your child, you started off with, “May I be happy, may I be healthy, may I be loved, may my life be filled with ease.” And then go through this for members in your family, for classmates, for teachers, etc.

If you do this, you will be raising a loving child and you will be building a great relationship!

Feel free to use this article on your website or ezine. If you do, include the following bio. If you would like to print and distribute this article, click here.

Shaya Kass, PhD is a parenting coach.

Visit now for a free report on The 7 Key Steps to Being A Positive Parent.

Shaya can be reached at DrShaya@PositiveParentPlus.com

Be Proud Of Your Kids And Let Them Know

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I'm most proud of the longevity of my marriage, my kids, and my grandchildren. If you don't have that, you really don't have very much. – Bob Newhart

Like Bob Newhart, I too am very proud of my marriage and of my children. If I had grandkids, I am fairly certain I would be proud of them as well, but I have not yet been blessed with grandkids.

We just spent the weekend with my wife's aunt and uncle. My boys were great. At every meal they jumped up to help, they took part in the conversation, they didn't fight, they were just great. I often tell my sons how proud I am of them, but it is usually after we have spent time with another family whose kids behave poorly. In those cases, my kids stand out as wonderful. This weekend they stood out as wonderful kids without needing a negative comparison.

And on Saturday when we were heading home, I made sure to let them know.

So do you let your kids know that you are proud of them? I believe it is very important to let our kids know we are proud of them and why.

One way to look at this is the way we look at performance reviews at work. The best way to give a performance review is to be specific about what the employee does well and what the employee doesn't do well. If an employee is given specific information about what they are doing well and what they are not doing well, the assumption is that they will do more of the “good stuff” and less of the “bad stuff”.

I have said before that kids just want to be loved. Kids will do just about anything for love and attention. The first thing that new teachers are told about discipline is to “catch the kids being good” so that the kids get praise for positive behavior and will try to do more of it.

Telling your kids that you are proud of them is similar. By telling your kids you are proud of them you are “catching them being good” and letting them get more and more praise for that.

Just like with a performance review, be specific. “I am proud of you for helping serve the meal.” “I am proud of you for cleaning your room so nicely.” “I am proud of you for working hard on your book report.”

Research by Carol Dweck of Stanford University tells us that we should praise our kids for their effort rather than their performance. In the future we want them to make the effort again and again. If we praise their performance they may be afraid to try hard things because they may fail and not get the praise for the good performance. But if they get praise for their effort, they will consistently make the effort because that is what will get them praise.

When you praise your children for the effort they make and for doing what you expect them to do, they will continue to make the effort and they will continue to do what is expected. When they learn to do this as kids, they will continue to do this as adults. You will have taught them to do this without screaming and threatening, but with praise and pride.

You will be setting yourself up to have a wonderful relationship with your kids for many years to come. And isn't that what you really want? To have a wonderful relationship with your kids when they are great, productive, happy adults?!

Do You Want To Teach Your Kids Respect?

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“A youth is to be regarded with respect. How do you know that his future will not be equal to our present?”

- Confucius

I am sure you know of some families where the kids are always provoking each other. When one kid says something another has to tell them that they are wrong or just put them down.

There are even some families where the kids are insulting at the parents and putting the parents down for things that they say.

Guess how much fun it is to be around these families. I sometimes wonder how the parents put up with it!

Now I cannot say what the parents in these families did or did not do, but I do know that this NEVER happens in my family and I have an idea why.

My wife and I were talking recently about our kids. ( Okay, we always talk about our kids, but that is besides the point!) We noticed that our kids are always respectful to us and to each other. They often play around with each other and even wrestle sometimes. There are even tears occasionally when our 11 year old takes on his 20 year old brother – but our oldest son never intends to hurt the little one, it just happens during the play.

My wife and I were wondering what we “did right”. My theory is that we always showed them respect.

What exactly is respect? Part of it is that we often asked their opinion and then took it into consideration. If we did not take their advice we explained why. When I made mistakes with my kids, I apologized. I let them know that their feelings are important, that I value their feelings and that I was sorry that I had hurt their feelings. And there were times I punished my kids or “forced” them to do things they did not want to do. That is part of parenting. But, again, I made sure they knew that their feelings and opinions were important, but that in this case I had to overrule them.

I guess the simplest way to make a long story short is that I valued my kids and made sure they knew it.

Another VERY important way to model respect for your kids is to respect your spouse. Do you listen to your spouse's opinion? Do you interrupt? Do you help and support your spouse, not only around the house but with their own work?

What is the outcome of all this? I see two outcomes. Firstly, your child will learn to respect others. They will respect their teachers, they will respect other adults, and they will respect their friends. The outcome of this is that all these people will, in turn, respect your child.

But there is a MUCH more important outcome. Your child will have self-respect. A person who has self-respect is positive, pleasant and takes care of themselves. A person with self-respect most likely will not have addiction problems.

Self-respect is so important. Teach your child self-respect by respecting them!

Does Your Child Sit Out Group Activities

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"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?

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“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.

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