Have you ever had your electricity shut off because you forgot to pay the power bill? As the payment date approached did you get a call from the power company reminding you about the due date and telling you what would happen if you didn’t pay the bill? Imagine the following phone conversation between Suzie from the power company and a customer – Mr. Jones: Suzie: Mr. Jones, I was looking at the calendar this morning and I saw that
Some kids are picky eaters. Unless it’s Mac ‘n’ Cheese, a dinner role, or plain cheese pizza, these kids can cry, whine, throw fits, or just simply refuse to eat the food on their plates. After a long day at work or taking care of children, the last thing a parent wants to do is to force their child to eat food that is good for them; not to mention the irritation a parent feels when a child refuses to
School can be very stressful for a parent and for a child. This is especially true if your child is having behavior problems or not doing their school work. It can be a vicious cycle: the child is having a hard time at school, the teacher expresses these concerns to the parent, the parent gets frustrated reacting in a punitive or harsh way and the child continues to do poorly. The first step in breaking the cycle is to take
Have you ever told a child that they did such a good job coloring their picture and then hear the child respond saying, “No I didn’t. I messed up on his nose. I don’t like it.” Why is it some kids argue when their parents try to praise them rather than beam with joy? Well, sometimes, kids can feel insecure about themselves or develop a belief that they are not good at something or even that they are not good
Kids make lots of mistakes. The fact is we as parents make plenty of mistakes as well. As a therapist who works with children and families, I get to spend lots of time working with parents on their reactions to the mistakes their children make. In doing so, I have found that some parents react with an abrupt intensity when their children make mistakes. Unsurprisingly, many of these parents were reacted to in similar ways when they were kids and
A mother recently shared that she was trying to encourage her four children (ages five to eleven) to read by offering to give them a dollar for each book they read. It was working out great until the neighbor offered to pay them to pull his weeds. Because this neighbor liked her boys and wanted to be generous, he paid them each $10 an hour to pull weeds. This experience may not have seemed harmful at first, however, now when
I don’t remember the last time I saw a 12-year-old delivering newspapers on a bike. Nowadays, it seems like newspapers are delivered either by an adult in a car or by a kid being driven by an adult in a car. I don’t mean to criticize. I just miss the days when kids would deliver the newspaper on their bikes, or go door to door with a lawn mower on a Saturday seeing if they could mow a lawn or
So many kids today do not have a very good work ethic. They expect that good things should come to them without much effort on their part. Chores may be one of the greatest things that help kids learn how to make contributions that benefit others. Getting kids to do chores helps them build character and helps them be successful in life and in relationships. So how do we get kids to do chores? Is it possible to get them
Dirty Boy Won’t Shower. One of the couples in the Becoming a Love and Logic Parent class gave a great example of how they set a limit with their 13 year-old son. The mother shared that she and her husband had been asking their son for a few days to take a shower. He would tell them that he would but by the time bed time came around he would slip into bed without having showered. This pattern would repeat
I had a fun time getting to use some Love and Logic parenting skills with my five year-old son, Ezra, the other morning. Ezra is part of a carpool that leaves at 7AM each morning. In order to give him and his sister, Eliza, enough time to get ready, clean their rooms, make their beds, and eat breakfast, I wake them up about 45 minutes before they need to leave and I stay with them to help them through the