Be willing to be flexible while correcting your child. Punishments handed out while feeling frustration or anger are usually overreactions to how we are feeling in the moment.
© 2008 by Tara Paterson, ACPI CCPI
All Rights Reserved
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Monday, March 24, 2008
Shift Your Emotions
When you are feeling emotional upset within yourself, acknowledge the emotion and shift the feeling before you interact with your child. We all feel anger and frustration at times, but just as we teach our children not to take out their frustrations on things, animals, or people; neither should we.
© 2008 by Tara Paterson, ACPI CCPI
All Rights Reserved
© 2008 by Tara Paterson, ACPI CCPI
All Rights Reserved
Friday, March 21, 2008
Reconnect With Your Child
Be willing to acknowledge, accept, and apologize for overreacting in a situation with your child. When you are willing to admit you are wrong, you show your child how to correct their own mistakes. They will respect your authority when they are doing something inappropriate.
© 2008 by Tara Paterson, ACPI CCPI
All Rights Reserved
© 2008 by Tara Paterson, ACPI CCPI
All Rights Reserved
Monday, March 17, 2008
Trust your feelings about how to parent your child
“A mother understands what a child does not say.” –Jewish Proverb
Trusting your feeling when it comes to your child is the soundest advice anyone can give to a parent, because the truth is, there are no experts, only people who can offer you advice. The expert truly is you and every child is unique in their experience. Many parents with multiple children see evidence of this in the differences between each child. As different as they are with their looks, they have different personalities, temperaments, strengths, weaknesses, likes, dislikes… you get the idea. As different as each child is, so is the advice you would need from a resource outside of yourself. The good news is you have a built in mechanism which if paid attention to, can offer you advice in any situation you find yourself in with your child. The mechanism I am referring to is your intuition; that inner knowing or nudge you feel when you are faced with a situation you are seeking an answer for.
©2008 by Tara Paterson, (excerpt from Parenting Well Using Your Intuition),
All Rights Reserved
Trusting your feeling when it comes to your child is the soundest advice anyone can give to a parent, because the truth is, there are no experts, only people who can offer you advice. The expert truly is you and every child is unique in their experience. Many parents with multiple children see evidence of this in the differences between each child. As different as they are with their looks, they have different personalities, temperaments, strengths, weaknesses, likes, dislikes… you get the idea. As different as each child is, so is the advice you would need from a resource outside of yourself. The good news is you have a built in mechanism which if paid attention to, can offer you advice in any situation you find yourself in with your child. The mechanism I am referring to is your intuition; that inner knowing or nudge you feel when you are faced with a situation you are seeking an answer for.
©2008 by Tara Paterson, (excerpt from Parenting Well Using Your Intuition),
All Rights Reserved
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Parenting Well Using Your Intuition
We become dependent on too many resources outside of ourselves for guidance on parenting. We look to the latest books, advice from experts, family, friends, church, community, web sites, media, etc. What about finding your own inner knowing about how to parent your child? It is my intention to empower you as a parent to trust your feelings and intuition when it comes to raising your child.
I have always taken my role as a mom seriously. I have three children- a son (10), a son (6), and a daughter (2) and have been married for eleven years. It was important for me to be at home with my children, because it was the experience I had growing up and one I valued. I knew however, I needed to find a way to keep my heart’s passion burning or what would I have when my kid’s grew up and left home? I believe it’s much harder for parents to allow their children to grow naturally into who they are meant to become when they haven’t yet figured it out for themselves.
Through receiving my parent coach certification, I became aware of how much of our parenting style we inherit from our own parents without fully realizing some of the techniques we use are outdated for the time in which we live. This is where our intuition becomes vital in how we interact with our children. By uncovering some of the clutter we have carried over from our own upbringing, we can become fully present to the feeling or nudge within ourselves which act as a guide for how to parent our child. By using the techniques I will share in the coming weeks, I hope to empower each parent to create connected and loving families, while strengthening their own inner knowing about how to handle each situation they find themselves in with their child.
Enjoy! ~ Tara Paterson, ACPI CCPI, 2008
I have always taken my role as a mom seriously. I have three children- a son (10), a son (6), and a daughter (2) and have been married for eleven years. It was important for me to be at home with my children, because it was the experience I had growing up and one I valued. I knew however, I needed to find a way to keep my heart’s passion burning or what would I have when my kid’s grew up and left home? I believe it’s much harder for parents to allow their children to grow naturally into who they are meant to become when they haven’t yet figured it out for themselves.
Through receiving my parent coach certification, I became aware of how much of our parenting style we inherit from our own parents without fully realizing some of the techniques we use are outdated for the time in which we live. This is where our intuition becomes vital in how we interact with our children. By uncovering some of the clutter we have carried over from our own upbringing, we can become fully present to the feeling or nudge within ourselves which act as a guide for how to parent our child. By using the techniques I will share in the coming weeks, I hope to empower each parent to create connected and loving families, while strengthening their own inner knowing about how to handle each situation they find themselves in with their child.
Enjoy! ~ Tara Paterson, ACPI CCPI, 2008
Thursday, March 6, 2008
When Are We Good Enough
As a certified parent coach and a mom of three children of my own, the question always comes up "am I good parent?" "Why don't I trust myself and what if I am doing it all wrong!" Unfortunately, we don't come with a handbook for how to parent and as different as you and I are, so are each of our kids.
Over the years, I have found I was much harder on my oldest son than I am on my younger two. I guess it could be mainly because their temperments and styles are each different. My oldest son is driven, persistent, overbearing at times; all the qualities I am pleased he will have as an adult, but sometimes it works against us and in my human moments, I am sometimes left questioning myself too. My younger children don't test the boundaries as much so it would appear they don't tempt fate as often.
We do the best we know how to do at the time and the greatest gift we can give ourselves is the gift of trusting our skills and when we think we are doing it all wrong, remember we were given our children for a reason and all we can do is love ourselves enough to trust the outcome!
Over the years, I have found I was much harder on my oldest son than I am on my younger two. I guess it could be mainly because their temperments and styles are each different. My oldest son is driven, persistent, overbearing at times; all the qualities I am pleased he will have as an adult, but sometimes it works against us and in my human moments, I am sometimes left questioning myself too. My younger children don't test the boundaries as much so it would appear they don't tempt fate as often.
We do the best we know how to do at the time and the greatest gift we can give ourselves is the gift of trusting our skills and when we think we are doing it all wrong, remember we were given our children for a reason and all we can do is love ourselves enough to trust the outcome!
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
I Lost It
I pride myself on being an intuitive parent- present, empathetic to my children's needs; void of taking things personally; relatively non-emotional, but tonight I lost it. I flat out lost it with my oldest son. He is entering the pre-adolescent time of his life or "tween" years and he is beginning to develop feelings for girls. Well, one girl in particular.
Adam has adored Heather since first grade. I would say one year is a crush, but to have affection for a girl for four years is much more than a simple crush- it's puppy love. We have worked hard to nurture his heart and encourage the normal feelings to flow so when he asked if he could give her a Christmas gift, we agreed; when he expressed his desire to buy her a Valentine's gift, again we agreed; we even agreed to a birthday gift. When he asked if he could ask her out (because all of his friends were asking girls out), my husband had a conversation with her dad.
Her father confessed there was nothing about our son he could find fault with. He genuinely likes everything about him and allows only our son to call his daughter; so when we asked whether he would mind if Adam asked Heather out, he was okay with it (supervised of course). I had different feelings about it however. Heather is a very shy, private girl with interest in gymnastics and studying hard to keep up her grades. My intuition tells me she is not at all ready to think about boys. We shared this with Adam and encouraged him to develop a stronger friendship first and see what the summer brings.
Score:
Parents 0
Peers 1
He called and asked her if she would go out with him. She responded with "I don't know." Not really the answer a young boy wants to hear. To make matters worse, everyone in school is now discussing the turn of events as gossip runs the mill. The rumors he is hearing- she doesn't want to go out with him.
So how did I lose my cool and what caused me to lose my temper?
Adam is a sensitive, but behavioral child. He acts out his frustration through his physical being. The hurt he is feeling has caused a well of emotion to spring forth which he has decided to take out on his younger brother and sister. Though we have made several attempts to discuss how he is feeling about the situation, he continued to show aggression toward his siblings. The challenge soon became how to help him manage his emotions while at the same time managing my own.
I sent him to his room to decompress and separate him from his brother. I joined him to discuss his feelings and talk through the emotion. He shed some tears, said he felt better and came down for dinner. The talk didn't seem to have done much as he preceded to antagonize his brother yet again. This went on for an hour as he was sent upstairs a second time to work through his aggression.
This parenting thing is not easy, especially as we begin to deal with real emotions and matters of the heart. We apply several techniques in situations like this from deep breathing; to talking through the emotion; and even writing our feelings out on paper, but tonight I experienced an even more intense energy which will require more from my parenting intuition. Stay tuned as the story unfolds!
© 2008 by Tara Paterson, ACPI CCPI
All Rights Reserved
Adam has adored Heather since first grade. I would say one year is a crush, but to have affection for a girl for four years is much more than a simple crush- it's puppy love. We have worked hard to nurture his heart and encourage the normal feelings to flow so when he asked if he could give her a Christmas gift, we agreed; when he expressed his desire to buy her a Valentine's gift, again we agreed; we even agreed to a birthday gift. When he asked if he could ask her out (because all of his friends were asking girls out), my husband had a conversation with her dad.
Her father confessed there was nothing about our son he could find fault with. He genuinely likes everything about him and allows only our son to call his daughter; so when we asked whether he would mind if Adam asked Heather out, he was okay with it (supervised of course). I had different feelings about it however. Heather is a very shy, private girl with interest in gymnastics and studying hard to keep up her grades. My intuition tells me she is not at all ready to think about boys. We shared this with Adam and encouraged him to develop a stronger friendship first and see what the summer brings.
Score:
Parents 0
Peers 1
He called and asked her if she would go out with him. She responded with "I don't know." Not really the answer a young boy wants to hear. To make matters worse, everyone in school is now discussing the turn of events as gossip runs the mill. The rumors he is hearing- she doesn't want to go out with him.
So how did I lose my cool and what caused me to lose my temper?
Adam is a sensitive, but behavioral child. He acts out his frustration through his physical being. The hurt he is feeling has caused a well of emotion to spring forth which he has decided to take out on his younger brother and sister. Though we have made several attempts to discuss how he is feeling about the situation, he continued to show aggression toward his siblings. The challenge soon became how to help him manage his emotions while at the same time managing my own.
I sent him to his room to decompress and separate him from his brother. I joined him to discuss his feelings and talk through the emotion. He shed some tears, said he felt better and came down for dinner. The talk didn't seem to have done much as he preceded to antagonize his brother yet again. This went on for an hour as he was sent upstairs a second time to work through his aggression.
This parenting thing is not easy, especially as we begin to deal with real emotions and matters of the heart. We apply several techniques in situations like this from deep breathing; to talking through the emotion; and even writing our feelings out on paper, but tonight I experienced an even more intense energy which will require more from my parenting intuition. Stay tuned as the story unfolds!
© 2008 by Tara Paterson, ACPI CCPI
All Rights Reserved
Intuitive Recall
I have always been a very sensitive person. As a child, I can remember reference to it as though there was something wrong with me- "oh, you're so sensitive or too sensitive," or "you don't have to make such a big deal about everything..."
Can you remember people saying things like this to you?
I guess when these things are said to you enough; you begin to shut down the sensitive- feeling side of yourself, because it hurts too much.
It wasn't until I became a parent and realized my own children's sensitivities that I began to discover this is a very real part of some people's core being, it's who we are. It's actually what being intuitive in this world means for us- being sensitive and not being understood by the world around us. So I would start by discarding things that were said to me and made a vow not to say such things to my kids. I made the commitment to become an intuitive parent for my children- one they could trust and be who they were meant to be with.
I recall several experiences when I was a child of being accused of lying. It devastated me as a child, because I was not a liar and most often was accused of being dishonest at times I wasn't doing anything wrong. When my oldest son was around the age of 7, I can remember accusing him of lying about something while he emphatically stated he wasn't lying and it occurred to me- I was doing to him exactly what was done to me! So I apologized to him and we had a conversation about how the same thing had been done to me and I made a commitment not to do it to him. Big points for mom let me tell you!
If you remember some of these experiences from your own childhood, I welcome you to share your stories with this intuitive blog. You're not alone and together we can bring consciousness to parenting by using our intuition.
© 2008 by Tara Paterson, ACPI CCPI
All Rights Reserved
Can you remember people saying things like this to you?
I guess when these things are said to you enough; you begin to shut down the sensitive- feeling side of yourself, because it hurts too much.
It wasn't until I became a parent and realized my own children's sensitivities that I began to discover this is a very real part of some people's core being, it's who we are. It's actually what being intuitive in this world means for us- being sensitive and not being understood by the world around us. So I would start by discarding things that were said to me and made a vow not to say such things to my kids. I made the commitment to become an intuitive parent for my children- one they could trust and be who they were meant to be with.
I recall several experiences when I was a child of being accused of lying. It devastated me as a child, because I was not a liar and most often was accused of being dishonest at times I wasn't doing anything wrong. When my oldest son was around the age of 7, I can remember accusing him of lying about something while he emphatically stated he wasn't lying and it occurred to me- I was doing to him exactly what was done to me! So I apologized to him and we had a conversation about how the same thing had been done to me and I made a commitment not to do it to him. Big points for mom let me tell you!
If you remember some of these experiences from your own childhood, I welcome you to share your stories with this intuitive blog. You're not alone and together we can bring consciousness to parenting by using our intuition.
© 2008 by Tara Paterson, ACPI CCPI
All Rights Reserved
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