Search Results for: blog building self discipline in children

Children Who Can’t Trust

When an infant has a need (such as the need for nourishment) which is not met, there is a big emotional response. That’s because the stakes are so great. If the child isn’t nourished, he will die. So he makes his needs known rather dramatically, crying and thrashing about. If this emotional response eventually brings him the sustenance he needs, he begins learning to trust. He discovers that when he is vulnerable, someone in his life will respond lovingly. As the child grows and develops, trust continues to build as the cycle repeats over and over again. For example, the … Continue reading →

Children and Work

Since the lesson in Relief Society a few weeks ago, I have been thinking about the importance of teaching your children to work. I was fortunate enough to be raised with a strong work ethic. I find joy and contentment as I work to accomplish my goals. I have always found satisfaction in doing my best and working on something. In fact it is when I am not accomplishing something, that I feel discontentment. One of my friends and I had a conversation a few years ago about work. She also had a very high work ethic. We both felt … Continue reading →

Self-Respect Verses Self-Esteem

The nurse at my school recently came into each kindergarten class and took the weight and height measurements of the students. She takes these measurements and determines the child’s body-mass index. Parents can use these measurements to determine if their child is over or under weight. Mike Beede, the new governor of Arkansas, says that these types of statements should not be sent home to a child’s family. He concludes that it might lower a child’s self-esteem to determine that he/she is not the appropriate weight for his/her height and age. As our world gets harsher and harder, we are … Continue reading →

Building Self-Discipline In Children

Self-discipline is a trait that many children and adults in today’s world lack. They believe that they deserve what they want when they want it. They aren’t willing to work or wait for the things that they desire. Yet self-discipline or willpower is a trait that is valuable in school (see my blog about how willpower determines grades), work, and personal life. Dr. Cordelia Fine suggests that willpower is a “moral muscle that is flexing and straining as you keep attention focused on a dry academic article, bite back an angry retort to your boss, or decline a helping of … Continue reading →

Positive Parenting Might be your Style

Parents today have a plethora of parenting styles to choose from. Have you figured out what your parenting style is yet? If not, then perhaps Positive Parenting might be your style. Positive Parenting is a style that is intended to lessen stress and form healthier relationships between parents and their children. It is not an authoritarian parenting style. Other phrases that have been used to describe Positive Parenting include: positive discipline, gentle guidance, or loving guidance. Physical punishment, such as spanking, is absolutely not a part of Positive Parenting. It isn’t about “teaching your child a lesson”. Instead, this parenting … Continue reading →

Taming the Preschool Beast

Nothing unleashes a preschooler’s inner beast quite like extracting him from a fun environment without advanced warning. When my daughter was 4 years old she had an epic outburst at a children’s museum in Chicago because I failed to give her proper notification of our departure.  In doing so, I robbed her of the gradual transition I knew she needed in order to calmly exit the building. The fit she threw nearly got us thrown out of the museum. Looking back, my preschooler’s tantrum, which included tossing her shoes down a slide, was simply her way of staying true to … Continue reading →

Praise And Your Toddler

It’s tough work, being a parent. It seems like every other day, I read something that lets me know that I am doing something incorrectly as far as how I have been parenting my little boy. That’s okay, though, I am open to new ideas and to learning which things make sense for me and my family and which ideas are best left to other people and their own families. Today, I read some interesting information about how praising children can do them more harm than good. Until about an hour ago, I was generously doling out praise to Dylan … Continue reading →

It’s Time To Get Mindful

Lately it seems as though my days have been marked by many little incidents where I have become frustrated with my toddler’s behavior. It seems as though I snip and scold and nag him all day long and I do not like it. While I would like to encourage good behavior, I think that I am going about it all wrong. It is time for a new approach, one that is less about constant attempts at discipline and more about finding the joy that I know parenting can be. I think that I have figured out what is missing from … Continue reading →

Clear Expectations

Second marriages can be very rewarding, but it is no secret that second marriages are at a much higher risk of divorce than first marriages. That is a scary statistic for those of us that have been married before. The last thing we would ever want is for our children to go through the trauma of another divorce. So what can we do to help ensure that this marriage is more successful than the first? One of the most important things in a relationship is communication, we’ve all heard this a million times, but there is more to communication than … Continue reading →

We’re Broke! Why Do We Need a Financial Planner? Part 2

Once you have made the commitment to achieving financial independence and have selected your advisor, the next step is the discovery interview. It is at this point that your planner will be attempting to ascertain how you feel about money. While that may sound pretty straightforward, money is a highly charged matter for most of us; it has come to represent many of the key structures of our lives—like security, safety, power, prestige, independence, and even love. In American society, money—how much we have, how we earn it, and how we spend it—has become a stand-in for our moral character. … Continue reading →