My Parents Don’t Trust Me!

Helping kids establish (or re-establish) trust with parents Excerpted and adapted from High School’s Not Forever by Dr. Jane Bluestein and Eric Katz, MSAC (2005, Health Communications, Inc, Deerfield Beach, FL). This piece was written for teens and young people, and is included on this site for parents, teachers, counselors, coaches, and others who work with…

Tired of Nagging Your Kids?

Here’s What you Can Do Instead You’ve probably heard them all. “Awww, Mom!!” “Do I have to.” Or my all-time favorite, “You can’t make me!” Or maybe your kids’ routines are more along the lines of pouting, arguing, ignoring you (or agreeing and then ignoring you). Either way, in the day-to-day dealings with children, there…

Stress-Producing Obstacles in Relationships

Patterns to avoid Want to reduce conflict, pain, and alienation in relationships with the important people in your life? Here are some of the patterns that make connecting difficult. (Some suggestions for resolution below.) • Needing to be in charge or in control, especially when it depends on disempowering or controlling others, or when it disregards…

Checklist: Characteristics of Healthy Parent-Child Relationships

Evaluate your relationships Use this checklist to evaluate patterns in your current relationships with the children in your life (or even other adults in your life). If you have implemented a specific discipline or motivation approach, does it encourage relationships in which the following are true? Proactivity: ___ I focus on prevention–not reaction. ___ I…

9 Ways to be More Proactive

Thinking ahead, avoiding problems • Write down your parenting goals. Be specific about behaviors, principles and long-term outcomes that are important to you. It’s easier to anticipate, plan and prevent problems when you know what you’re trying to achieve! • Involve your children in discussions of your family’s goals, values and priorities. • Review your parenting goals…

How Do You Parent?

Noticing patterns in parenting styles Let’s examine your current parenting patterns and values. In each pair of statements, mark the one that you identify with most strongly, the one that “feels” most like you. ___ I respect the fact that my child has different tastes than I do. ___ I am often embarrassed by my…

Presentation: Win-Win Parenting

A comprehensive and positive approach for parents and caregivers Formerly called Parents in a Pressure Cooker, this program offers dozens of practical, positive, and effective strategies to help parents build kids’ cooperation, responsibility, and self-management in a caring, mutually-respectful, win-win environment.

Curfew Blues?

Time to Agree about Time Do you get pushback from your kids when you try to enforce a curfew time? If so, you’re in good company. This is an area of conflict for many families and very often, the automatic response to a child’s negative response—whether sulking, arguing, complaining, or flat-out defiance—tends to result in

Good Parenting or Effective Parenting?

What is the Difference? Good parents control their children. Right? When a child is throwing a temper tantrum at the supermarket, everyone is thinking, “If they were good parents, they’d control that kid!” Well, perhaps not everyone thinks that, but when it’s our child and we are the ones on center stage, it usually feels…

Is Control the Goal? with Tammy Cox

The high price of trying to control children Episode Summary: Power is an intrinsic need we all have from day one! When it comes to adult-child relationships, power struggles are consistently at the top of the list. We all know that kids need limits and structure to grow into responsible adults, but there is also an…