All children have Needs and Tasks in their various stages of development.
The details below are roughly from
"How To Get What You Want" p 50 - by John Gray
Conception to birth:
NEED - God's Unconditional Abundant Love
TASK - Foundation for their Life
Birth to seven years:
NEED - Parents Nurturing and Training Love
TASK - Birth and Young Childhood
Seven to fourteen years:
NEED - Fun, Family and Friends' Love
TASK - School Capability
Fourteen to twenty one:
NEED - Love of Peers and Others with Similar Goals
TASK - Hormone Managing
BETTER PARENTING - BE PREPARED: If you fail to plan and prepare, you ARE preparing and planning to fail. I love my four children! I would have liked to parent them better. This is some of what I wish I had been able to know thirty or forty years ago! I hope this helps my younger friends.
Friday, February 27, 2009
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Learning Healthily as I Grow
Here are the developmental stages of your child and what they hopefully are learning as they grow to adulthood:
Prenatal to 1 year -TRUST is what your child needs to learn.
Create an environment in which your child feels:
* My world is a safe enough place for me
* The people around me are worthy enough of my trust
1 - 3 years - Now your child shifts to learning AUTONOMY.
* I am separate from all those around me
* I can do more and more things on my own
3 - 6 years - Time to develop INIATIVE.
Create space in your home to explore and figure out solutions:
* I can make some difference in my world
* I can find ways to solve more of my own problems
6 - 11 years - Time to discover his/her COMPETENCE.
* I really do contribute to my world - I matter!
* Planning and working out my plan makes a difference
* I will become competent in at least one thing that is meaningful to me and some others
12 - 18 years - The IDENTITY years.
Prenatal to 1 year -TRUST is what your child needs to learn.
Create an environment in which your child feels:
* My world is a safe enough place for me
* The people around me are worthy enough of my trust
1 - 3 years - Now your child shifts to learning AUTONOMY.
Hopefully your environment allows him/her to know deeply:
* My world is a nice (enough) place to be* I am separate from all those around me
* I can do more and more things on my own
3 - 6 years - Time to develop INIATIVE.
Create space in your home to explore and figure out solutions:
* I can make some difference in my world
* I can find ways to solve more of my own problems
6 - 11 years - Time to discover his/her COMPETENCE.
* I really do contribute to my world - I matter!
* Planning and working out my plan makes a difference
* I will become competent in at least one thing that is meaningful to me and some others
12 - 18 years - The IDENTITY years.
These are some of the things your teenager needs to be able to say internally
* I am unique, special, irreplacable and significant
* I increasingly discover who I am, and who I am not
* I make choices as to what I will do, and what I will not do
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Devastating Messages
Don’t feel - Stop crying! You big baby.
Don’t want - That’s more than you can ever get.
Don’t be sane - How can you think that? You’re crazy!
Don’t enjoy - What’s so funny? Stop laughing.
Don’t belong - Go to your room. You can’t join that club.
You’re the odd one out in our family.
Don’t try - You can’t do that. Why would you think you can?…
Don’t be strong - Well, who do you think you are? Big stuff?
Don’t make it - You’ll never do it/be able to do it/This is too hard for you/You’ll never be able to finish.
Don’t be male/female - I wish you were a boy/girl. Calling a person “it”.
Don’t think - (If you think, you will see how I (drink) too much).
Don’t be the age you are - I wish you were (younger) or (older).
Don’t grow up - I like you small. I liked you when you were little.
Don’t be close - Get away from me/her/him. Go away!
Don’t be you - Why can’t you be like your sister/brother?
Don’t be (Don’t exist) - I wish you were dead/I’m sorry you were ever born. You were a mistake. Drop dead.
Please others - Say ‘please/thank you’. What will others think?
Be perfect - Why haven’t you got all A’s? You got that wrong! You always make a mistake!
Hurry up - Quickly! We haven’t got time for you to dawdle again. You are so slow!
Be strong - Of course you can do that – don’t be a weakling.
Better Messages:
What makes you happy? I’m glad. Living means we need some skill – maybe this will help…
What do you have trouble with? Do you need any help from me? Who may be able to help?
It’s OK to feel the way you do now. I can understand why you would feel that way about this.
I love the age you are. I loved you younger. When you are older I will love you that age too.
I love having you share my life/in our family. Thank you for being in our family/group.
We have time today, let’s talk. Another time we might need to rush.
You are doing fine just the way you are. Keep it up. I am part of your cheering section.
Well done. What have you learned? Will you do it the same next time?
Don’t want - That’s more than you can ever get.
Don’t be sane - How can you think that? You’re crazy!
Don’t enjoy - What’s so funny? Stop laughing.
Don’t belong - Go to your room. You can’t join that club.
You’re the odd one out in our family.
Don’t try - You can’t do that. Why would you think you can?…
Don’t be strong - Well, who do you think you are? Big stuff?
Don’t make it - You’ll never do it/be able to do it/This is too hard for you/You’ll never be able to finish.
Don’t be male/female - I wish you were a boy/girl. Calling a person “it”.
Don’t think - (If you think, you will see how I (drink) too much).
Don’t be the age you are - I wish you were (younger) or (older).
Don’t grow up - I like you small. I liked you when you were little.
Don’t be close - Get away from me/her/him. Go away!
Don’t be you - Why can’t you be like your sister/brother?
Don’t be (Don’t exist) - I wish you were dead/I’m sorry you were ever born. You were a mistake. Drop dead.
Please others - Say ‘please/thank you’. What will others think?
Be perfect - Why haven’t you got all A’s? You got that wrong! You always make a mistake!
Hurry up - Quickly! We haven’t got time for you to dawdle again. You are so slow!
Be strong - Of course you can do that – don’t be a weakling.
Better Messages:
What makes you happy? I’m glad. Living means we need some skill – maybe this will help…
What do you have trouble with? Do you need any help from me? Who may be able to help?
It’s OK to feel the way you do now. I can understand why you would feel that way about this.
I love the age you are. I loved you younger. When you are older I will love you that age too.
I love having you share my life/in our family. Thank you for being in our family/group.
We have time today, let’s talk. Another time we might need to rush.
You are doing fine just the way you are. Keep it up. I am part of your cheering section.
Well done. What have you learned? Will you do it the same next time?
Monday, February 2, 2009
Conflict - Learn to "Fight Fair"
Let go of your habitual unfair fighting styles:
Swallowing your gripes, then dumping them all at once – “kitchen-sink-ing” X
Playing Prosecutor or Interrogator or Persecutor X
Getting too intense X
Waving off, or dismissing as “not that big a deal”, the other’s grievances X
Trying to Win at all costs. Succeeding in winning is even more devastating X
Not letting the other know you love him/her X
Getting defensive. Withdrawing, crumbling, trying to defend yourself X
Getting aggressive. Being critical, fault-finding, hurtfully-jabbing, nasty, ridiculing, sarcastic, mocking, contemptuous, rude, disrespectful, unmannerly X
“Naming, blaming and/or shaming” of self or other X
“When someone is hostile, my instinct is to find out why.” – Cynthia Cooper
(When I am hostile, time to go searching inside me, past, present and future, for where this anger comes from.)
“You can get away with bad fighting habits for only so long. Once you are faced with a major crisis, if you haven’t developed good problem-solving skills, you’ll be at greater risk of troubles with your relationship.” - Sybil Carrere
“Often what you are arguing about on the surface isn’t really what the fight is about.”
- Sybil Carrere
“Although your anger feels real, it’s only temporary.” – Renee Bacher
“When you find yourself saying ‘Yes, but…’ it’s a sign that you’ve slammed your mind shut to what the other person has just said.” – Renee Bacher
“You have a choice every time you say something to each other. You can choose: to tear down your relationship or you can nurture it.” - Sybil Carrere
“Ask yourself ‘Would I talk to my best friend or my boss the way I am about to speak to my child?’ Then choose your words carefully.” - Sybil Carrere
Thank you: Cynthia Cooper, Sybil Carrere, Renee Bacher - RD - Oct 2003 p62, T - Dec 2002 p 51
Some Well Documented Better Strategies for : “Fighting Fair”:
1. Talk, talk, talk. If the situation gets ugly or unfruitful, take a ‘time-out’. Do some ‘weeding’ of your own resentments and bitterness’s and other bad habits. Talk again – as soon as you both can. “It is better to debate an issue and not settle it than to settle an issue and not debate it”.
2. Try until you succeed. Accurately get to understanding your own, and the other’s, feelings, significance, and point of view. This may take years.
3. Be increasingly sensitive and honest about your own and the other’s feelings and hidden agendas – work gently and respectfully, respectably. Develop a genuine interest in your own and the other’s feelings and point of view.
4. Come clean. Your true cause and motive for your feud? Seek the other’s deep reasons for the conflict. “What am I/are you afraid of?” “What might be the fear?”
5. Ask yourself (and maybe the other) “Is this productive?” “Now?”
6. Stick to the point at hand. If you want to discuss other things, do it later.
7. Try something (anything!) different – get out of your ‘repetitive cycles’ and unproductive patterns “If you keep on doing what you have always done, you will keep on getting what you have always got”.
8. Stay connected. Get connected again, when you can, if your ‘connection’ has frayed. Introduce some positives, and make some ‘deposits’ into your relationship.
9. Find ways to nurture your relationship mid-dispute, creatively.
10. Let your child know by your big and small actions, between disputes, how much they are genuinely respected, cared about, listened to, loved.
11. After discussion, find Compromises that please you both – keep working toward compromises – however long it takes
12. Co-exist (“agree to disagree, agreeably”) for as long as you have to
13. Collaborate more and more – celebrate your differences. Make them work increasingly FOR you instead of AGAINST you – turn your defeats into victories. “Two heads are better than one.” “We are a magnificent team.”
14. Work towards WIN/WIN situations and let go of the lose/win and the win/lose. These are usually personal and relationship losses.
15. Keep conflict-avoidance to a minimum. Have regular, small, gentle clean-outs of ‘issues’. “How are you doing? Do we have anything to clear up?”
16. Promise yourself not to dismiss gripes “If this is important to you, it’s important to me too. I want to understand you and how this looks to you.”
17. Take a breather. Rephrase. What are you hearing? Work on your own approach. If you get stuck the same way, over and over, ask someone you trust and respect for some ideas. Keep searching until you find what works for you.
18. Cultivate your own problem-solving, mild, appropriate sense of humour.
19. Breathe deeply, regularly. Strong emotions need lots of oxygenated blood flowing to the body and brain-in-stress.
20. GROW UP – Get Rid Of (your own) Weaknesses - Under Pressure. (Steadily, forever.)
Swallowing your gripes, then dumping them all at once – “kitchen-sink-ing” X
Playing Prosecutor or Interrogator or Persecutor X
Getting too intense X
Waving off, or dismissing as “not that big a deal”, the other’s grievances X
Trying to Win at all costs. Succeeding in winning is even more devastating X
Not letting the other know you love him/her X
Getting defensive. Withdrawing, crumbling, trying to defend yourself X
Getting aggressive. Being critical, fault-finding, hurtfully-jabbing, nasty, ridiculing, sarcastic, mocking, contemptuous, rude, disrespectful, unmannerly X
“Naming, blaming and/or shaming” of self or other X
“When someone is hostile, my instinct is to find out why.” – Cynthia Cooper
(When I am hostile, time to go searching inside me, past, present and future, for where this anger comes from.)
“You can get away with bad fighting habits for only so long. Once you are faced with a major crisis, if you haven’t developed good problem-solving skills, you’ll be at greater risk of troubles with your relationship.” - Sybil Carrere
“Often what you are arguing about on the surface isn’t really what the fight is about.”
- Sybil Carrere
“Although your anger feels real, it’s only temporary.” – Renee Bacher
“When you find yourself saying ‘Yes, but…’ it’s a sign that you’ve slammed your mind shut to what the other person has just said.” – Renee Bacher
“You have a choice every time you say something to each other. You can choose: to tear down your relationship or you can nurture it.” - Sybil Carrere
“Ask yourself ‘Would I talk to my best friend or my boss the way I am about to speak to my child?’ Then choose your words carefully.” - Sybil Carrere
Thank you: Cynthia Cooper, Sybil Carrere, Renee Bacher - RD - Oct 2003 p62, T - Dec 2002 p 51
Some Well Documented Better Strategies for : “Fighting Fair”:
1. Talk, talk, talk. If the situation gets ugly or unfruitful, take a ‘time-out’. Do some ‘weeding’ of your own resentments and bitterness’s and other bad habits. Talk again – as soon as you both can. “It is better to debate an issue and not settle it than to settle an issue and not debate it”.
2. Try until you succeed. Accurately get to understanding your own, and the other’s, feelings, significance, and point of view. This may take years.
3. Be increasingly sensitive and honest about your own and the other’s feelings and hidden agendas – work gently and respectfully, respectably. Develop a genuine interest in your own and the other’s feelings and point of view.
4. Come clean. Your true cause and motive for your feud? Seek the other’s deep reasons for the conflict. “What am I/are you afraid of?” “What might be the fear?”
5. Ask yourself (and maybe the other) “Is this productive?” “Now?”
6. Stick to the point at hand. If you want to discuss other things, do it later.
7. Try something (anything!) different – get out of your ‘repetitive cycles’ and unproductive patterns “If you keep on doing what you have always done, you will keep on getting what you have always got”.
8. Stay connected. Get connected again, when you can, if your ‘connection’ has frayed. Introduce some positives, and make some ‘deposits’ into your relationship.
9. Find ways to nurture your relationship mid-dispute, creatively.
10. Let your child know by your big and small actions, between disputes, how much they are genuinely respected, cared about, listened to, loved.
11. After discussion, find Compromises that please you both – keep working toward compromises – however long it takes
12. Co-exist (“agree to disagree, agreeably”) for as long as you have to
13. Collaborate more and more – celebrate your differences. Make them work increasingly FOR you instead of AGAINST you – turn your defeats into victories. “Two heads are better than one.” “We are a magnificent team.”
14. Work towards WIN/WIN situations and let go of the lose/win and the win/lose. These are usually personal and relationship losses.
15. Keep conflict-avoidance to a minimum. Have regular, small, gentle clean-outs of ‘issues’. “How are you doing? Do we have anything to clear up?”
16. Promise yourself not to dismiss gripes “If this is important to you, it’s important to me too. I want to understand you and how this looks to you.”
17. Take a breather. Rephrase. What are you hearing? Work on your own approach. If you get stuck the same way, over and over, ask someone you trust and respect for some ideas. Keep searching until you find what works for you.
18. Cultivate your own problem-solving, mild, appropriate sense of humour.
19. Breathe deeply, regularly. Strong emotions need lots of oxygenated blood flowing to the body and brain-in-stress.
20. GROW UP – Get Rid Of (your own) Weaknesses - Under Pressure. (Steadily, forever.)
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