Parenting by Strengths

Noticing the Little Things

By Mary Ivory

We know that people who score high on gratitude the VIA Signature Strengths Questionnaire report a greater life satisfaction or happiness score. If you have taken this survey, something I encourage older teens and all adults to do, and your gratitude score is not in the Top 10, I suggest to build your skills at being grateful in an effort to increase your over all happiness!  In fact, no matter where you strength of gratitude is, try this simple exercise and see if by the end of 2008 you are a bit more satisfied with how you life is going.

For you and your kids, make a game of this task. Have a small notebook next to your bed. As you settle in for sleep write down the date and three things that were good in the day. They don't have to be big things, it can be "I caught the bus just as it pulled up to the stop" or "I found a lost book (sock or five dollar bill!)".  Or it can be big things like you have a new baby in the family or you bought a new car. What matters in this exercise is that you notice and you jot the items down. Do this 'game' of writing a good thing list for two weeks. By New Years I am confident to guess that you will in practice of a new habit that builds on what we know that works to increase your life satisfaction! I am grateful for my peer coaches and our chance to write on this blog to you! That is a big thing for me!

Coaching And Montessori: Honoring Development

By Steve Coxsey

I arrived at my son’s school late on parents’ night, but I heard most of a presentation about Dr. Maria Montessori’s life and philosophy. I’m no stranger to Dr. Montessori’s ideas and methods – my degrees and experience are in child psychology, development, and education – but I learned some significant things about the principles that guided the development of her educational model.

Dad Backs Off (Recorded in a parenting class)

by Chuck Adam

I like helping parents focus on their listening as a means of helping children. It means you, the parent, have to back off. Instead of trying to pound something into the child’s head, you invite the child to bring whatever is in there out. You have to be patient, back off, and wait till they’re ready. It’s the reverse of what we normally do, how we normally communicate with kids, where we too often boss them around.

Here’s a good example, recorded in one of my parenting classes, of how a father started backing off with his seven-year-old daughter, listening more, and letting her take the lead more. He said he had just recently stopped yelling at her and wasn’t bossing her around any more. Look what happened.

Dad:    Now this is, I was telling everybody, she really had a terrible Wednesday. And when she came home I read her assignment notebook, and there was a letter in there from the teacher saying that she hadn’t listened, and she was....completely didn’t do anything all day long. So when she came home, to make a long story short, we didn’t even get home, and she said, “Daddy, my teacher sent a note home today.” And I said, “Well, what was wrong?” And she wouldn’t tell me. So I just......dropped it. And we got home, and I read this note, and, uh, I said, “Well what do you think we should do about this?”

CA: Beautiful! 

That really WAS beautiful. Dad expressed interest, but when she wouldn’t tell him what went wrong at school, he just dropped it. He invited. She backed off. So he backed off, too. Good move, Dad! Later she brings it up again, which often happens when they don’t feel pressured. Then,

Impact of Depression on Premature Birth

by Cathy Rodrigues
Here is article I found which presents research on the impact of depression on premature birth.  Let me know what you think. The researchers interviewed the mothers around their tenth week of pregnancy and found that 41 percent reported significant or severe depression symptoms. The women that had symptoms that were less severe had a 60 percent higher risk of premature birth when compared with the women without significant symptoms of depression. However, the women that had severe symptoms of depression had more than twice the risk as the other for premature birth.

Talking to Kids about the Economy

by Mary Ivory

This has been a week of historic events. Perhaps you saved the local newspaper declaring the new president and have talked about what this means with your kids. Here in Chicago there has been a spirit of pure joy on each corner as the home town guy is a winner! You have to understand,despite incredible dedication by some, our sports teams are not that good and it seems everyone is enjoying this win.

But as the week has worn on, news of the economy downturn continues and the job loss numbers are up. How do you talk with your kids about what that means to your family? As we strive to be at our best especially as times are more difficult the phase 'parenting by strengths' takes on even more of a powerful tone. This is when our inventory of character strengths can benefit from review to give us the parenting help we need, our resources, to get through with our best foot leading the way. Check out my writing on how to identify your strengths. 

I am always looking for the best resources to tell you about. I suggest you take a look at a short article in the New York Times-- Breaking Financial Bad News to the Children . Here the importance of being honest with your children about money without frightening them is well explored.This is not an easy discussion, but it is a discussion which you can prepare yourself. If you are loosing work or getting laid off now, you know that you are not alone. The financial times we are dealing with will test almost every resolve. If we can use our strengths the times will be open to opportunity also. Reach out to others and get support you need. This is a good time to connect with people who will encourage you. Your comments are always welcomed here! Share what you know.