Tag Archives: Communication

19Nov 2010

Great parenting tips from The Confident Mom

Today I had the wonderful opportunity of listening to a Confident Mom (@confidentmom, www.theconfidentmom.com) tele summit. Susan Heid gave wonderful tips from her Screamfree parenting approach. I thought I would share my brief notes of my take aways from the summit. For more info or to listen to the tele summit, visit her website or find her on Twitter and Facebook.

1. You can’t control your children- just focus on controlling you!
*You can control your responses to your kids, which will effect how they respond to you!

2. Take a PAUSE! Before you react, pause! (find your pause- everybody’s pause may be different)

3. Self-care is a must! If you don’t take care of yourself, you will feel overwhelmed. Being overwhelmed is a trigger for being reactive to your kids.
* She asked a profound question in response to self-care: What would it really look like if you loved your kids as little as you love yourself?? Wow! Ouch! I need to work on this!

4. Come up with house rules that apply to everyone
*Examples- certain words are not allowed, not hitting etc.
*Come up with 10- print them- list consequences for each broken rule
*When someone breaks a rule, go to the list and show them, initiate the consequence

5. Have a mission statement for parenting your home (I LOVE this one and am going to make this a goal to accomplish)

6. If you sacrifice your marriage for the sake of your kids you will sacrifice both! Enough said, Susan! So true!

7. The greatest lie is that you are responsible for our kids; Parents are not responsible for their kids but TO them. (Please see her website for this. She went into a lot of detail that made sense. I don’t want this taken out of context).
– kids have mind of their own
– need to learn responsibility for themselves
– different at different ages (at 2-still learning-so this will look different)
– when there is an opportunity, give your kids choices to empower them and teach
responsibility

8. You’re #1 role in the family is to be a calming authority.

9. All kids behaviors have a pattern and all patterns require 2 people- check yourself to see what role you play

10. Our biggest enemy as parents- our reactivity. It sets the tone of the environment.

Again, these are my NOTES! Please see her website for more info:
Susan Heid, The Confident Mom http://www.theconfidentmom.com

*Natalie Chandler, MA, LMHC is a therapist at Imagine Hope Counseling Group. Natalie enjoys doing marriage counseling, individual counseling, and couples counseling. We also specialize in family counseling, child, and adolescent counseling. Imagine Hope serves the Indianapolis area including the surrounding areas of Carmel, Fishers, Noblesville, Westfield, and Zionsville.

- Natalie Chandler
Imagine Hope Counseling

27Jan 2010

Communicate with your spouse like you would a 2 year-old!

Yesterday I was at the grocery store with my son, who is almost 2 years old. He was so upset when we were leaving and trying desperately with his little vocabulary to tell me what was wrong. I was trying everything to understand him. I was looking around, asking him questions, and trying to get in his little head for a second to figure out what it was he was wanting.

On the way home I started thinking about the couples I see and also myself in my own marriage. If I would just try that hard to understand my husband when he is trying to communicate something to me! It is easy to get reactive or misunderstand, simply based on our beliefs, our past history, or simply lack of listening closely. I see this all the time in sessions with my couples. I continuously say, “Let’s slow that down and try to get in their shoes and understand what they are trying to say to you.” It is amazing the transformation that can happen in couples when they are able to do this. To really hear and understand each other. Sometimes they still don’t agree but being heard is what really mattered to them.

So the next time you are ready to react, take a deep breath, listen, and try to “get in your partners head” to see where they are coming from. By the way- he wanted an Elmo cookie!!

*Natalie Chandler, MA, LMHC is a therapist at Imagine Hope Counseling Group. Natalie enjoys doing marriage counseling, individual counseling, and couples counseling.  We also specialize in family counseling, child, and adolescent counseling. Imagine Hope serves the Indianapolis area including the surrounding areas of Carmel, Fishers, Noblesville, Westfield, and Zionsville.

14Jul 2009

Do you hear what I hear?

I am amazed as I work with couples in marriage counseling how our perceptions can be so different than reality. I often hear one partner say something to their partner that their partner hears COMPLETELY different than what was said. What we hear comes with so much baggage. What is said goes thru a filter, based on our experiences, and is translated in our minds to mean something that is sometimes different than what was said.  I see it often and it happens often. 

You don’t want to get in the habit of constantly second guessing everything you feel your partner said, but it is healthy when emotions are high and you are having a lot of feelings come up, to simply mirror what you heard your partner say. That way your partner has a chance to tell you if what you heard is what they meant. Try to do it in a non-defensive way. This is an excellent way to keep yourself in check.  Have your partner do the same for you, too.