All Episodes

       No, it's not a maybe, surely not a hope-they-won't. Teenage rebellion is a developmental imperative. In your child's young life, he goes from parents being the best thing since sliced bread, up to age 10. From ages 10-12, the jury's out. In adolescence, children forge their own direction, on their own, but with your help. Their rebellion is the source of their individual identity. It's what makes them different from you and who they are. So, help them with guidance and supervision, but let them be who they are becoming. Catch them when they fall, and give them as much freedom as they demonstrate responsibilty. Your reward is their becoming an independent, responsible, socially conscious young adult.

Yep. We all have hormones. While teenage girls get all the bad press, boys, girls, men, and women all have hormones. They help regulate our bodies and prepare us for change, both physically and emotionally. When raging hormones are evident, use your active listening to lower the emotional fever and then problem solve together

Goldilocks had it right when she went into the Three Bears home. She was hungry and tasted the three bowls of porridge. One was too hot, one too cold, only the last one was just right. Authoritative parents are too hot. It's my way or the highway. They parent by fear and the relationship with their children is lost. Permissive parents are too cold. Allowing their children to get away with misbehavior, after all, kids will be kids, sends a message of entitlement. I can do what I want, and with no consequences. To these kids, their parents are only a means to an end, still with no meaningful relationship. Mindful parenting is just right. We find an understanding of needs and feelings for both parents and their children, engage in meaningful problem-solving with both reward and consequence, maintaining accountability and supervision without sacrificing relationship. With mindful parenting, there are lots of relationship-building teachable moments.

Moods come and go. We don't like it when our child is in a mood, but we deal with it. "This isn't like you. What else is going on here?" is a great way to start active listening her. If it's attitude or disrespect, confrontation and consequences may be in order. Symptoms, however, are more enduring and require more time and attention. The 6-8 week rule helps determine whether she is in a mood or has a symptom.

A round tuit is a play on words that can help your child motivate the "do I hafta's?" to "get it done." Sometimes our kids get stuck in bad behavior. Use your best active listening to help bring his emotional fever down. Then ask permission to offer some solutions. Work together on finding rewards and consequences to help him make the necessary changes. The round tuit is a fun way to help him stay on task and make the necessary changes.

Did you know that stress can be both good and bad? When something good happens, it can be just as stressful as when something bad happens. Allow for either kind of stress, especially when in transition. Transitional times, in and of themselves, are stressful for your kids. When you ask them to change their focus, give them a ten minute heads-up to adjust for the stress of change. Stress is a part of our lives, but they, too, can fuel teachable moments.

You know what? Stuff happens. The question is, what do you do with that stuff? When something bad happens, turn it into something good. The tool for that magic is cognitive reframe. When things aren't working well for your child, that's indication that he has an emotional fever. What to do to help? Use your active listening. When their fever is down, they will be better able to tackle their problem. Offer help if you can, but only with their permission and after their emotional fever subsides. That's when they will be able to listen well. When they succeed in overcoming their problem, heap praises on them for sticking to it and getting through it. Use cognitive reframing to provide them with a teachable moment. See what you can do when you stick your mind to it?

No parent likes to confront their child. No child likes to be confronted. And yet, in healthy relationships, confrontation needs to happen. It's when your child needs correction, admonition, and a reminder to share the load. Effective confronting happens with love and respect. Yelling will get you compliance, but not love and respect. Avoiding confrontation begs the question, "Who's in Charge?" When you confront, prepare for blowback. Use active listening to lower your child's fuss level and then return to the confrontation. Be sure to praise your child when she follows through with your direction. Effective confrontation can nurture love and respect, while also providing a teachable moment.

I can't think of any child who dives into chores gleefully. Yet, we all have to do things that we don't want to do. For children, that's magnified because, by definition, children will always test the limits. Using communication strategies identified in my book, Teachable Moments: Building Blocks of Christian Parenting, you can help your child turn those onerous have-to's into want-to's.

Many parents outright bribe their kids to "be good." Kids will take the bribe but not necessarily follow through with being good. They are not invested in the process. Effective behavior management tools include using The Good Kid Chart. Here, your child invests in the process, as you define what they are working on and they give you reasonable requests for daily and weekly reward for their efforts. It's a win-win system that both provides your child with a teachable moment and also helps them grow "in the ways of the Lord." You maintain parental authority. They engage in positive character development.

Just as our children reach certain developmental stages as they grow older, so too do us parents, depending on your child's stage of development. When they are totally helpless, we do for them, Hands-On Parenting. When we are helping them learn boundaries and relationships, we enter the Directive Stage of parenting. After they have developed the capacity for abstract thinking, but don't quite "know it all," we offer Advice-Based Parenting. Finally, as they reach adulthood and are in charge of their own lives, we offer Consultative Parenting. It's critical that your stage matches the developmental stage of your child. Yes, we parents go through stages of parenting if we are to be effective in raising our children.

When your children are upset, address their feelings with active listening to lower their emotional fever. When they are calmer, look for a teachable moment in their concern. Finding teachable moments in everyday time together both increases the emotional intimacy in your family and also helps turn events from surviving to thriving.

Raising your kids is the toughest job for which most parents are not prepared to do. Balancing the endless demands of childhood with the rest of your live is quite a challenge. Learning to delegate to your "village" and finding "me-time" in the mayhem, gives you the balance to take care of yourself and your kids. In Matthew 22:29, Jesus calls the second greatest commandment to "love one another as you love yourself." Taking care of your needs, through delegating and me-time, creates quality parenting for your kids.

Do we want power or relationship with our kids? When you come off as dominant, my way or the highway, you parent by fear, not by relationship. When you are too submissive and buddy buddy, you do so much for your child that they never learn how to do for themselves. As a benevolent despot, you have the earned authority of relationship, without having to use raw power, you direct the family according to everyone's needs and feelings, and you teach your children how to do for themselves.

Family meetings can be a great way to get everyone involved, and invested in, planning things the family does together. It could be the mundane, like dividing up a chore list, or the exciting, like planning a family vacation. As parents use active listening, productive confronting, and a big dose of pride and encouragement, everybody contributes and each comes away with something that works for them.