Tag Archive for self-image

Hide-N-Seek with a Twist

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What do you get when you cross hide-n-seek with a treasure hunt? A fun family activity entitled “Hide-N-Seek with a Twist.” (I know the title is not all that exciting, but the activity is a blast!) This family activity involves hiding, finding, and the treasure of affirmations. Here is how it works.

  1. male and female children playing hide and seekEach family member writes 2-4 affirmations (one sentence long) for each family member. You may have to help younger children with this step. Mom can help young children write for Dad and Dad can help them write for Mom. Keeps these affirmations a secret, a surprise. Affirmations may include statements like: “You are beautiful.” “I appreciate your helpfulness around the house.” “You’re effort in learning piano is really paying off. I love to listen to you.” “I appreciate your work with the children at church.” You get the idea.

 

  1. Each family member spends the evening hiding their affirmation notes. Be creative in your hiding places. Slip some into lunch boxes, school books, pack backs, purses, or briefcases. You can even hide some among the cereal, the silverware, in the car, or under their pillow. Be creative.

 

  1. Label an envelope for each family member. Pick a common area in your house and place each family member’s envelope in that area. You may choose to put the envelopes in front of each person’s dinner seat around the table…or on the refrigerator…or in the living room. Just be sure it is an area each family member frequents. And, be sure each family member has their own personal envelope.

 

  1. Over the next week, family members will find their affirmations as they go about their daily routine. Each time someone finds an affirmation, they read it, smile, bring it to the common area, and put it in their envelope.

 

  1. At the end of the week, gather your family in the common area and share affirmations with one another over some “gourmet hot chocolate” or homemade cookies. Tell family stories that exemplify the various affirmations. Enjoy one another’s company and encouragement.

 

I hope you enjoy this family fun night. And, as I often tell my family and friends…”have fun!”

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Teach Your Child Self-Control

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Parents want to raise children who have self-control. And why not? Science has shown that self-control offers many life changing benefits.

  • People with self-control make better choices. Better choices lead to fewer negative consequences and greater happiness. Better choices can also lead to more success—better grades, better jobs, more money, better health, etc.
  • People with higher levels of self-control “stick to” their morals. They exhibit greater honesty and live with greater integrity.
  • People with self-control resist temptation. They have better mental focus. In other words, unimportant distractions do not draw them away from important tasks…which takes us back to the first benefit noted above.

Kids on Victory PodiumAs parents, we want our children to experience the benefits of self-control. The real question becomes: how can we teach self-control to our children? Here are six ways to do just that!

  1. Play games. Depending on your child’s age, you can play any number of games to promote self-control. “Simon Says” and “freeze tag” teach self-control. Checkers, Chess, and Battleship teach children to think ahead and consider consequences, an important aspect of self-control. Board games of all kinds teach children to “wait their turn,” which takes enormous self-control. Don’t forget pretend play. Developing a make believe character who engages in an imaginative activity demands planning, consideration of consequences, acting out emotions, problem-solving, and cooperation…all aspects of self-control.
  2. Encourage self-talk. Self-talk offers guidance and encouragement through difficult tasks. Self-talk keeps children mindful of their desires and focused on their goals. Over time, self-talk becomes an inner voice prompting us to focus, move toward our goals, and ignore distraction. That inner voice promotes self-control.
  3. Teach healthy distraction. When children feel a growing anxiety or anger, healthy distraction can help. It can help them control their anxiety and allow them to respond wisely—from personal integrity, rather than with a rash emotional reaction. Teach your children healthy ways and healthy times to distract themselves. This involves giving them some specific physical or mental action to take. “Sing your favorite song to yourself” or “think about what you enjoyed most on our last vacation” will work better than “just think about something else.” “Build a space ship with your Legos” will help more than simply “go play.”
  4. Turn off the TV. TV watching will not teach the important skills involved in self-control. It does not encourage “waiting your turn,” thinking ahead, or focusing. Interactive social games and social interactions teach these skills. Turn off the TV and refer to #1.
  5. Maintain age appropriate expectations. Adjust your expectations to match your children’s age. Your 6-year-old will not have the same level of self-control as your 12-year-old…or your 16-year-old. Your 6-year-old will need more hands-on assistance, which will slowly change to more verbal prompting as she moves toward puberty and adolescence. Age appropriate expectations include age appropriate discipline. A toddler who won’t sit still in a restaurant requires different instruction than a 12-year-old who won’t sit still in the same situation.
  6. Do not assume a lapse of self-control is just bad behavior…listen. Allow your children to explain their choices and actions. Listen carefully to determine if they have an unmet need and teach them how to address that need. Listen for emotions that need soothed and help them learn to soothe them. Listen for motivations and intention that represent positive values and reinforce them while teaching appropriate ways to implement those motives and intention. Don’t assume a lapse in self-control is bad behavior…listen.

When you implement these 6 actions, you will encourage greater self-control in your children…from toddler to teen!

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6 Tips to Raise Confident Children

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Do you want to raise a confident child? Of course you do. We all want our children to grow confident—willing to tackle healthy risks, able to stand firm in the face of opposition, willing to persevere through setbacks, comfortable with their ability to explore and achieve. With that in mind, consider these six tips for raising a confident child.

  • Little Super Hero Rescue ChildDevelop a warm, trusting relationship with your child. Spend time with him. Talk. Have fun. Spending time with your child communicates how much you love him. A child who knows he is loved by his parents comes to see himself as lovable…and he grows more confident.
  • Trust your child with significant tasks. Give him an important job to do in the home and teach him the significance of that job. Inform him how the job helps you, his family, and his home. Praise his effort on this job. Thank him for doing it. Publicly and privately acknowledge his work. A child who knows his parents view his work and efforts as important will grow confident.
  • Know your child. Become involved in his life. Get to know his friends. Learn about his interests. Be present for his activities. Have an awareness of his daily schedule and life—who he is with, where he is, what he is doing. By knowing your child in this manner, you communicate how much you value him. A child who feels valued becomes more confident.
  • Set clear limits. Every child needs limits to protect him and encourage his growth. Age appropriate limits increase his opportunity for successful experiences. Successful experiences increase confidence. So, set healthy limits that reflect your family values. Communicate those limits clearly and concisely.
  • Practice self-control. Don’t be a pushover, enforce the limits. When you tell your child “no,” stick with it. This will demand you think through your “no’s” and have good reasons for saying “no.” Explain your reason in a brief sentence, then let your “no” be “no.” No need to debate or justify. You have already stated your reason. Now have the self-control to stick with it. When a child experiences a parent who will briefly explain a firm, loving limit and then stand by that limit, he feels secure. Most likely, he will eventually internalize that healthy limit. A secure child who has internalized appropriate limits becomes a confident child.
  • That being said, as your child matures allow him to have input into the rules and limits. When limits are somewhat flexible, be willing to negotiate. Give you child some voice. Listen to discover your child reasons for wanting to modify the limit. Ask questions to make sure you understand his reasons and to help him clarify his own reasons. Strive to truly understand your child’s reasoning. Clearly communicate your concerns as well. Then, when both your child’s reasons and your concerns are clearly understood, you can negotiate. Sometimes you may choose to go with your child’s idea. Sometimes you may not. Either way, a child who feels his ideas are heard and respected becomes a child who has the confidence to speak up.

 

Combining these six tips will create a warm, trusting relationship between your and your child while setting and enforcing clear limits on a consistent basis. This combination will help your child:

  • Feels loved and see himself as lovable,
  • Receives acknowledgement of his significant contribution to the home and sees himself as significant,
  • Experiences success within the clear boundaries of a structured family life, and
  • Internalized the values inherent in that structure.

 

In other words, you will have raised a confident child!

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A Neglected Ingredient in Your Child’s Happiness

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Many factors contribute to the emotional health, happiness, and success of our children. As parents we work hard to bring those factors together in our children’s lives. After all, we want happy, successful children. We want children who have resilient emotional health. To that end, we seek out opportunities for our children. We introduce them to positive activities, steer them toward healthy peer interactions, teach character, and encourage gratitude. In the process we often overlook one very important ingredient…an ingredient that, if left out, will neutralize the effectiveness of all the other ingredients put together. This often neglected ingredient is taking care of our own emotional health and happiness. If parents do not take care of their own emotional health, their children’s health and happiness is at great risk for several reasons.

 

four childrenFirst, children imitate their parent’s emotions. As early as 6-days-old children begin to imitate their parent’s emotions. Within months they are basing their response to the world on their parent’s emotions.

 

Second, people tend to become similar when they spend time together. Specifically, the person with the least power tends to become like the person with more power. In a parent-child relationship that means children will become more like their parents…for better or worse, happiness or not.

 

Finally, a person’s happiness is influenced by the happiness of the people he or she is connected to. A happy family will likely create a happy environment and raise happy children. In other words, a happy child lives in a happy family.

 

That’s all well and good We know that we, as parents, must take care of their own emotional health and happiness in order to raise emotionally healthy, happy children. The tough part is doing it. Here are four ideas to incorporate into your lifestyle to help you take care of yourself. You might think, “But I don’t have time.” Consider this…do you have time to increase your children’s happiness? Taking time to increase your happiness will increase your children’s happiness and security. It’s worth the time, isn’t it?

  • Build supportive adult relationships. Make some friends and nurture those friendships. Go out for a cup of coffee and talk with your adult friends. Do you grocery shopping together. Get together for lunch. Find a way to build and nurture supportive relationships with other adults.
  • Learn to create quiet time for yourself. This will involve not only training yourself to take some quiet time, but teaching your children to allow you that quiet time. Go for a walk. Walk the dog. Read a book. Meditate. Choose your modus operandi for quiet time and enjoy some every day.
  • Get some physical exercise. You can go to the gym. In fact, go to the gym with a friend and you will be knocking off two of these ideas “in one fell swoop”! If you don’t have the time to go to the gym, go for a walk. Get an exercise video and exercise at home. Physical exercise has a myriad of benefits to enhance your happiness. So enjoy a little exercise.
  • Last, but definitely not least, strengthen your marriage. A strong marriage enhances happiness for husband and wife. A strong marriage improves our parenting. A strong marriage offers a buffer against stress. A strong marriage…the list goes on. A strong marriage is a little taste of heaven. Nurture your marriage and your marriage will multiply the joy in your life…and your children’s lives.
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Get Your Child’s Head in the Game with MEATT

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Parents like to see their children perform well. Who am I kidding? I like to see my children perform well. In fact, if you are like me, you may get more nervous than your children do when they get out on the field for the big game or up on stage for the first act. We want pianothem to experience success. That success, however, begins long before they walk onto the field or stage. It begins even before practice starts. Our children’s performance success begins with their mindset…and their mindset begins with us! How we encourage and praise our children helps develop a mindset that promotes success or a mindset that promotes fear and anxiety. Praise that focuses on innate, natural talent promotes a fear of failure. If our praise voices a belief that genetics or natural talent made our child the excellent performer, we have raised the ante on performance anxiety. I know it sounds paradoxical; but, if I think my talent is inherited, “just who I am,” or a natural ability, I may believe that failure simply shows the limit of my ability. Rather than face that limit, I might underperform. I might stick with what I know I can already do and not risk reaching the limit of my ability and the start of my failure. Praise that focuses on natural talent creates anxiety and teaches our children to underperform. When they experience failure (which we all will) or finds themselves struggling (which we all do), they may believe they have reached the limit of their ability and quit…since other kids seem to have more ability now. Broad, generic statements like “You are really smart (or talented or good)” will have a similar result.

 

On the other hand, when we send a clear message that we value effort more than achievement, we promote success. Studies suggest successful people, even elite performers, have at least four things in common:

  1. They practice hard and they practice deliberately.
  2. They practice consistently.
  3. They practice consistently over the long-term in spite of any experience of failure or temporary setback. In fact, they come to see failure as a key factor in their growth.
  4. They believe that persistent effort will bring success.

 

Notice what each of these factors have in common: practice, effort, and hard-work! When we teach our children to believe that hard-work and effort (not simply natural talent) reveals the true extent of their ability, we have helped them get their head in the game. When we let our children know we value effort more than achievement, and practice more than perfection, we help them get their head in the game. So, here are five ways we can send the message (he real “M.E.A.T.T.” of teaching our children the importance of effort) that effort is more important than the final product.

  • Model working hard toward a goal and enjoying your work toward a goal. Children learn a lot by watching us!
  • Encourage your children to persist in reaching their goals. John Hayes, a cognitive psychologist, found great composers, athletes, and artists had a “decade of silence” in their field before reaching success. This “decade of silence” was filled with practice…practice…and more practice. Effort!
  • Acknowledge the effort your children exert in reaching a goal. Rather than simply praising the finished product or performance, let them know you recognize their effort and enjoy watching that effort pay off. “You put a lot of effort into learning that and it really paid off today.” “I can tell you worked hard on that picture/song/pitch. It’s very cool.”
  • Teach your children how to practice deliberately. This might include breaking the final goal into multiple steps, breaking a task into component parts and practicing each part individually. This also includes slowing down, practicing specific skills, and getting feedback.
  • Teach your children to have fun! Add variety to their practice to avoid boredom. Let part of the practice involve aspects your children really enjoy. Work hard and have fun!

 

Give your children the MEATT of effort and you will find their persistence improves and, as a result, their performance will improve. They will have their head in the game.

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You Can’t Unfriend Family

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I remember a saying I heard when I was 9-or 10-years-old: “You can pick your friends and you can pick your nose, but you can’t pick your friend’s nose.” All the boys laughed and the TuneaPianoButYouCantTunaFishgirls let out a loud “Ewww” in chorus. Still, we all got the implicit message: there are certain things you do not do. A few years later, REO Speedwagon (a rock band popular in the 70’s and early 80’s) came out with an album (you know, those 10-12 inch vinyl discs, grooved on both sides, that, when rotating under the needle of a record player, produced music) entitled “You Can Tune a Piano But You Can’t Tuna Fish.” Well, today we need a new saying along those same lines…and I think I have one. Here it is: “You can unfriend people on Facebook but you can’t unfriend family from your life.” I know, it needs a little work. It lacks the pizzazz and flair of the “picking your friends” thing and the whit of “tune a piano-tuna fish.” But, it does communicate an important truth. You cannot unfriend family. They go with you wherever you go. Any anger we harbor toward family will follow us into other intimate relationships. Apron strings left uncut by “Mamma’s boy” or tied to tight by “Daddy’s little princess” turns into a choke-leash that holds us back from intimacy with others. Unrealistic adorations of our perceived “perfect family” or fairy-tale expectations of an elitist family will only set us up for disappointment, hurt, and failure in future relationships. Each of these aspects of our family will follow us wherever we go. You can’t unfriend family. Instead, you have to emancipate (unravel) family. Here are 3 essentials to emancipating family relationships.

  • The first step in unraveling family is acceptance. Realize that you cannot change your family or anyone in your family. You are not responsible to make any family member feel or behave a certain way. All you can do is accept each person for who they are…warts and all. Accept them in their weaknesses, their mistakes, and even their irritations. Accept their love for you, even if it is miscommunicated or lost in translation. You may increase your acceptance of each family member by considering things you like about them. Take time to recall things they have done or said that you admire or appreciate. Realize they have strengths as well as weaknesses and recall those strengths often. Learning more about their life may also increase your acceptance of each family member’s idiosyncrasies. Consider where these idiosyncrasies may have come from? How they suffer as a result of them? And, what their idiosyncratic behaviors cost them? Unraveling family begins with acceptance.
  • Second, forgive. If any family member has done anything to hurt you in any way, forgive. I’m sure some of you are saying, “There is no way I’ll forgive them. What they did was too much to forgive!” Granted, some people suffer unbearably at the hands of family. However, when we do not forgive we continue to suffer at their hands. Our anger becomes a leash that keeps us from holds us in a family prison yard of anger and prevents us from finding greener pastures. Bitterness grows and engulfs our heart like kudzu engulfing and eventually killing a tree. Let go of the bitterness and entrust God to work out the justice. Begin to pray for the other person and develop empathy for how they have been hurt by their actions. Forgive.
  • Third, define yourself. After you have accepted each family member for their uniqueness and forgiven them, letting go of the anger that binds you to them, you can define yourself. Discover your interests and priorities. Investigate what you want in a healthy life and relationship. Learn the practical daily habits that will allow you to live the life you desire. Take the steps to begin to build a healthy life! One step toward healthy living is reading good books on family life—here are a few books we found helpful. Another crucial step includes finding good counsel and supports, people you trust and who model the kind of family you desire.

 

You can’t unfriend family from your life, but you can unravel family. As you do, you will find that you can love your family in spite of shortcomings. In fact, you may find your family is actually pretty nice in many ways. And, you will continue to grow an even stronger and more intimate family of your own!

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Protect Your Child With a Blessing

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Kids can be mean! You know it and I know it. I see it on the playgrounds, in the school, and even on the internet. Our kids face bullying, cyberbullying, teasing, name-calling, and physical intimidation more often than we want to admit. Over 3.2 million students are victims of bullying each year and as many as 160,000 teens skip school because of bullying. Some reports suggest that 90% of 4th through 8th graders report being victims of bullying! (Click here and here for more statistics about bullying.) In other words, kids can be mean and our kids face social rejection…often! Social Vector image of five beefeaters. England guards.rejection actually impacts the brain regions associated with physical pain…and releases the same pain-killing chemicals. In other words, social rejection, bullying, and teasing results in the perception of actual physical pain! Kids can be mean.

While parents cannot protect their children from all these potential troubles, we can give them the gift of our blessing. Giving our children a blessing is a great privilege, an opportunity to speak joy, strength, and value into their lives. By giving our children a blessing we boost their resilience. Even one well-worded blessing will help counteract the emotional pain our children experience in the world…imagine what a yearly blessing can do! A blessing communicates acceptance. It validates our children’s worth and affirms their value. When we give our children a blessing we acknowledge their strengths and envision an exciting future for them based on those strengths. A blessing also informs our children that we are in their corner and committed to their future. Think about the healing such a blessing offers. Consider the strength that such a message can instill in the life of your children.

Giving your children the gift of your blessing takes some preparation. First, think about 2-3 traits you admire in your children. Do not settle for a simple physical ability. Consider what you truly admire. For instance, do you value your children’s ability in sports or do you really value the persistent effort and humble sportsmanship they exhibit? Do you look on their interaction with younger kids with admiration or do you really admire their sensitivity to others, their love of children, and their gentle spirit? Do you like the music they create with their instrument or do you admire their self-disciplined practice and humble desire to share their talent with others? You get the idea. Take time to think about what you truly admire and value in your children.

Second, identify a specific example for each trait. Perhaps you saw their sensitivity toward others when they helped their friend after a difficult experience. Or maybe you noticed their sportsmanship in the way they interacted with a member of an opposing team who was taunting him…or when he was disappointed with where the coach placed him. Think of one concrete example for each trait you have identified.

Third, think about how these traits will help provide a special future for your children.

Fourth, write it all out. Keep it short—no more than one side of one page. Write down the two or three traits you admire followed by a supporting example for each. Share your excitement for their future in light of these traits and strengths. And, make it clear that you will remain present and supportive in their life as they move toward their future.

Golden crownThere is one more step. After you have written your blessing, schedule a time to meet with your child to give her the blessing. Make it a special time. You might give your child his or her blessing over a special dinner or during a special outing. Make it a time that will reflect the gravity of the blessing.

Giving the gift of your blessing takes time and effort. However, the result is powerful! Hurts are healed. Character is validated and reinforced. Strengths are affirmed. Identify is valued and supported. Your child will walk away after receiving your blessing with their head held a little bit higher, their step a little livelier, and their relationship with you a little more secure. What a blessing!

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Put Your Children First…Really?

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Children are so important. I know it is an overused statement, but children are our future…and our present. Our children are change agents…in fact they changed our lives simply by entering into our world. They shaped our sleep patterns, eating habits, and priorities. We changed our schedule, our speech, our interests, and our activities in response to our children. We made sacrifices for our children. We wore that old ragged coat for another year in order to give our children a new and warmer coat. We choked down vegetables to Exhausted Mommodel healthy eating in hopes our children would follow suit. We make most sacrifices quietly. We do not lecture our children on the sacrifices we made…and it is better that way. Yes, children are important but (and this is a big but)…. if we put our relationship with our children above all other relationships or make our children aware of every sacrifice we make for them, we do our children a great disservice.

 

Putting our children above all other relationships places an expectation on our children that they are unable to fulfill. Children cannot become the relationship that brings us solace, intimacy, or status. We need other relationships to provide those needs…important relationships like our marriage.

 

By making our relationship with our children the most important relationship, we are implicitly asking them to fulfill our need for intimacy and friendship. This responsibility, however subtle it is, places a burden on them that they are not emotionally prepared to handle. They do not need us to be their friend; nor should we rely on them for our friendship. Instead, they need us to guide, teach, discipline, and protect them. Seek intimacy in your marriage. Invest in your marriage to satisfy your need for deeper intimacy. Nurture adult friendships to satisfy your need for quality friendships.

 

If our children take precedent over all other relationships, our children begin to feel as though our reputation and status rests on their shoulders. This places a heavy weight on them, an undue pressure to achieve and perform. When we make our children the focus of our life and our esteem, we place the burden of potentially “ruining our status” on our children. Not surprisingly, this creates anxiety or fear in them. Rather than place such a burden on your children, develop your relationship with yourself. Nurture your own skills and talents in order to satisfy your need for achievement. Become involved in community activities and services to become known within your community as an individual beyond your children’s parent.

 

Finding our joy and satisfaction in life only within our relationship to our children places a huge burden on our children. Children are a joy, but they cannot complete our joy; they cannot bring us the satisfaction in life we desire.  They will eventually develop interests of their own, quite possibly different than our interests. They will even move out of our home and develop a life of their own…sooner than we like to think. We have to develop our own interests and relationships to bring us satisfaction in life. Nurture your marriage, your adult friendships, your interests…your own life in order to find joy and satisfaction.

 

Children definitely add richness to our lives. They hold an important place in our life and in our own development. However, they cannot be the “end all” for our life. They cannot fulfill our every desire, elevate our status, or bring us satisfaction, joy, and intimacy. We are responsible for meeting those needs. And, when we do those things independently, we teach our children to do the same…and we watch their lives blossom. What greater joy than that?

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The Story That Will Change Your Family Life!

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newly married couple chasing each other in fieldThe TV sitcom “How I Met Your Mother” communicates a profound family principle in its title. Seriously…the story of how we met our spouse is one of those questions kids really want to know. Actually, it is more than a mere “want to know;” it is a boon, an asset, a huge benefit to children’s emotional health and family life. Research tells us that children who know more about the stories of their family and their family history have a higher self-esteem, a stronger sense of personal control, and a belief that their families function well. They also revealed greater resiliency, bouncing back more easily after stressful events. Adolescents who know more about their family history have a greater sense of self-worth, more self-confidence, and a stronger sense of identity!

Family researchers tell us that children and adolescents who have a greater knowledge of their family story have a strong “intergenerational self.” They know they belong to something bigger than themselves. They have come together with their family for family meals, family gatherings, and family activities and heard the stories of their family. They have learned about the good times, the hard times, the setbacks, the recoveries, and the successes. Through it all , they learned that they come from “something bigger than myself.” That “something bigger” is a family…a family that sticks together through thick and thin…a family that survives…a family that accepts struggles but bounces back…a family…and not just any family but their family!

So, go ahead and tell your children the story of how you met their mother or father. Tell them about your crazy aunt’s all-encompassing hugs, your grandparents hobbies, your own embarrassing moments, the obstacles your family has overcome, the day they were born, and…the list goes on! While you’re at it, you might tell the “stories” asked about in the research described above. Here are the 20 questions they asked children to see how much of the “family story” they knew.

  • Do you know how your parents met?
  • Do you know where your mother grew up?Father and Bride
  • Do you know where your father grew up?
  • Do you know where some of your grandparents grew up?
  • Do you know where some of your grandparents met?
  • Do you know where your parents were married?
  • Do you know what went on when you were being born?
  • Do you know the source of your name?
  • Do you know some things about what happened when your brothers or sisters were being born?
  • Do you know which person in your family you look most like?
  • Do you know the person in your family you act the most like?
  • Do you now some of the illnesses and injuries that your parents experienced when they were younger?
  • Do you know some of the lessons that your parents learned from good or bad experiences?
  • Do you know some things that happened to your mom or dad when they were in school?
  • Do you know the national background of your family (such as English, German, Russian, etc.)?
  • Do you know some of the jobs that your parents had when they were young?
  • Do you know some awards that your parents received when they were young?
  • Do you know the names of the schools that your mom went to?
  • Do you know the names of the school that your dad went to?
  • Do you know about a relative whose face “froze” in a grumpy position because he or she did not smile enough?

One last thing…my wife loves to watch home videos of family. She has the right idea–home movies are a great way to share the story. So, gather the family, make some popcorn, pull up a chair, and watch that baby take her first steps again!

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The Amazing Power of a Label in Family

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Labels help us explain things like our occupation, food, or moods. After all, it is much easier to say, “I’m a therapist (or teacher or chemical engineer or accountant)” than it is to explain all the nuances of what you really do.  At the same time, labels can limit us.  Kierkegaard once said, “Once you label me, you negate me.”  Think about this in terms of your family. Perhaps you have two children. For whatever reason, one becomes the “responsible child” and the other “impulsive-child;” or, one is labeled the “problem-child” while the other is your “happy child.” Once we apply any of these labels to our children, we have successfully put them in a box. We come to expect behavior that will match their assigned label. We filter their actions and their words through our expectations. We even filter our response to them through that filter. Since we expect the “responsible child” to do what is expected, we may forget to thank them for taking the responsible action.  On the other hand, we give our “impulsive child” a “left-handed compliment” (“Oh, you finally remembered to do it”) for completing an expected chore.  You could say that our label turns into an expectation that becomes a judgment. That judgment sentences our child to develop a style of character consistent with our expectation. The label has become an integral part of their self-image and that self-image will follow them into adulthood. This same process occurs in response to any label we might use with our family member, whether it be the label of “joker,” “problem-child,” “happy child,” “smart child,” “athlete,” or “musician.” In the end, the label will limit our family member’s overall behavior. After all, it is difficult for a “problem-child” to become known as the “helping-child.” How can we avoid limiting our family members through labels?


·    Do not use global labels. Instead, label specific behaviors. For instance, rather than thinking about your “problem-child” think about specific areas in which your child “gives you problems.” Perhaps your child poses difficulties around specific activities like math homework or eating certain foods. They probably are a pleasure in other areas…which brings us to the next point.


·    Think of exceptions to the label. If you have a “problem-child,” think of all the times they do not pose a difficulty. In what areas do they exhibit strengths and show themselves a “helper” or a “peacemaker.” I realize that it may take effort to think of exceptions after you have told your “messy-child” for the umpteenth time to “clean your room.” But, when you remember examples of the times they were the “helper” or the “problem solver,” you will have a more realistic and holistic view of your child.


·    Keep any labels you use flexible. Realize that your children will change and grow. Any label that seems to fit your child today is temporary…you may find it untrue tomorrow.


·    Provide opportunities for your children to grow. Let them tell the jokes or be the center of attention sometimes and, at other times, the quiet-behind-the-scenes observers. Teach them to be the helper as well as the recipient of help. Encourage them to enjoy athletics to the level they enjoy as well as music, art, and academics. Giving your child the opportunity to fill many roles will help them realize (even expand upon) the complexity of their personality.

As you expand your view of each family member, you open up future possibilities for them. You let them out of the label box to explore other ways of acting in the family and the world. You open up the possibility for them to develop deeper and more complex character…. And, isn’t that the goal of parenting?

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