Category Coach
What’s Our Family About, Anyway?
Have you ever wondered what your family is “all about”? I asked this of coaching clients Ted and Dawn recently. They had come seeking help because their kids seemed ever more defiant, selfish, and irresponsible. Eager to understand their family…
A Simple, Fun Cure for Dinner Time Chaos
Is dinner at your house a bit crazy? Perhaps it needs a little injection of purpose. When the meal is all about getting kids to settle down and eat their food, it’s bound to be a struggle. But when it’s…
A Surprisingly Powerful Strategy to Spice Up Your Christmas
Last Christmas I pulled out God’s Word to read the familiar passages of Luke 2:4-20 to my niece and nephews and extended family. The version I read from was the Hawai’i Pidgin Bible (“Da Jesus Book”), a Wycliffe translation of…
The Golden Opportunity of “I’m so STUPID!”
“I’m so stupid, I’m SO STUPID!” Most parents at some point are faced with a discouraged, self-condemning child. That’s painful to hear. Our anxiety often drives us to try to talk a child out of their opinion, in an effort…
Helping Kids Deal with Trauma [video]
Broken bones, scary surgeries, or moving to a new school — all these things can be traumatic experiences for kids to handle. How can parents best help their kids survive and even learn from difficult situations? To answer this question,…
Beat Boredom with These Four Tips
Research has shown that being bored is not such a bad thing for kids. Boredom can foster creativity and patience. Yet, when a parent hears that tired phrase again and again, we may feel the need to “fix” the…
One of Our Biggest Parenting Mistakes…
One of our biggest parenting mistakes is to try to get kids to behave right for the wrong reasons. It’s a good thing to want our kids to behave responsibly and to internalize the value of responsibility, but parents tend…
Building the Family Team: A Solution to Chore Wars
7-year-old Bryce was a master “chore evader.” When asked to help with chores, this distractable drama king would slump over and whine, “But I wanted to play!” His parents, Sandy and Jeff, had run out of ideas and came to…
When Kids Fight
How Fights are Reinforced…or Resolved If kids get a stern scolding, angry tones, harsh consequences, and nothing else from parents when they physically fight, then fighting is reinforced. This is because the combative mood is continued and modeled by the parents.…
Michael Phelps’ Secret… and What It Tells Us About Parenting
Michael Phelps is now the most decorated Olympian in history. Winning 19 Olympic medals has made him — according to many — “the greatest Olympian ever”. So what is Phelps’ secret? Well, it could be his high-altitude sleeping chamber. But we…