Positive Friendships & Self-Esteem
© Judy Helm Wright http://www.judyhwright.com

Parents, teachers, caregivers, coaches and other caring adults are concerned with how to teach values and self-esteem to the children in their lives. They wonder how to foster positive friendships and discourage those that have a negative influence.

From the moment of birth, our children are soaking up and

Self-esteem and confidence begins at birth and continues till death. We judge ourselves through words and actions of others, especially family and friends.

Self-esteem, confidence and personal strength is gained by listening and sharing ideas with those who are in their “circle of influence.” Words that tell them who and what they are help them to form a self-image that will reflect their attitude towards life. Both positive and negative.

1. Be Available At Odd Times. Make sure your children know that you value them and will take or make time to share with them. If you really can’t talk right then and there, arrange a time and place and put it in your appointment book. Keep that appointment.

The best conversations we ever had were at midnight over a pizza. I am a morning person and it sometimes meant I had to have a nap so I could get up to visit when they came home from a date. It is also amazing what secrets are shared in a car coming home from a soccer game or middle school dance.

2. Make Your House the “Go-To House.” When you invite your children’s friends to spend time in your home, you create a safe harbor for many children who are afraid to go home. Make them feel welcome and try to get to know them and help them see how healthy, happy families operate. Include them in some of your family activities. Don’t worry about how much you are spending on groceries. Consider it an investment in the future.

3. Affirm Positive Friendships. Talk to your kids about their friends. Find out what they like about this friend. Help them to develop into the friend they would like to have. Rather than over-praise individual kids, talk about what a nice group of kids they are.

Peer pressure, along with bullying and drugs that frightens many parents. When your child is in a group it is easy to “group think” and make decisions, they would not normally do on an individual basis.

The more you know the other parents of your child’s friends they more they will have an extended tribe of adults who are looking out for their backs. Encourage group activities that are well chaperoned and with a purpose, rather than just “hanging out.”

You will want to go to http://www.useencouragingwords.com to claim your free ebook on confidence building. You will also want to join the community of kind, thoughtful people who want respect for all at http://www.judyhwright.com You will be glad you did.

Self-Confidence and Self-Esteem = Success in Life

© Judy Helm Wright http://www.judyhwright.com

Success in life, friendship, business, family dynamics and spiritual growth has self-confidence and self-esteem at the foundation.  People who have a confidence in their personal worth seem to be magnets for success and happiness everywhere they go.

As parents and caring adults you will want to share methods and techniques to build self-confidence with the young people in your circle of influence.  One of the most important part of teaching a life-skill is to improve the concept in our own lives.

Here are three more tips to help build self-esteem and self-confidence in your kids.

• Teach Them to Think for Themselves. If you continually tell them what to do and how to do it, they will be looking outward for direction and not learn to trust their intuition.  For every situation, there are at least 5 different and correct solutions.        If we always want things “Our way” they will stop trying to find creative solutions.  Critical thinking and problem-solving ability are going to be more and more important in the new economy.  Those who enter the world of work will need “soft skills” of interpersonal communication and building teamwork and cooperation.

• Give Them Roots. Much of our identity comes from the family stories and the foundation of ethics and standards that make us who we are.  We are a storytelling and story gathering species.  This is a crucial difference that separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom. We can remember, process and pass on information to the next  generation.                                                                                                                                                                                            All of us hunger to belong to a “tribe” who love and accept us.  By sharing the heritage, history and cultural background we give them roots and wings. If you need guidance on gathering, recording or telling stories, you will want to go to http://www.MontanaStoryKeepers.com

• Good Posture Shows Confidence. People with slumped shoulders and lethargic movements display a lack of self-confidence. Verbal communication is the language of information.  Non-verbal or body communication is the language of relationships.

People who slouch indicate they   aren’t enthusiastic about what they’re doing and they don’t             consider themselves important. By practicing good posture, you’ll automatically feel more confident. Stand up straight, keep your head up, and make eye contact. You’ll make a positive impression on others and instantly feel more alert and empowered.

We have a strong identification with our bodies.  However, it is amazing to see the effects of our inner thoughts on our outer appearance.  To develop high levels of self-confidence and self-esteem it is important to integrate the body and spirit in order to have success in life.

Self-Awareness Quiz

1. Do you find yourself drawn towards those who have good posture and non-verbal communication which indicates self-esteem and self-confidence?
2. When you hear family stories that exhibit courage and confidence, does it encourage your self-esteem?
3. Do you like to work with those who are critical thinkers?  Do you find them to excel in leadership roles?

You will want to claim your powerful eBook filled with encouraging words at http://www.judyhwright.com

Be sure to check out a new book about resiliency at http://www.bouncebackperson.com

How To Be A Good Parent -Parenting Is Coaching

In today’s information age, parents are bombarded with tips, advice, and guidelines even before their children arrive in their arms. Everywhere parents turn, there’s another website, another friend, or another book pushing a different set of rules for how to be a good parent. Confusion is inevitable.
Trying to figure out the exact right way to be a good parent can become an obsession that obscures the real joys of parenting!
Trust Your Gut- But Get Assistance

Parenting is a big job! Listen and learn from successful families. Mentor your child to be a healthy, self-sufficient responsible adult.

You are the best expert on how to parent your child. But……….everyone needs tools to become a better parent and person.  If you grew up in a dysfunctional home or lack parenting skills, go to parenting classes, seek professional help or ask successful families that you know how to parent.
As a parent, you are more than a babysitter. To your children, you are a life mentor, supporter, coach, and guide. You do more than keep your child alive: you teach your child how to live. You are a specialist in your own lifestyle and have seen much of what works and a lot of techniques that are not healthy.
Don’t be shy about sharing your knowledge with your children! In our family, life always ran smother when we had family meetings and could discuss in a democratic way what was going on in life.  For an outline on Family Councils, see http://www.kidschoresandmore.com
Don’t Try To Be Perfect- Just Be Present
The perfect parent does not always have dinner on the table at six. The perfect parent does not always serve the healthiest option available. The perfect parent does not always know what to say. The perfect parent does not exist!
Families can do fine as long as the rules and boundaries are fair and consistent. If there is a foundation of unconditional love and forgiveness, then families will thrive, not just survive.
Rather than draining all of your energies as a parent in attempts to meet the standards others set for you, realize that the real answers to being a good parent lie within you. Spend time with your children listening and sharing and you will develop your own parenting style.
Mentor and Teacher–Not BabySitter

We are coaches, supporters, guides, and mentors to our children.
A football coach does not try to mentor children in French, yet many type B parents, encouraged by friends or media, try to teach their children to live a type A lifestyle. This is counter-intuitive and ultimately leads to frustration and confusion for both child and parent.
Like any other coach, mentor, or guide, a good parent teaches what he or she knows and admits what he or she doesn’t know.  You will be amazed at what your child will teach you.  They have a much less jaded prospective on life and can not only smell the roses but see the little Lady bugs.
Your best parenting style will be an extension of your own personal style.
Allow your personality, and that of your child, to guide you as you decide which parenting suggestions will work best for you. Don’t be afraid to experiment. Try new ideas. Reject the ones that don’t work for you or your child, and make the ones that do a  consistent part of your routine.

Self Awareness Quiz

1. What is some parenting advice that didn’t work for me and my child? What is some advice that did work?

2. What parenting methods from my past do I want to change or modify?

3. What are my goals as a parent?  How can we function best as a family?
Thanks for joining us today and sharing time learning new methods of parenting and family life.  This is the most important work you will ever do in your life. Enjoy your family and allow your child to enjoy you.
This article is written by Judy Helm Wright, life educator @ http://www.ArtichokePress.com You may have permission to use in your blog, ezine or offline magazine. Please keep contact information and content intact.

Thank You.

Hello from beautiful Montana:

Would you like to build confidence in your parenting skills? Do you sometimes wonder if your family relationships are on a roller coaster. One day the kids seem responsible, kind and thoughtful individuals and the next they disrespectful, defiant and rude. They push against the rules and boundaries and try your patience.

Don’t Be Discouraged, Be Consistent

We tend to think that teaching and discipline is like a diagonal line on a graph moving onward and upward.  However, raising responsible children is more like the ocean tide.  We move forward, we retreat, move forward once more, fall back.  But we are always there.

The falling back and regrouping our strength and power can be discouraging to parents. The way to think about it is to envision the incoming tide.  Then you can more easily see that after a falling back comes the moving forward. Each time we do that we are a little ahead of where we were previously.

There Are No Perfect Families

As humans, we tend to see ourselves at our worst and others at their best. Comparing our children, ourself or our situation with others will only lead to discouragement. Each family has unique problems and different battles to win. Look at your efforts and family with a loving attitude and a forgiving heart.

Understand that your children are not the symbol of your success in life. You can suggest, influence and give tools for improvement but you can never force another human being to change.  Accepting others where they are is a basic principle for personal growth and self improvement in family relationships.

The only real tool in our parenting backpack to encourage positive action in our family which we have direct access is our own behavior. Children will be more willing to change and adapt more responsible attitudes when they see the important adults in their life assuming personal responsibility.

Consistent Guidelines and Unconditional Love

Once parents understand and grasp the notion that by changing our own behavior we can influence the unacceptable behavior, life gets much easier.

Like the tide ever moving towards the shore it has consistent actions. We can count on it ebbing and flowing. We want to be consistent in our expectations so the family knows what the boundaries are.  Children need to know  you will always love them unconditionally but may not approve of their actions.

As we encourage and support their positive actions and help them to understand the consequences for crossing the boundaries, they are better equipped to self govern.

Our love for our family and for ourself should not be dependent on behavior, but rather unconditional and never ending.

I have confidence in you that you will make wise choices for your family. You will learn new and more effective  parenting skills and incorporate them in your life.

If you need additional assistance in order to build confidence in your parenting skills, you are invited to go to:

http://www.DisciplineYesPunishNo.com

You will be glad you did.

In confidence,

Judy Helm Wright aka Auntie Artichoke, family relationship author and speaker

PS: You will also want to check out
http://www.EncourageSelfConfidence.com

I had never heard of Indigo children five years ago.  But I kept

Indigo Children need different parenting skills to gain cooperation.

seeing these kids in my parenting classes that seem to shine.  They were always active and full of themselves. Very hard to handle for parents and irritating to other adults. But then I started to see a pattern with some of the children and realized that not only did I know  Indigo Children, but I had one.

According to Lee Carroll and Jan Tober authors of a book published by Hay House Publishing, “An Indigo Child is one who displays a new and unusual set of psychological attributes and shows a pattern of behavior generally undocumented before.”

We are in the midst of human evolution and it is happening with our children and grandkids.

What does that mean to parents, day care providers and teachers who are trying to deal with these kids?

It means that discipline, reasoning and rigid rules that may have worked on other children will probably not work with Indigos.  We need to shift our parenting styles and expectations in order to allow them to function well in a society that not only does not understand their actions, but wants to drug them.

The book goes on to list the common traits of Indigo children. I have adapted these with my own observations.

1. They come into the world with a feeling of royalty.
2. They have a sense of being here for a reason.
3. Full of self worth and not much humility.
4. Have difficulty with absolute authority or rigid rules.
5. Have  agreat deal of difficulty waiting in line or taking turns.
6. Easily frustrated with systems that do not allow for creative thought and input.
7. Often have a much better idea on how things should be done.
8. May appear anti-social. School may be difficult for them socially. Would rather turn inward.
9. Will not be manipulated by guilt or threats.
10. If you ask them what they really want, they will tell you.

If your child has a number of these characteristics, you will want to research further on this subject. Our family found that old parenting styles were not going to work with an Indigo child.

Click here and You will find additional information at http://www.disciplineyespunishno.com for a series of free articles on    transforming your family communications and cooperation.

Thanks for joining our community of caring parents, family members,coaches, teachers and mentors who want to help raise a generation of responsible adults who respect others.

Artichoke Press is the home site of Judy H. Wright, family relationship coach and author of over 20 books and many articles on family relationships. If your organization would like to schedule Auntie Artichoke, the storytelling trainer, for a workshop please call 406.549.9813.

Judy H. Wright http://www.ArtichokePress.com You have permission to reprint this article in your blog, ezine or offline magazine as long as you keep the content and contact information intact. Thank You.