caring | Staying Sane While Raising Your Teens

Posts tagged ‘caring’

What Do I Need to Do To Get Your Attention❓

Starting my **How to Love Yourself in 30 Day**s online course on June 5th. Click on the link to join.

What’s one of the first things you do when you get a moment to yourself? You probably pull out your phone. 📱

There’s so much you can do on your phone. You can have a whole conversation by text or talking. You can play a game, shop or watch one of your favorite shows.

However, when you’re raising children, there’s so much of you that’s required for them to grow up healthy: physically, mentally, and emotionally. Most important is to know what’s going on in their heads.

I was talking to one of my friends about their kids who are under the age of 5. We all agreed that if your child was awake and the house was quiet 🤫, they were probably getting into something! You had to watch them constantly!

As our kids get older, we feel that we don’t have to watch them as closely and assume that things are okay with them. If they weren’t, our kids would tell us. Natural assumption right?

Wrong!

In families today, our children are relying on us to put aside our devices and initiate discussions; listen to what’s going on with them. It’s not easy….

Your teen will talk. They have to be assured that you’re listening and won’t judge them. There can’t be any topic that you won’t discuss with them. Are you willing to talk about anything and everything? Can you listen without letting your facial expressions show how horrified you are with the conversation? 😫🤯

We are living in times where anything is possible and are kids want to explore, try out new and different theories, relationships and experiences. Being able to share their thoughts and concerns with you, helps them put them in perspective. Keeping the lines of communication open, by relating to your child’s thoughts and feelings; asking them what they think – makes all the difference in the world.

Have a meal together; it doesn’t matter which one. First require that all phones and tablets be put away. 2nd requirement: allow your child the freedom to say whatever is on their mind (must be respectful). Ask “Tell me what’s going on”. The first several conversations may be awkward while your kids try to figure out if you’re being honest and whether they can say what they feel. 🤷🏽‍♀️

Every time I hear or read about another mass shooting; I wonder who the shooter had to talk to within his family. If they shot or killed a family member before taking other lives, I wonder what kind of dysfunction was taking place. Were they able to share the fact that they were being bullied or that they were feeling anti-social? Were they abused? Are they suffering from a mental illness that went unaddressed?

I realize these are simple questions for complex issues. But what I do know is that young people have lots of challenges going on in their lives these days. We as parents can’t solve them all. However, being watchful, following your intuition (if you feel something is wrong, it is) and making it safe to tell you what’s going on, goes a long way to minimize issues that cause our kids to self-harm or harm others. Peace.

Interested in learning more about your family’s dynamics? Contact me – Ms. Parent Guru to receive information about my parent coaching programs that help guide you through Aging Parents, Mother and Daughter drama, Mothers and their Sons challenges, Fathers and Daughters as well as Fathers and their Sons.

Click Here to become a part of my parenting community.

C. Lynn Williams, #MsParentguru

Parent Coach, Author & Speaker

clynnwilliams.com

May 26, 2022 at 9:15 pm 1 comment

Consistency: A Recipe for Success

When I think of consistency, I think of smooth cake batter; the kind that my mother turned into delicious cakes when I was a child. Consistency means that each separate ingredient blends together to create a delicious end result.

As an entrepreneur, we are constantly taking individual items, putting them together and turning them into finished products or services. That’s our goal. But what happens when things don’t come together? Or more importantly, what can we do to ensure consistent consistency?

Let’s go back to my cake analogy. Mom would always ensure that she had all of the ingredients to make her cake. Those ingredients were: eggs, butter, sugar, flour, milk, flavoring, etc. Once she had the ingredients, it was important that she mixed the ingredients together until they were completely blended. Since she was a seasoned baker, she could tell from the consistency of her batter, whether the cake was going to be successful or not. Sometimes she may have lacked every ingredient and had to substitute. Depending on what she had to substitute, would determine if the cake tasted good or not.

Consistency is following a series of behaviors and habits. Think about your last product or service. Did you have everything you needed to offer a consistently excellent product or service? Perhaps you needed to:

Determine a need for your product or service
Perform research
Create and try out a test sample
Measure it against your competition
Price it competitively

Or maybe it had nothing to do with product or service ingredients, but personal ingredients for success. Maybe your personal recipe for success means that you need to carve out time to eat healthy foods and exercise. Or maybe you are burning the candle at both ends and not getting enough rest. For me that’s always an issue because as an author my inspiration occurs in the wee hours of the morning. However when I prepare for my work-life or family dynamics consultations, I find that I am working late into the evening. We are NOT machines! We are creative beings that make a living based on how consistent we are in our business. It is very difficult to be a boss entrepreneur or corporate woman when you are suffering from fatigue or exhaustion.

Here are 3 suggestions for creating successful consistency in your business and personal life:

Set a Goal – successful consistency is moving forward in a positive way. Setting business and personal goals is one of your ingredients toward consistency. One of my goals is getting in bed by 10:30 pm. Lately I have been going to bed at midnight and getting up at 6 am. But remember my creative writing thoughts occur by 4 – 6 am – so going to bed at midnight stifles my writing creativity. Setting a goal gives me something to work toward.
Form a Habit – It’s easy to form a habit. Just do something consistently for 21 days (or 21 times) and the next thing you know, you have formed a habit. Think about forming some positive habits.
- Join me and start getting more sleep.
- Start eating healthier instead of grabbing that bag of chips or can of soda because you haven’t eaten all day.

While you are forming some new habits, consider replacing the ones that you no longer need or want. For me, it’s giving myself enough time. As a busy entrepreneur, mom and wife, I always have something to do. If I have a morning appointment, getting on the computer is disastrous, because I can lose track of time and have to rush to my meeting instead of arriving with time to look over my notes. Think about what habit you would like to eliminate.

Practice Self-Care – As a woman, we carry the weight of everyone on our shoulders. We worry about our families, our friends, neighbors, our causes. But we seldom take time for ourselves unless we get sick. Being sick seems to be the only thing that gives us permission to slow down and take care of ourselves. Practice a little self-care and take time daily and do one or all of these things for you:
- Pray or meditate
- Think about 5 things you are grateful for
- Eat a high protein breakfast (or drink a protein smoothie)
- Pick an affirmation and say it to yourself (‘I approve of myself’ or ‘I love myself exactly as I am’)
- Give someone a compliment just cause
- Say a prayer of thanks before going to bed

While consistency is the recipe for success, you are the engine to move your success forward. If taking that first step seems challenging, give me a call and let’s talk about it. Click here to schedule