Posts tagged ‘parenting teens’
The Importance of Self-Care During a Pandemic…and Beyond
Guest blog by Kristen Fescoe, Resility Health
As we find ourselves living an uncertain and challenging time, self-care has never been so important. Before the outbreak of COVID-19, self-care was something many of us pushed to the back burner. There would always be time for it tomorrow. For most, tomorrow never came. Now, as we are being asked to slow down and change the way we live, it seems that tomorrow may be today.
There are plenty of benefits to creating a self-care routine. Feeling better about yourself, living a more present life and focusing on your own goals are all important examples. Self-care is one of the best ways to stave off the physical and emotional impact of stress and worry.
When you experience a stressor in your life, big or small, your brain and body react with the fight or flight reflex. Your brain releases chemical messengers into your bloodstream. Your pulse and blood pressure quicken. While this is great if there is a real threat to you, it can be damaging to your mental and physical health if you experience it for an extended period of time.
This is where self-care plays an important role. By taking a little time every day to focus on your emotional well-being, you can start to change the way you react to stress. No matter how badly we would like to, it’s really hard to eliminate stress from our lives. Especially now, during this difficult time. Stress is a constant in most of our lives.
What we can change is the way we react to stress.
Daily self-care is a mechanism to do this. Let’s say you decide that 3 times a day you will perform a self-check-in. So each morning, afternoon and evening you will spend 2-3 minutes checking in with yourself and thinking about how you feel both physically and emotionally.
During these few minutes, you will think about any pain or discomfort you have, anything that has been silently nagging at your attention, anything that might be impacting your mood. By just taking notice of it you actually can start to change how you react to it. If you were to do this every day for 3-4 weeks you will quickly find that you become much more aware of when your body is reacting to stress and you will even start to reduce your body’s automatic stress response.
There has never been a better time to begin a self-care regimen. Stress is at an all-time high. People are dealing with everything from loss of loved ones to extreme loneliness and even the exacerbation of psychological disorders. Life isn’t easy. Since you can’t do anything to remove stress from your life, there is something you can do to change its impact on you.
C. Lynn Williams, #MsParentguru
Parent Coach, Author & Speaker
Chickenpox Vs Coronavirus
If you’ve ever had a child with chickenpox, you know how important it is to stay in the house and how miserable your child who has the chickenpox is. Chickenpox is highly contagious. You’re usually feverish and very itchy, and like the coronavirus, you are quarantined to stay inside until you’re healed.
Coronavirus reminds me of the chickenpox, because you feel terrible if you catch it, and it’s contagious! The huge difference is that some people are dying because of the coronavirus, and that’s pretty scary. So stay inside and keep a social distance from everyone… well except your family.
As a parent, I think about all the opportunities that this quarantine is offering me:
- I get to spend more time with my family and my husband (actually as empty-nesters, my husband and I get to spend a lot of time with each other)
- I get to make memories that I’m otherwise too busy to make
- Limited take-out – we eat more often as a family
As an adult, I can:
- Stay up late
- I can binge watch TV programs I never have time to watch
- Read books I have promised I would read, as soon as I get time
You get the idea… These are benefits of this quarantine. If you are an Entrepreneur, you’re still busy trying to figure out how to stay connected with your customers or clients. You may have to change how you do business because you are now forced to communicate with people online, by social media, by phone. I know these are new challenges for me. However as a mom, I stay in touch with my children daily, and I think about how to stay engaged with them, even though we are miles apart. If we were together what board or card game would we be playing or what movie would we watch together? My kids loved board games and we would play Monopoly, Life, Uno or Phase 10. We also enjoyed cooking and eating together and then sitting around the table and talking to each other.
QuaranTeened
For those of you with teens, the biggest challenge is probably for your teenagers who are very social and used to talking to their friends instead of you. They would rather stay in their room and talk on the phone or talk to their friends on Snapchat or Instagram. This quarantine is a great opportunity to open those communication channels between the two of you and start talking. Ask their opinion on the coronavirus quarantine. It might be a little awkward, getting the conversations started. It’s okay, keep talking and finding topics that they will talk about with you.
- Cook together
- Depending where you live, ride bikes together
- Watch movies
- Have fun and enjoy each other.
I believe this time is really designed for us to get closer to the people that we love or at least learn how to love them.
In-House Spouse
Probably the next biggest challenge is how to play nice with your spouse when you are both working from home. It’s easy to forget what attracted you to each other, if you are cooped up, raising kids, working from home or trying to figure out how to pay your bills, because one of you have lost your income due to the quarantine.
The challenge is to do something fun daily together. Bring up wonderful memories from the past. Binge watch programs together. Show interest in something that your spouse or partner is interested in.
Oh, and switch up the chores with your kiddos, so that Mom (or Dad) don’t get burned out. Tweens and teens can cook and clean too!
Interested in learning more about your family’s dynamics? Contact me – Ms. Parent Guru to receive information about my inspiring parenting programs for Aging Parents, Mothers and Daughters, Mothers and their Sons, Fathers and Daughters or Fathers and their Sons.
Click Here to become a part of my parenting community.
C. Lynn Williams, #MsParentguru
Parent Coach, Author & Speaker
Asking For Help
How often do you ask for help? 
Once a day? Once a month? Never? I know my examples sound extreme but a few weeks ago, I was talking with one of my Finding Superwoman™ coaching clients and she talked about how overwhelmed she was at her home. She has a teen son, a tween daughter and a husband.
When I gently reminded her about these people that live at home with her, she laughed and said ‘Oh they won’t help out.’ 😨 ‘What do you mean they won’t help? Have you asked them?’ ‘Well no, I didn’t think I had to ask for help.’ I now understood her dilemma, she didn’t know how to ask for help. I grew up in a culture of everyone pitching in at home; with the exception of my dad whose only household chores were cutting the grass and painting. 🤷🏽♀️
As young kids, my mother trained us to pick up our toys and clean our rooms (before we were allowed to take our daily nap). As we got older, our responsibilities increased to include things like starting dinner and doing laundry.
My husband and I share household things like cooking and kitchen clean up. If I cook, he cleans the kitchen. The chores are not split equally but I don’t feel like Hazel the maid either.
Asking for help and training your children to help around the house is important for you to maintain a semblance of sanity and order. Whether you work outside of your home, or work from home, doing ‘everything’ does not help you manage your household workload or your peace of mind.
Teaching your children the value of taking responsibility for household chores builds character. It also helps you busy mom (or dad) to do those activities that are uniquely yours to do to insure that the household runs properly.
If you grew up in a house where your mom or dad did not require anything from you except to go to school and get good grades, then this is an opportunity to get outside of your parent comfort zone and build a new skill. It takes three things from you:
1. Decide what chores you want your child(ren) to do
2. Have a family meeting to discuss what your expectation is and when the chores will begin as well as the consequences of what will happen if the chores are not done
3. Be flexible as you establish these new routines. Rome wasn’t built in a day, nor will your tweens and teens easily accept a new set of responsibilities without some grumbling. Stay consistent with your expectations of them and stay sane!
For more tips like these, look for my weekly blog. Click here to download my Moms Can Have It All worksheet.
Best wishes,
C. Lynn Williams – #MsParentguru
If you Divorce Mom Does it Mean You Divorce Me Too? #DivorceHurts
I remember when my parents divorced, I was actually happy! I know that sounds strange, but my dad had started drinking more heavily, and I felt 
uncomfortable around him. He was my lovable dad, but I didn’t like being hugged by him when he reeked of alcohol!
I was happy, and yet my family was breaking up. As a teen, I thought I understood (in my little teen mind) what was going on, but I had no idea that mom and dad divorcing would be a terrible thing for all of us, especially my brother. My mom initiated the divorce, the details didn’t really matter. What did matter was that once my dad moved out, our relationship as his children seemed to change forever.
He would tell my mom (or tell me) that he was coming to get us and visit, but often he didn’t. We saw him occasionally which didn’t make much sense to me, but I had already put up a wall of protection around me – so I told myself I didn’t care. I don’t remember how my sister felt, but my brother started acting out. He got in trouble in school; starting hanging around the ‘bad’ boy next door and stealing from the local store. When that happened, my dad came around and beat his behind. My law enforcement uncle came around more often to talk with my brother. He got the attention he craved, at a high emotional cost. As I became an adult, I asked my father why he promised to visit and didn’t. His answer was that he often had no money to give us and it was hard for him to come around us as a broke dad.
Yes, I truly felt that when our parents divorced, we also divorced the parent who left. This story is for those of you with children who are contemplating divorce; already going through divorce or completely divorced. I get it! Living with someone you no longer get along with for whatever reason is unbearable. I’ve divorced too! I’m sure my children feel the sting that divorce left on them, because they no longer saw their father daily. Please consider an arrangement that allows your ex-spouse to see their kids as often as possible. Get your emotions and hurt feelings out of the way and allow your children to continue to love you and your ex no matter what. #DivorceHurts
If you want to read more #divorcehurts, follow My Blog and sign up for my Parenting Newsletter. Want to ask questions or dialogue with me about how tough adult issues affect our families; reach out to me on Twitter @cgwwbook or on my Facebook fan page www.Facebook.com/CGWWBooks. #DivorceHurts
C. Lynn Williams, #MsParentguru
Author & Generational Development Strategist
Trying to Stay Sane While Raising Your Teen (St. Paul Press, 2010) The Pampered Prince: Moms Create a GREAT Relationship with Your Son (St. Paul Press, 2012) Raising Your Daughter Through the Joys, Tears & HORMONES! (220 Publishing, 2013)P.S. Hey… I have a new book coming out soon about #BlendedFamilies.
Contact me if you want to read a short excerpt…
I Hate My Teenage Daughter – Pt 2
Here’s the gist of the new TV show:
“I HATE MY TEENAGE DAUGHTER is a new family comedy starring Jaime Pressly and Katie Finneran as single moms, best friends – and former nerds – who fear their privileged and overly indulged daughters are turning out just like the mean girls who picked on them in high school.
ANNIE (Pressly), who was raised in an ultra-strict, über-religious household where she had little-to-no freedom, pretty much allows her daughter, SOPHIE (Kristi Lauren), to do whatever she wants. Annie’s best friend NIKKI (Finneran), once an unpopular, overweight social pariah, is now a pretty Southern belle who also allows her daughter, MACKENZIE (Aisha Dee), to do as she pleases.”
Knowing a little more about what the show is about, I don’t have a problem with the show, just a HUGE problem with the title of the show. Considering that sensationalism sells, I don’t like it, but do understand that producers are trying to bring the issue of overindulgence by parents into discussion. As a parent, overindulgence makes you a great parent for the moment, but the feeling doesn’t last, and you send your teen, mixed messages about who you are.
What do you think?
Back to School Kits for Parents
Kids aren’t the only ones who need school supplies!
Parents hit me up if you need a Back to School parenting kit.
Dresser After Dark Interview
Listen for some cool parenting techniques
‘Trying To Stay Sane While Raising Your Teen’ by C. Lynn Williams
Parenting teens includes many challenges as well as joys. A focus should be on the positive side of parenting teens. This focus will help the parent to feel more competent and actually be able to enjoy their teen and the ups and downs they face. Sometimes parents tend to over emphasize the negatives and annoyances of parenting their teens. This book will help you get along with your children as you guide them in the godly path for living.
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