One Definition of Success

By Douglas Cowan, Psy.D.

As parents, we want our children and teens to grow up and "be successful." But what "being successful" means depends on our definition of "success" in the first place. Obviously "success" means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. Our definition of success has become "The Progressive Realization of Moral, Virtuous, or Godly Goals."
As a parent, how are you defining "success" for your children? How do you define "success" for yourself as a parent?
Each of these questions is important for us to think through. Many of us, kids included, only define success in terms of what we have, or what we have accomplished so far in life. Some define success in terms of how society and culture define it, while others have chosen to define "success" through the eyes of God, as best as they can know it.
As for me, I define "success" as "the progressive realization of moral, virtuous, or Godly goals." As I look at my kids and rate their levels of success, or rate myself as their parent, I want to keep in mind what my kids are becoming, rather than what they have accomplished in the past. As long as I can see my kids on a path toward becoming productive and honorable adults, then I will feel successful as a parent. Parents, please relax a bit.
I want to encourage each of you to take a long term view as regards to your role as parents. I have received many emails from parents of 4, 5, and 6 year old kids who are having trouble with attention span, or coloring within the lines, or reading, or whatever. Please relax.
Focus on getting your child onto a road that will lead them to be productive as adults। Teach your children how to be good fathers and mothers to their own children in the future. Teach your kids how to love and serve other people. These are the major lessons. See life in the context of eternity, and your definition of success will change radically, both for your children and yourself.


Douglas Cowan, Psy.D., is a family therapist who has been working with ADHD children and their families since 1986. He is the clinical director of the ADHD Information Library's family of seven web sites, including http://www.newideas.net, helping over 350,000 parents and teachers learn more about ADHD each year. Dr. Cowan also serves on the Medical Advisory Board of VAXA International of Tampa, FL., is President of the Board of Directors for KAXL 88.3 FM in central California, and is President of NewIdeas.net Incorporated.
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Teach Your Kids to Pray - The Five Finger Method

By Sheila Gregoire 

When my daughter was two, we were teaching her how to say grace. She had just finished up when Keith leaned over and whispered to her, "tell Mommy she's pretty." Katie promptly put both hands together again, closed her eyes, and said, "Dear God, please make Mommy pretty. Amen."

But most of my girls' prayers tend towards this: "Thank you that we had a good day today. Please help us to have fun tomorrow! Amen."

And I have decided this isn't good enough. So here is our plan to really teach them to pray:

A. Model Prayer for Your Children

Kids aren't going to learn heartfelt prayers until we pray heartfelt prayers in front of them. So every night, after dinner, have a mini-prayer session where you do pray earnestly for something important for your family: a family member who needs God, a financial situation, a personality conflict. Something. When they hear you praying for someone, they learn how to do it, too!

B. Teach Different Types of Prayer

We are starting a new program where we are encouraging them to branch out in prayer. Different variations for this exist, but here's one I'm working on. Look at your hand. If you notice, you have five fingers. Have the kids hold up their hands, and for each type of prayer they can lift up a finger until their whole hand is up.

1. Praise

Thank God for Who He is, for something about Him, for something He has made.

2. Thanksgiving

Thank God for something that He has done for you today. Encourage the children to make this as specific as possible. Not just, "Thank you for my mommy," but "Thank you for giving me a Mommy who comes to my hockey game," or "Thank you for Mommy who hugs me."

3. Request for Someone Else

Ask God something. Again, make it specific. No "feed all the children" stuff, unless they're really young. It's better to ask God to give money to a family you know, or to help your sponsored child and his or her family, or to help someone you know who is sick. If there's an ongoing need, pray for that every night. But try to encourage them to pray for something new, too.

For instance, we have a close friend whose five-year-old daughter is going through treatment for leukemia right now. We're praying for her everyday, and then adding other requests, too.

4. Confession

What did you do wrong today? Hint: Kids are far more willing to pray this if you model it. Whenever you mess up, immediately confess it to God in front of them. If they see you doing it, they won't feel so uncomfortable about doing it, either. And don't let them say, "Forgive me for being selfish." Always encourage them to use "when" statements: "Forgive me for being selfish when I wouldn't share my lego."

5. Request for You

I think this one should always come last, because the other prayers help get our hearts in line with God. Then you're in a better place to make your own requests.

But this one can be tough. It's fine for kids to ask for something for themselves. But make sure it's not treating God like Santa Claus. No "God, please give me a new bike." Ask them what their biggest struggle is. Maybe it's getting along with a sibling, or a teacher they don't like, or figuring out math. Pray about that.

Now all five fingers are up, and kids haven't yet said, "help me to have fun tomorrow!" So you're well on your way to raising prayer warriors! Congratulations, and don't give up!

Sheila Wray Gregoire is a syndicated parenting columnist and the author of four parenting books. Find FREE household organization charts, including children's chore charts, household planners and more at her website, or find general parenting information at her blog at http://ToLoveHonorandVacuum.blogspot.com

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5 Simple Parenting Tips That Could Save Your Sanity

By Marcia Reich

We've all seen it, the mother with two kids in tow and one sitting in the front of the grocery cart। The two are running down the aisles, grabbing things, all the wrong things - sugary cereals, chocolate bars, potato chips... The cart is overflowing. Mom is yelling things like, "put that back" and "no, you can't have that today" and "please stop running" and finally, "Get over here now!" If you are like me, a few things cross your mind or memory. You feel a twinge of pain and sympathy when you see her and want to run over and help. Your are somewhat irritated and can't help wondering why she doesn't leave the kids home when she shops? and lastly, If you are feeling particularly smug, or your children are past the age of no restraint, you may have a moment of memory loss and be saying to yourself, my kids were NEVER like that. I wouldn't bet on it.

So what do you do when you have to take the kids with you on errands and particularly errands that spell danger for you and your kids. It's really pretty simple:
1. Plan it out first - Have a plan for the errands that you have to do regularly. Figure out what you need and the best times for you to do them. Most likely late afternoon when both you and your kids are spent is not the time.
2. Make your grocery stops short -If you have to go twice, do it. Figure out the items you need beforehand so you aren't taking the kids down aisle after aisle looking for things. This is a surefire way to engage yourself in a nightmare.
3. Have a kid's day at the grocery store - Take them to the grocery store and let them choose a few things that they like - they earn that privilege by not acting out during your other errands.
4. Remember to be realistic - Kids have energy and they get bored quickly. It is unrealistic to expect them to have the patience of an adult while you do your errands, especially if they're long and drawn out.
5. Don't make getting all your errands done so important that you can't let them go if your kids are cranky and irritable. You will just put undue stress on yourself and your kids and quite frankly, the errands will take longer to get done.
Although it may seem impossible and believe me, sometimes it really is, if things get out of hand, leave before you have to scream। You may leave without the milk but you will save yourself from a very negative experience.

Marcia R. Reich, M.A., LPC, CPT -I am a Licensed Professional Counselor with 10 years of experience. I have a private practice in Florham Park, NJ where I work with individuals, couples, teens and groups. I have also worked in schools and was a part of the Morris County Supervised Parenting Program.
Children act with strong emotions and often irrational behaviors and as parents we face the challenge of being fair but firm. We all want to do this well so that our children will turn out to be healthy, productive adults. It isn't easy. I offer my education and training, along with an understanding that comes from having lived through many of the same parent/child experiences with which many families struggle. I am now offering a special program called Positive Parenting - check my website http://marciareich.com/ for more information.
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Kids Who Are Verbally Abusive - The Creation of a Defiant Child

By James Lehman

When you're standing in your kitchen, and you're fighting back tears and rage as your son is calling you "b---h," you don't have time to do much of anything but react. But when he's stormed out the door or up to his room, the question arises in your mind yet again: "Why is he like this? Why does he talk to me this way?"
Verbal abuse and intimidation by children and teens isn't just a phase that goes away; it doesn't "just happen." It often has deep roots that begin very early in a child's development. In this article, I'm going to show you how your child's abusive behavior may have evolved. Then next week, I'll show you what you can do to stop it.
It should be noted that there are times when kids can get very mouthy as a reaction to stress, chaos or even as part of the developmental stage they're going through. They can become testy in their answers to you, and their tone may become defiant or condescending. But abusive children cross a line when they start attacking people verbally, demeaning others, or threatening to harm themselves-or someone else. The verbalization of threats, name-calling and intimidation gives them power. Those are the kids we're focusing on in this article, and usually they cross the line at a very early age.
Power: The Prime Motivator
Why do kids threaten and verbally abuse their parents? One reason is that when these children feel powerless, they lash out in an attempt to gain more control. Another reason is that they don't have the problem-solving skills necessary to deal with frustration, to deal with disappointment or to resolve conflicts in a more appropriate manner. Children may fail to develop social problem-solving skills for a variety of reasons, which include diagnosed and undiagnosed learning disabilities, family chaos, or individual temperament. Consequently, these kids often become overwhelmed by the emotions they're experiencing as a result of their inability to solve social problems appropriately. If they don't have the tools to deal with these uncomfortable feelings, they resort to name-calling, threats and verbal abuse of those around them.
It is my firm belief that kids also threaten their parents because in our culture today, power has become the solution for the problems people face. That message comes at children from every conceivable source. Movies, music, video games, politics and pro sports glorify aggression and the use of power to get your way. Preteens and adolescents are the most vulnerable to cultural messages, and the message they are getting says that if you're weak, if you're alone, you lose. Don't kid yourself; this is not wasted on our youth. From a very early age, kids are taught that fighting for power and control will solve their problems. And as they get older, that fight becomes a lot more intense.
Now let's say you have a child who, for whatever reason, has poor problem-solving skills. He sees the message of power around him on T.V., in his community and in his culture. He then learns how to use power in the form of threats and verbal abuse to replace his lack of problem-solving abilities. Instead of having to deal with his emotions and overcome whatever given obstacle is in his path, that child uses acting-out behavior, aggressive behavior and abusive behavior so that somebody else has to solve his problems for him. In effect, using this acting out, aggressive or abusive behavior becomes his problem-solving skill. This is a very dangerous pattern for a child to develop.
How Defiance Develops in Your Child
When we raise our children, we are teaching them 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, whether we think they're learning from us or not. Children watch adults for a living. What parents don't always understand is that chronic defiance in children develops over time, after certain lessons are learned and it can start very early on.
Let's take the case of a child who was a fairly normal baby. He's achieved all the developmental milestones, was perhaps a little cranky at times, but generally, behaved age-appropriately. As he gets a little older, he starts having more problems. At about the age of five, he begins to balk at the idea of picking up after himself, whether it's his dirty clothes going into the hamper or toys with which he's been playing. If he's told to clean things in his room, he goes to the living room instead of complying. When asked to finish the task at hand, he says, "I don't want to," and that becomes his battle cry. His parents have to stand over him to get anything done. As he gets older, he starts to challenge and justify, his voice gets louder and his tone gets rougher. He gets stuck in the loop of saying, "I don't want to. I don't have to. I'll do it later. Why do I have to do it now?" When pushed, he will do things grudgingly, but only when adults are watching him. And as soon as they leave the room, his compliance stops.
Some parents will respond to this behavior by lowering their expectations. They place less responsibility on their child to pick up after himself. They wind up picking up his dirty clothes every day and picking up his books and toys, rather than dealing with his resistance, excuses and thinking errors. They think it's easier and keeps the peace if they just to "do it themselves."
For the parents, this can seem like a really good way to cut down on the fighting. After all, it only takes them 30 seconds to put the books away and pick up their child's laundry. By the way, that's a very common response and in some cases, it works out fine. But there are certain children who see that their parents have changed their rules and expectations because they fear their child's resistance and acting out.
These are the children for whom capitulation on the part of the parents becomes a lesson. The lesson is, "If I throw a tantrum and scream at my mother and father, I'm going to get my way." For these children, what tends to happen is that they start throwing more tantrums, yelling more frequently and using these inappropriate behaviors to solve their social problems.
Very early in life, children have to learn to deal with the word "no." They have to learn the feelings of frustration or anger that are triggered when they hear it. In that way, being told "no" is a social problem that they have to solve. Most children develop the social skills of managing the feelings that are triggered when they're denied something. But when the children I'm talking about are told "no" in a department store, their behavior escalates until they're tantruming. And what tends to happen over time is that parents read the signals: they see that the behavior is escalating, and they try to do something about it before the tantrum begins. In other words, as the child gives them cues that he's going to soon lose control if they keep placing the same demands on him, they lessen their demands. That lowering of expectations usually occurs by over-negotiating, compromising, or giving in to their child's demands. In this way, these kids learn to shape the behavior of the adults around them. Make no bones about it, when parents change their routine because a child throws a tantrum, or verbally abuses them, they're teaching that child that he can have power over them through inappropriate behavior. And once again, it's not a lesson lost on that child.
While that's going on, there's a parallel process in which the parents are learning, as well. That lesson is, "If the child is given into, he stops tantruming and stops acting out." For most parents, stopping the acting out is important because its embarrassing and frustrating. And so the parents are taught by the child that if they do what he wants, things will get easier, and if they don't hold him accountable, even at 24 months, he'll stop yelling and having temper tantrums. Parents learn to tolerate more inappropriate, acting-out behavior from the child. I call it "Parents raising their tolerance for deviance." And those two processes, separate though parallel, build on each other and form the child's way of dealing with life.
Of course, as the child gets older, tantrums take on a very different look. Since lying on the floor and screaming and kicking your feet makes kids feel embarrassed when they reach a certain age, they learn various forms of verbal abuse, including name-calling, putting others down, and threatening. They enter kindergarten and try to throw tantrums or fight with their teachers, and then wonder why they aren't allowed to get away with things in school. Many times, they have problems getting along with other kids. When you think about it, the sandbox is a very commonsense place. If your child is in the sandbox with other kids and he's yelling at them and calling them names or threatening to hurt them, they won't play with him anymore-that's all there is to it. And if your child is using inappropriate behavior as a way to get his way, the other kids are going to avoid him. If they have no choice but to accommodate him, once again he will fail to develop appropriate social skills. The lesson that he can get his way by verbally abusing others is reinforced.
So the intimidation between that child and his parents, and between that child and his peers, can start pretty early. Remember that there might be any number of reasons why a child is acting out and unable to handle the difficulties life presents: he might not learn to solve problems effectively because he has a neurological impairment like ADHD, an undiagnosed learning disability, a chaotic family life, or just a personal tendency to be oppositional. The acting-out child then enters adolescence and is a teen whose only problem-solving skills are to talk back abusively, put others down and curse at them, threaten to break things, or even use physical violence. One theory is that it doesn't really matter what prevents your child from learning how to solve problems-rather, it's his inability to do this that leads to the inappropriate behavior. This includes the use of power thrusts like verbal abuse, physical intimidation and assault.
The truth is, it's a core part of our job as parents to teach our children problem-solving skills and to show them that tantrums, screaming, yelling and name-calling, verbal abuse and intimidation will not solve their problems. The reason why we need to step in and help them change their ineffective way of dealing with life's problems is because the more we give power to inappropriate, verbally abusive, behavior the less prepared that child is going to be to solve life's problems as an adult. Make no mistake about it, children who use verbal abuse, name-calling, cursing and intimidation, become verbally abusive adults.
For three decades, behavioral therapist James Lehman, MSW, has worked with troubled kids and children with behavior problems. He has developed a practical, real-life approach to managing children and adolescents that teaches them how to solve social problems without hiding behind a facade of defiant, disrespectful, or obnoxious behavior. He has taught his approach to parents, teachers, state agencies and treatment centers in private practice and now through The Total Transformation Program -- a comprehensive step-by-step, multi-media program that makes learning James' techniques remarkably easy and helps you change your child's behavior. Click now for your Risk Free Trial.
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3 Leadership Traits in Children

By Howard Guy 

To become successful in this world you need to have at least some leadership skills as not only does being a leader allow you to manage others it also gives you confidence, charisma and vision. All of these qualities are found in great men and women around the world making finding leadership traits in children an important part of developing a strong, successful and happy child.

What then do we analyze when we look for leadership traits in children? Here are 3 prime examples of leadership qualities that your child might exhibit proving they are natural leaders.

1. Social Activities - If you pay attention to how you child interacts with other children you can often get a good impression of their abilities. However many parents do not look deep enough to see the qualities that are important. If you child is the captain of the soccer team then yes, it is usually a tick for the leadership box. However did they get there because the players liked the way they helped other players or did they get there because they bullied their team mates into letting him be the captain. No parent likes to admit their child may be a bully but assertiveness can sometimes come from this kind of action when they do not realize that coercion is not leadership. Instead look at how your child helps others, if their concern matches their drive to fix something and make it better this is a much better trait of leadership. Good leaders do not coerce or bully, they lead because people want to follow, they lead because they get the job done!

2. How They Ask Questions - The way your child learns about the world is a good way to judge leadership potential. If your child is too talkative they may not be good listeners, if they are too silent they may not be assertive enough. If your child listens but asks questions frequently and with a desire to learn and with a capacity to link new and complex ideas together then this is a sign of intelligence and of leadership. A leader is someone with a vision of how they want things to be and this comes from a good understanding of how things are. A good leader will ask the right questions to get the answers they need to solve problems.

3. Who Are Their Heroes - This might seem simplistic but it does help in determining leadership traits in children. Who does your child idolize? On the TV, in real life, locally whoever! So many children become obsessed with Bratz dolls and rebellious "cool" characters ... not that all of these characters are displayed as bad leaders but many children are brainwashed into wanting to be popular instead of being a leader. If your child's favorite actors, or cartoon characters are the leaders or are more concerned in getting the job done with the aid of others than being popular or cool this is a sign of someone who respects real leadership at a young age.
Whether or not you notice these signs of leadership in your child you can give your child every chance to succeed in life with leadership skills that will aid them in every endeavor they undertake.
Click below to find out more on how to raise your child to be a winner, a leader and a success rather than another member of the dull rat race.
http://parentingpages.wordpress.com/2008/06/20/you-can-raise-a-leader/

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How To Raise Children In These Times With Strong Christian Values

By Gregg Hall

Raising kids in the twenty first century challenges parents more than ever. Culture calls out to kids, wanting to form them, while many parents want their kids to grow up with a biblical background and faith-based set of values. So how can a parent ride against the tide of culture to raise strong kids with strong faith? Church attendance certainly makes a difference, but parents need to be parents, and they need to use the resources that we have available today.
Consult your local Christian book store, or even the Christian section of a secular book store. You will be amazed at the resources out there that can give you the answers you need to help raising your children.
Both parents should seek out additional resources. Many times just the matriarch of the family seeks out the books with how-to information while the patriarch just trusts her child raising instincts. Both parents should actively parent, not just one. Studies show that children need both parents. Girls need their dads to help form a healthy view of men, and boys need their moms to help form a healthy view of women. So if you want to infuse your faith into your children, pick up a Christian parenting book।

The teen years challenge parents. Many find themselves more frustrated with their teenagers than they ever were with the coloring on the wall by their toddlers that graced ठिरhomes. But parents should realize that teenagers are not a different breed of creature. They are young adults, crying out for direction on how to be an adult. Thus a teen focused Christian parenting book can give parents the direction they need on how to help ठिर teen act like an adult and make the right decisions.
Smaller children can also benefit from such instruction. While these children challenge their parents, parents can find help in Christian parenting books with age specific advice. Books ranging in topics from godly discipline to teaching your kids manners abound in the Christian section of your local book store. And you'll be amazed at what a difference just a few parenting changes will make in the demeanor of your child.
Sure parents need to take their kids to church. They need to take themselves to church, and they need to seek out the advice of other Christian parents. But Christian parenting books offer them one more resource for raising kids that seek to glorify God and follow the principles laid out in the Bible. In the end, books by great authors like Dr. Dobson and Kevin Leiman can make all the difference in the life of a child and in the family as a whole. So what are you waiting for? Start reading.
Gregg Hall is an author living in Navarre Florida. Find more about this as well as spiritual christian gifts at http://www.spiritualchristiangifts.com/
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