Daily Reflection

"Change the course of your parenting today and change the course of your family history for generations to come."

Start by attending our seminar tonight The Perfect Fit-Finding Your Ideal Parenting Style "Relating To Resistant Children" from 6-9pm!

Autistic Kids and Thomas the Tank Engine

Many children with developmental disabilities are fascinated with animated TV characters. A study conducted in the UK found autistic children were far more fascinated with the characters from Thomas the Tank Engine than with other fictional characters.



Picking up on this finding, Autism Spectrum Australia (ASPECT) a non-profit that provides services to people with this development disorder has designed a Thomas The Tank Engine Emotions Game specifically aimed at autistic kids.



The game asks players to recognize which engine has a sad, happy or angry face. Each time the child plays they are presented with a different sequence of emotions. It can also be played to test a child's memory.



Here's the link to play the game:
https://www.autismspectrum.org.au/a2i4i9l435l483/interactive-games.htm
Posted by Pam Dyson, MA, PLPC

Daily Reflection

Children really do have the ability to be motivated and to be obedient from an internal place---a place deep within themselves. The world tells us differently. The world tells us that it takes external rewards and consequences to motivate children or to 'make' children behave.

Reconsider that true obedience and authentic motivation exists within each of us. It can only be discovered when the external environment offers love and understanding unconditionally. Otherwise it hides inside us, afraid to be uncovered due to the environment not feeling safe enough to be exposed.

Learn strategies on how to create that safe environment for your children by attending the seminar The Perfect Fit: Finding Your Ideal Parenting Style. The seminar will take place on July 30th from 6-9 pm. The seminar is located at 11135 Olive Blvd. St. Louis, MO 63141.

DAILY REFLECTION

When you seek to change your child, you must look within yourself first to see what it is in you that needs to be changed. Healing through relationships is a reciprocal process and you, as the parent, need to take the lead in spearheading the movement.

WORKING MOMS NEED SUPPORT

Support Your Local Mom

Close to half of all married women with infants are employed, yet it is still typically the mother who assumes primary responsibility for baby's care. For some working moms, juggling career and family runs smoothly; others don't fare quite as well.

It's not the actual burden of child care that determines working moms' distress, contends a University of California at San Francisco researcher. While bearing the brunt of responsibility does have a negative effect, two other factors also come into play -- and they are closely related:

o Regardless of the actual division of child care, it is extremely important for a mother to be able to count on enlisting her husband's help should she need him.

o The knowledge of such support increases mom's perceived capability to juggle work and baby care -- improving her outlook and reducing overall stress.

Elizabeth Ozer studied 42 married women from the last month of their pregnancy to one month after they returned to work (usually within three months after giving birth). By measuring the moms' degree of child care responsibility, how confident they felt in combining the demands of work and home, psychological distress and well-being, Ozer found that a woman's belief in her ability to manage multiple roles contributes significantly to her overall satisfaction.

And who has the greatest influence on that belief? None other than daddy. Whether or not mommies believed that their jobs or even their friends were flexible enough to help out in a crisis, dads' willingness to help out (if mom gets stuck in a meeting, for instance) greatly influenced their well-being regardless of whether she actually uses his help. Conversely, if dad's attitude toward baby care stinks, the time he puts in doesn't matter; mom still feels extra stressed.

The bottom line? Happy working moms need supportive dads.


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Source URL: http://www.psychologytoday.com/node/22611

Devoted Dad-Key To Reducing Teen Risky Sex

By Linda Carroll
msnbc.com contributor
updated 7:10 a.m. CT, Fri., June 5, 2009

When it comes to preventing risky teen sex, there may be no better deterrent than a doting dad.

Teenagers whose fathers are more involved in their lives are less likely to engage in risky sexual activities such as unprotected intercourse, according to a new study.

The more attentive the dad — and the more he knows about his teenage child's friends — the bigger the impact on the teen's sexual behavior, the researchers found. While an involved mother can also help stave off a teen’s sexual activity, dads have twice the influence.

*for more information go to...http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31086977/from/ET/*

TESTIMONIAL FROM THE PERFECT FIT SEMINAR

"I learned a lot. Just the fact that I was sitting in a room with others that were experiencing the same thing made me feel not so alone. Today I used some of the techniques and they actually WORKED, not to say I am cured, but it is a great start." (Relating To Resistant Children Seminar)

*ONLY A FEW SLOTS AVAILABLE SIGN UP NOW*

JULY 30TH FROM 6-9PM

Daily Reflection

The greatest gift you can give to your children is you. Spend time with them, help them through their struggles, and love them through their behaviors.

A PARENTS PRAYER

A Parent’s Prayer
By author unknown, on June 15th, 2009

Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray my sanity to keep.
For if some peace I do not find,
I’m pretty sure I’ll lose my mind.

I pray I find a little quiet,
Far from the daily family riot.
May I lie back and not have to think
About what they’re stuffing down the sink,

Or who they’re with, or where they’re at
And what they’re doing to the cat.
I pray for time all to myself
(did something just fall off a shelf?)

To cuddle in my nice, soft bed
(Oh no, another goldfish–dead!)
Some silent moments for goodness sake
(Did I just hear a window break?)

And that I need not cook or clean
(well heck, I’ve got the right to dream)
Yes now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray my wits about me keep,
But as I look around I know,
I must have lost them long ago!

* FOR TIPS ON HOW TO KEEP YOUR SANITY, WHEN TIMES ARE HECTIC, AND YOUR AT YOUR BREAKING POINT...COME TO THE PERFECT FIT-FINDING YOUR IDEAL PARENTING STYLE SEMINAR, TOPIC IS RELATING TO RESISTANT CHILDREN*

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"A person soon learns how little he knows when a child begins to ask questions."

Richard L. Evans

Daily Reflection

Parenting is not about controlling our children through consequences and directives. These are fear based parenting techniques that teach our children to be reactive out of fear. Parenting is about influencing our children through love and understanding. This teaches our children to respond out of love. Thus, true control comes through loving influence.

*Want more information on what this looks like....Come to The Perfect Fit Seminar and learn how to identify your child's love language so that you can better reach your child in a loving way verses through fear and consequences.

Daily Reflection

Overwhelming amounts of stress can cause confused and distorted thinking. When in a state of heightened stress, our perception of events is viewed from a place of self-protection where all of our resources are spent on calming our own internal state of discomfort. In this state, we are closed to relationships and are prone to show blaming and controlling behaviors, thus creating more fear within ourselves and within the environment in which we live.

*Mindful parenting is key during a period of heightened stress, these techniques can be learned during our upcoming seminar The Perfect Fit-Finding Your Ideal Parenting Style "Relating to Resistant Children" July 30 6-9pm, contact us and register now!*