Are you speaking a different love language?

n106986646000880_7711When I discovered “The Five Love Languages” by Gary Chapman my world was turned upside down…in a good way.  Chapman’s theory is that there are five primary love languages and that each of us tends to have one language we give and receive love in the most often and the most easily.  He says that often people are trying to express love, but those efforts are not getting received as love by the other person.  This struck a chord for me particularly in my relationship with my dad.

After learning more about these five languages, I began to realize that although I had spent much of my life thinking that my dad didn’t love me as deeply as I wanted him to, in reality, he’d been loving me all along, I just hadn’t recognized his efforts as love! read more

Giving kids power helps them cooperate

kid_power4If you’re noticing that your kids are having a difficult time cooperating or listening or generally following your lead, first let me remind you, you’re not alone.  Lots of parents go through this difficulty every day.  I know it can be super frustrating when you’re just trying to get things done, or get to the store, or follow the rules, and your child is fighting you every step of the way.

One way to encourage cooperation from kids is to designate some time each week (or day) where they get to be in charge.  Somehow by allowing kids to take the lead for even 10 minutes a day, you’ll find that they’re much more willing to allow you to take the lead for the rest of the time.  There are several ways you can do this. read more

Redirecting anger in healthy ways

angryEverybody gets upset and angry sometimes and when I was young I thought that having someone near me who was angry was just about the worst thing ever.  But now that I’ve grown up and gotten in touch with my own anger, I actually think there are some really great benefits of anger!  You can check out my blog: The upside of anger for more details about that.

Recently in my coaching, several parents have shared their guilt over getting angry in front of their kids.  I totally get it.  It’s hard to keep our cool when we’re feeling really frustrated, but after we lose it, we feel guilty and concerned that we may have somehow damaged our kids.  For starters let me say, you’re not doing any long term damage to your kids if you lose your temper once in a while.  Kids are very resilient and amazingly able to let things go.  But if this is a challenge you struggle with often, I’ve got some thoughts and ideas to help you manage your anger in a more healthy way.  You can also teach your kids some of these techniques so that everyone in your family is practicing healthy expressions of anger. read more

What Do You Really Need in The New Year?

Happy Gregorian New Year! Whatever calendar we may observe as part of our many traditions, the popularity and ubiquity of the Gregorian New Year offers us a time to reflect, regroup and realign with what we want most.

This past October, as part of my year-long program studying Nonviolent Communication  (NVC) mediation, I went on one of three retreats. I got to deepen my NVC skills, learn new ways of approaching mediation, and make many wonderful connections with other mediators.

One powerful demonstration stood out in my mind.  John Kinyon, one of my mentors, stood with one foot in front of the other. He said he was about to recall something he was upset or angry about, and to think of it in “jackal” or judgmental terms, such as “that person’s a jerk,” (or bad, or wrong or similar). He did so, and asked a volunteer to attempt to push him off balance. John got knocked over quite easily. read more

Rewind! A simple trick that really works.

Sometimes the best and simplest solutions are the hardest to remember. I’m not sure why that is. Back in the days when Shelly and I lived in the same city and taught classes “real-time,” one of the things we brought up frequently was that in real life, you don’t really get “rewinds,” where you can go back and start over. So we’d replay challenging situations and get to try out new behaviors so we could become comfortable with them.

However, you *can* start over in real life. Well, not really, in the sense that the past is still there. But you can “rewind,” if both people agree. read more