When Your Own Fears Get In The Way Of Parenting

You have begun to use the 10-20-10 strategy, and are spending more time with your children. You know that you must listen and validate what your children are saying and feeling.

But you are finding it difficult to listen because of challenges that you are facing. Your own fear is causing you to regret the past and obsess about the future. Human beings live their lives largely in memory and imagination, meaning that we are either remembering the past or imagining the future. Our bodies are physically present, but our minds are elsewhere.

This is when you need to take a few deep breaths and really concentrate on focusing. You need to try and be fully mindful. I know that this can be very difficult. You need to understand that it has to occur a microsecond at a time. The skill of emotional regulation and clearing your mind is important and it must be developed. For a more detailed explanation about the neural mechanisms beneath social and emotional intelligence and how these can be cultivated through reflective practices that focus on the inner nature, you can watch this lecture from Dr. Daniel Siegel http://bit.ly/skvVSt.

This concept is very important, but it is just as important to understand the spiritual aspect of the process of connecting in relationships. When two or more people are gathered a spirit is created. This is found in Matthew 18:20. “For where two or three are gathered in My name, there I am with them.”

I admit that I don’t fully understand it, but I have felt it. This is a mysterious thing that we probably won’t ever fully understand, but we know that the phenomenon of a spirit created by people who are present is a powerful thing.

So remember to breathe and focus on concentrating when you are with your children, so that you are all able to experience the spiritual connection.

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Ken Thom, MS, LPC is a nationally recognized Christian counselor and writer. He is available for parent and individual coaching. Ken is a Post Institute Certified Family Regulatory Therapist, Certified Coach and Great Behavior Breakdown Instructor as well as a certified BCI parent trainer. Ken's book Christian Parent Wisdom is a daily scripture based medication book for parenting children with challenging behaviors. Contact Ken.

Fathers, Increase The Quality Time You Spend With Your Child

If you think back on your own childhood, do you remember the things that your father bought you or activities that you did together. I think we all remember going fishing, camping, playing catch, etc.

Now is the time to make the decision to increase the quality time that you spend with your children.

I recommend that you learn and utilize the 10-20-10 strategy, which is a simple formula to follow. 

You spend 10 minutes in the morning, 20 minutes in the afternoon, and 10 minutes in the evening with your children. These opportunities are simply to listen and not judge, blame, or shame. You need to validate what your children are saying and feeling. Validation does not mean that you agree with what they are saying and feeling, but you are listening and hearing them.

Spending less than an hour each day listening to your children can begin to repair broken relationships. Repairing relationships allows you to help influence your children to start making more responsible decisions while also demonstrating respect.

So, tomorrow, begin using the 10-20-10 strategy and remember to listen.

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Ken Thom, MS, LPC is a nationally recognized Christian counselor and writer. He is available for parent and individual coaching. Ken is a Post Institute Certified Family Regulatory Therapist, Certified Coach and Great Behavior Breakdown Instructor as well as a certified BCI parent trainer. Ken's book Christian Parent Wisdom is a daily scripture based medication book for parenting children with challenging behaviors. Contact Ken.

Fathers Are Responsible For Love, Grace and Forgiveness

Being a father can be very trying, but it can also be one of the most fulfilling jobs you will ever have.

You must understand that challenges bring with them great opportunities for healing and reconnection. You have the ability to interrupt your children’s stress cycles, and become emotionally safe for your children.

Remember to breathe in and get past your own fear. When you respond in love you send positive energy to the places that need healing. Emotional regulation through love promotes healing, and you can help your children become refreshed at the cellular level.

Your part in the healing process is to bring love, grace, and forgiveness into your children’s lives. By allowing love, grace, and forgiveness to flow through you, you help create an environment that is conducive to healing. You are not responsible for healing, but you are responsible for helping others on their journey to heal.

Simple? Yes.

Complex and hard to do? Yes.

Perfect love and forgiveness comes only from Jesus through our relationship with him. Therefore, you must work to get yourself into that place of love and forgiven

ess, so that can help others.

"It will be a healing for your flesh and refreshment for your body." Proverbs 3:8

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Ken Thom, MS, LPC is a nationally recognized Christian counselor and writer. He is available for parent and individual coaching. Ken is a Post Institute Certified Family Regulatory Therapist, Certified Coach and Great Behavior Breakdown Instructor as well as a certified BCI parent trainer. Ken's book Christian Parent Wisdom is a daily scripture based medication book for parenting children with challenging behaviors. Contact Ken.

Modeling Relationships For Your Children

When we speak about mothers modeling healthy relationships for their children, let’s not forget the oxytocin factor.

Mothers are usually better equipped neurologically to express and process feelings. Mothers tend to be better at helping a child develop a strong oxytocin response. All children need this.

Boys and girls both need this to balance their testosterone levels that begin to rise in puberty. If mothers don’t help their daughters with this, the daughters will seek out that regulation from males. Boys need regulation from their mothers to help reduce and manage their aggressive tendencies; otherwise connection with other aggressive males will escalate their aggressive tendencies.

Oxytocin helps maintain emotional regulation. Emotional regulation allows us to connect in relationship with others. Emotional regulation keeps us out of a state of fear. Fear causes irrational and distorted thinking and short-term memory loss. Equipping your child to have a strong oxytocin response as well as learning how to stimulate their own oxytocin is an invaluable gift to give to your child. It is most definitely the gift that keeps on giving.

Most importantly, be a Godly role model. Treat your child with mercy and grace in all situations. Just like your Heavenly Father treats you. Demonstrate forgiveness. Train up your child in the ways of the Lord, Proverbs 22:6. Pray with them, not just for them. Actively engage them in praise and worship for God. Make God the center of your relationship with them. Make God the center of all family relationships. Read my article “Godly Families”.

Check out my website for products and services that will help you along your journey. Remember to parent in love because love never fails.

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Ken Thom, MS, LPC is a nationally recognized Christian counselor and writer. He is available for parent and individual coaching. Ken is a Post Institute Certified Family Regulatory Therapist, Certified Coach and Great Behavior Breakdown Instructor as well as a certified BCI parent trainer. Ken's book Christian Parent Wisdom is a daily scripture based medication book for parenting children with challenging behaviors. Contact Ken.

Your Children Learn From Watching You

Mothers are the role model for their children of interaction with the opposite sex. How mothers interact with their spouses teaches their children how adult relationships are “supposed” to be.

Children learn through modeling. Your behavior teaches your son and your daughter what is acceptable or not acceptable in relationships. Open communication and expression of feelings with your spouse lets your children know it is OK to feel.

Setting healthy boundaries in your relationships will automatically help your child set healthy boundaries in their lives. Boys will learn what it is to respect females. Your son will be more likely to turn to you for matters of the heart when he sees you being able to listen to his dad’s feelings.

Girls will learn to expect respect from males. Girls will learn that they have a right to expect men to listen to them. This promotes positive self esteem with both boys and girls. Simply put, they become comfortable with being either male or female.

Both masculinity and femininity are validated when they are demonstrated through healthy, regulated behaviors. This keeps us away from the “battle of the sexes”.

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Ken Thom, MS, LPC is a nationally recognized Christian counselor and writer. He is available for parent and individual coaching. Ken is a Post Institute Certified Family Regulatory Therapist, Certified Coach and Great Behavior Breakdown Instructor as well as a certified BCI parent trainer. Ken's book Christian Parent Wisdom is a daily scripture based medication book for parenting children with challenging behaviors. Contact Ken.

Give Your Children A Voice

It is important for parents to help their children have a voice.

Many girls grow up with a blueprint of always having to please. This interferes with them setting healthy boundaries. This can be achieved by allowing your daughter to be frustrated or angry. Be in that space with her. Let her know that those feelings are OK. Let her know that you can handle her feelings.

There is a tendency to shut our children down if they express their feelings and it feels disrespectful. You may shut them down if their feelings are too intense for you to handle. The appropriateness of expression can be taught at a later time. The important thing is that they are expressing their feelings.

When you validate their feelings, you are validating who they are. That is another piece of them that then becomes OK. Not validating their feelings tells them that their feelings are not OK. Therefore they are not OK.

Boys may find their voice only through anger. Many times anger is the only feelings boys are allowed to have. Our society tells men that it’s not OK to cry or be vulnerable. When their anger is shut down, boys feel disrespected. Then the message is that anger is not OK. This means that they are not OK.

The anger is suppressed. Suppressed anger builds into rage. Rage can then become out of control. It may go the other direction and contribute to depression. After validating your son’s anger, you can then start to reach the hurt and fear that is under the anger.

Parents need to evaluate their own blueprints around anger. Parents need to understand their own reactions to anger in order to connect with their children when their children are angry. Otherwise the child feels rejected.

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Ken Thom, MS, LPC is a nationally recognized Christian counselor and writer. He is available for parent and individual coaching. Ken is a Post Institute Certified Family Regulatory Therapist, Certified Coach and Great Behavior Breakdown Instructor as well as a certified BCI parent trainer. Ken's book Christian Parent Wisdom is a daily scripture based medication book for parenting children with challenging behaviors. Contact Ken.

Make Mother’s Day Happy

This Mother’s Day, take some time to find out who your child really is. Find out what they are all about. We carry with us way too many stereotypes of girls and boys, and of females and males.

Many of the role models we experience in society are inaccurate. Some stereotypes may come from your own family background and traditions. It is unfair to place these roles or stereotypes on your children.

If you don’t value and honor your child for whom he or she is, then they will not be able to value and honor themselves.

This may be a challenge because of your own past experiences in relationships. You may see someone else in your child because of something in your past. Work through this because that miss-perception about your son or daughter will not allow you to connect in love.

That irrational or erroneous belief about your son or daughter will take you out of relationship with your child.

I hope you have been enjoying a very Happy Mother’s Day.

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Ken Thom, MS, LPC is a nationally recognized Christian counselor and writer. He is available for parent and individual coaching. Ken is a Post Institute Certified Family Regulatory Therapist, Certified Coach and Great Behavior Breakdown Instructor as well as a certified BCI parent trainer. Ken's book Christian Parent Wisdom is a daily scripture based medication book for parenting children with challenging behaviors. Contact Ken.