Transformational Parenting Starts With You!

Transformational parenting starts with you, but not in the way you might think. It does not involve second-guessing your child's every need, martyring yourself at the altar of his/her wishes, always saying the right thing, or never making mistakes. It starts with taking care of yourself by making yourself a priority in your own life! Why is this crucial? By making it clear that your needs do matter, you . . .

1. have more energy and enthusiasm for the important tasks involved in parenting.


2. teach your child that he/she is not the center of the universe.


3. prepare him/her for the real world.


4. model self-respect to your son/daughter.


5. raise a child who does not have a sense of entitlement.


6. increase your child's frustration toleration.


7. develop your child's ability to delay gratification.


8. encourage resourcefulness.

So stop thinking you are being selfish when you want some "me" time! Go ahead and indulge yourself - for the sake of your child!

Visit Pampering Indulgences for some great ways to take a "time out" for yourself.

Copyright © 2008 by Holly A. Cox, L.C.P.C., C.D.C.®

Creating the Illusion of Success . . . Why Being Too Responsible for the Actions of Our Children is Not a Good Idea!

When we take too much responsibility for the accomplishments of our children, we find ourselves doing more than we should in order to maintain the illusion of success. It becomes all too easy to forget that we are not the ones getting the education, writing the paper, preparing for the test, or completing the project. We want our children to earn good grades, get into a good high school, advance to a great college, achieve unbelievable success, and live happily ever after. In the process, we also want to protect them from hardships, disappointments, and failures.

Why is this a problem? When we care more than our children do about their responsibilities, we do too much, and they do too little. On the surface, everything looks like it is going well. We might even be able to ensure that they get accepted into the college of their dreams; however, we can't go there with them. That's when the illusion gets shattered.

Those of us who take our responsibilities very seriously can do this quite well. We make sure our children turn in homework with no mistakes. We agonize over their grades. We stay up until all hours of the night working on a project that was assigned weeks ago. We run to the store at the last minute searching for supplies for a project that is due the next day. We might even fill out their college applications for them. Sure, we yell at our children and ask them why they refuse to take responsibility for themselves. We bemoan the fact that we have so much "homework" to do and dream of the time when they will graduate so we can finally take a break.

Why aren't our children more responsibile? The fact is that they don't have to be. Here are some of the reasons:

• Our society has become so focused on success and achievement that we feel judged as parents when our children do not constantly shine.
• We are afraid to let them directly experience the consequences of being unprepared or wrong.
• We have lost sight of the lessons inherent in making mistakes.
• Our children know someone is always willing to trail behind them and pick up the pieces.
• We over-emphasize the importance of having the right answer, the perfect paper, the most creative project.
• Learning takes a second place to getting a good grade.
• Self-evaluation for our children becomes secondary to worrying about our reactions.
• They have grown up in an instant gratification society.
• We don't like to see our loved ones struggle, despite the fact that it is in the very act of struggling that growth takes place.

Copyright © 2008 by Holly Cox, L.C.P.C., C.D.C.®

Great Expectations Are Not So Great!

Ryan, my first-born son, started reading when he was three. At four, he attended a Montessori School and before long he was pasting continents on a map and naming all of them. My husband and I were so very proud of him, and we often asked him to demonstrate his talents in front of interested (and not-so-interested) friends and relatives. Amazed and overjoyed that our son could name all of the continents, we failed to pause and realize that at that age he didn't really understand the concept of a neighborhood, town, city, or country, let alone a continent. So while his ability to dazzle us with his intelligence had great entertainment value, it really was little more than a parlor trick.

We like to brag about my daughter's dog, Jolie, and demonstrate her talents to others as well. When asked "How does a bad girl make her money?" she rolls over on her back with little understanding of what we are really talking about. It gets a lot of laughs, though.

In contrast to Jolie, our son Ryan is a very intelligent individual and has many other phenomenal abilities and talents that represent higher level thinking skills. However, there were many times in his life that his intelligence felt like an albatross around his neck. In order to maintain the good opinion and high expectations of others, Ryan always felt like he had to perpetually perform at a superior level. When he didn't, he heard the often repeated refrain, "You could do better if you wanted to." After all, we envisioned our little three-year old as the next Doogie Howser, M.D. and felt it was our job to keep him on the "success" track.

I guess you could say we lost sight of the fact that it was our dream for him, not necessarily his own dream for himself - and therein lies the problem. When we have very high expectations for our children, they start believing they have to continually achieve them in order to make us happy. If they feel this is an impossible task, they can either suffer from anxiety-driven perfectionism or give up entirely and head in the opposite direction. For awhile, Ryan's main goal was to keep us off his back. His first response to less-than-perfect grades, like many of the underachieving students I've met, was "I'm in deep trouble now." His grades had no personal meaning for him. They were only a means to an end. His main concern was our reaction to them.

Were we terrible parents? No, I don't believe we were. We just wanted our son to have the sun, the moon, and the stars - even if he did not necessarily want those things for himself. Hoping to encourage Ryan in developing his wonderful gifts and talents, we sent a message we did not intend to send. After many ups and downs along the way, we were eventually able to set our own expectations aside and give him the gift of true acceptance. Interestingly enough, that is when he set his own standards for himself and achieved them beyond his and our wildest dreams.

Copyright © 2008 by Holly Cox, L.C.P.C., C.D.C.®

What Do We Really Want For Our Children?

From the moment our children enter the world, they own our hearts. Actually, that's not quite true. For most of us, it happens as soon as we find out we've conceived a child. The planning begins, and we're off and running. We start dreaming of the way things will be. As the miracle of life becomes more and more evident, we get lost in the blissful glow of looking for baby furniture, decorating the baby's room, registering at Baby's R Us, nudging our tummies to feel movement within, and anxiously waiting for the BIG EVENT!

Unfortunately, it doesn't stop there. As soon as our little angels enter the world, we begin having huge hopes and aspirations for their futures. "My son is going to be a doctor." "My daughter is destined for greatness." "Look at how smart he is. I know he must be a prodigy." "She's so adorable. I know all the teachers will love her when she gets to school."

So what's wrong with this picture? Without our realizing it, these expectations can lead to quite a few negative results. We'll examine them more closely in later posts, but I'll list a few briefly now.

• Our children start believing they have to live up to our expectations in order to keep us happy.
• We start taking way too much responsibility for their academic, social, and/or athletic success.
• True learning often takes second place to attaining the outward signs of accomplishment.
• In trying to rescue our children from falling on their faces, we often prevent the important lessons taught through hardships and challenges.
• Failure becomes a dirty word, instead of just a sign that we need to change course a bit.
• When we play an overly responsible role in our children's lives, they begin to doubt themselves and their own coping abilities.
• Our relationships become conflicted when our own egos start battling with theirs.
• There is a greater emphasis on competition, rather than on collaboration.

Copyright © 2008 by Holly Cox, L.C.P.C., C.D.C.®