Dealing with Anger in Your Home

While we may wish to protect our children from all situations of danger or stress, in reality they will have to work to have control of their own lives. Anger is a common response to such a situation and can be a frightening and yet inevitable emotion.  The important part is knowing how to react when we feel overwhelmed with he emotion of anger. It is easy to go from “zero to sixty” when we get angry. Sometimes we get angry after a hard day, siblings screaming over a game, stepping on a toy left on the floor, etc. As children are incredible imitators, they often emulate the response to stress that they witness.  Consequently, we must model appropriate behavior for our children while discussing with them alternatives to losing their temper.  We must understand the value of preserving our self-esteem in even the most difficult situations.

Responding to an Angry Child

• stay calm
• don’t give in
• help instill problem solving skills
• time -outs
• praise appropriate behavior
• avoid triggers

While we work to control our own anger, we must help our children understand the value of controlling theirs.  Parents are often surprised by how easily their children may become frustrated about minor incidents.  Often children learn much about their reactions from their environment. Whether in your home, school, or television, they are sponges that learn how to deal with situations through mirroring. It is important to discuss openly with them what their trigger is and how to deal with difficult situations.

~ TURNING STONEchoice

Teaching Choice

One way to assist you in communicating to your children is to emphasize their ability to control their own living. When you frame conversations by helping them understand the impact of their choices, children are willing to interact with you.  For example, rather than saying, “Sit down and study for that test you have tomorrow,” interact to help them understand the ramifications of not studying: How they may receive a poor grade: How it can create an unfortunate habit for them. Being reminded that they have a choice whether to do their homework or not but should understand the rationale for not doing it and the subsequent ramifications.

Common Miscommunication:

• making ultimatums
• making threats
• making assumptions
• name calling
• accusing
• limiting their power

The language that you use with your children can limit your effectiveness for parenting.  Your tone and mannerism also impacts how they “hear” you.  Children want to be validated by having their parent hear them and show them respect.

~ Learn more at TURNING STONEchoice

Dealing with Bullying!

Any of us can recount stories about bullies from our own experiences in school.  While we may not have been a victim, we may have been a bystander or even a perpetrator.  We can vividly tell stories about the elementary school student that was targeted because they were not popular or the child that was constantly harassed at recess.  There are numerous reasons why students may bully others.  This works under the premise that experiencing bullying is not just a “rite of passage” and there are skills you can equip your children with to help them thrive.  Parents must remember anyone can be a bully.  Bullying in schools is a source of public outrage in media outlets.  While your child’s school or school district may have various programs to address bullying and institute peer mediation, positive choice making and social skills to curb bullying, as a parent there are numerous things you can do to equip your child.  Here is an inspiring story on athletes stepping up to take a stand http://www.buzzfeed.com/rachelzarrell/when-a-cheerleader-with-down-syndrome-was-bullied-these-play?utm_term=.pl7B690E4 

While no one has the right to be bullied, help with the understanding that some children are more susceptible to being a victim then others.  Those who are isolated or seek excessive attention by pestering or overcompensating for insecurity may be more likely to be bullied.  There is no rationale for bullying being tolerated in schools. However, understanding your children’s tendencies will help you help them navigate through school and provide them with the tools to be successful in their adult life, where bullying doesn’t necessarily end.

To learn more or visit TURNING STONEchoice we would love to here from you!

Holiday Greetings

This holiday season is a wonderful time of year when we celebrate faith, family and the tradition of giving.

…Take time to slow down and relish the simple things.

…Take time during the rush of the holidays to enjoy the things in life that really matter.

…Take time to savor the quiet moments spent with friends and loved ones.

We at TURNING STONEchoice hope that the true meaning of the holiday season fills everyone’s heart and home with many blessings.

Remember:

“Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love.” – Lao Tzu

“When we give cheerfully and accept gratefully, everyone is blessed.”
― Maya Angelou

Wishing you a joyous holiday season and a New Year filled with peace and happiness!

Season’s Greetings,

~TURNING STONEchoice

Teaching Children Self-Control

Self-control is an important skill for all children to learn and develop. It refers to having power and control over one’s own actions and impulses. Children who do not make conscious choices about their own behavior, but instead rely on other children, parents, teachers, or adults to make choices for them, do not learn self-control. This may lead to children not taking responsibility for the consequences of their behavior. When children are taught self-control methods at an early age, they will feel better about themselves and the choices that they make.

Here is a quote from an article from the NPR website, For Kids, Self-Control Factors Into Future Success:

“Self-control keeps us from eating a whole bag of chips or from running up the credit card. A new study says that self-control makes the difference between getting a good job or going to jail – and we learn it in preschool.”

“Children who had the greatest self-control in primary school and preschool ages were most likely to have fewer health problems when they reached their 30s,” says Terrie Moffitt, a professor of psychology at Duke University and King’s College London.”

Helpful tips for teaching self-control using the TURNING STONEchoice Process:

STOP and breathe (count to ten or take a time out from the situation)

Think and listen to what you are feeling about the situation

Observe what just happened and all the choices that are in front of you

Plan and take action on what positive choices can be made

In order for children to gain control of their behavior when they are experiencing strong feelings, they must know how to identify those feelings. It is never too early to talk to children about emotions and to help them see the connection between feelings and behavior. Linking emotions and actions together demonstrates how our feelings can affect the choices we make. It is a process that can lead to improvement in all children’s self-control.

Here are some sentence tools that teach children problem-solving steps. These steps assist children in understanding their emotions:

THINK about what happened

THINK of how your body feels

RECOGNIZE the feeling

Say, “I Feel____”

Another important aspect of these tools is that it builds communication between you and your child. You as a trusted adult in your child’s life can show by example. Children can learn to understand how they feel and how their feelings affect their choices. Self-control enables children to identify their choices when they are in negative situations. This is an important step to begin to learn independent positive decision-making skills.

 “Educate your children to self-control, to the habit of holding passion and prejudice and evil tendencies subject to an upright and reasoning will, and you have done much to abolish misery from their future and crimes from society.”
― Benjamin Franklin

Helpful Links to follow for more information:

http://www.npr.org/2011/02/14/133629477/for-kids-self-control-factors-into-future-success

http://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/self-control

We welcome all comments!

~TURNING STONEchocie

When Will It Stop?

We’ve seen the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge go viral over the last two weeks on social media; people happily dumping buckets of ice water over their heads to raise money for a worthy cause. During this same period of time, Michael Brown was killed in Ferguson, Missouri and protests have continued in that city and around the country. In the aftermath of the death of Michael Brown, may we engage thoughtfully and critically in examining the situation in Ferguson and stand together on the side of justice and equality?

We need to make empowering choices to actively plan how to take actions that will dismantle injustice when it happens in America. So here’s a #FergusonChallenge:

Share a story about how the events in Ferguson have resonated with you, and then donate to an organization that promotes underserved youth, racial justice, and/or police accountability.

Here a story that resonates with TURNING STONEchoice. It is one of the Letters to the Editor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch titled When Ferguson Hits Home August 21, 2014

I never thought I would be living so close to conflict. If I jumped on the highway and zoomed down a few exits, I’d be visiting Ferguson. We are that close, yet we are so far away. Our entire city and country has become focused on what is, and even more alarming, what is not happening in a town within our town. Yet we attempt to put distance between our neighborhoods, just like we attempt to say what’s happening in the Middle East is happening “over there.” Well, folks, “over there” just came to our backyards, and it is madly screaming for our attention.

None of us know the whole story of the incident that led to this massive turmoil my neighbors are embracing without choice. I grieve with every single person involved in this story. There is not one person who is unaffected by this tragedy, including those of us who attempt to drown out the sirens because it’s happening “over there.” It’s “here,” people. The world is watching us, and most importantly our children are silently observing every step we take.

I wonder what would happen if we embraced all those who were hurting tonight, and realized that grieving is actually taking place on both sides of the police line. What if we all held ourselves accountable and allowed each other to take a deep breath when confusion, fear or anger sets in to release a potential breath of hope? I wonder if we’d find peace.

Jen McCurdy  •  St. Louis County

The choice is yours to empower your children and help guide them through purposeful and empowering choice making to help end intolerance and create a peaceful world.

As TURNING STONEchoice always teaches children and adults in our communities, and as the writer of this letter suggests, the first thing we must do is to take that “breath of hope”.

ACLU of Missouri Foundation: http://www.aclu-mo.org/get-involved/
Amnesty International: http://www.amnestyusa.org/donate-to-amnesty
Ferguson Youth Initiative: http://fyifergyouth.org/
Ferguson Bail Fund: http://antistatestl.noblogs.org/…/bail-and-legal-fund…/
Or buy an “I Am Human” tee-shirt to support protestors on the ground: http://teespring.com/IAMHUMANDONTSHOOT