Tag: family counseling

Family Counseling Helps Parents Create Family Routines

family counseling to create family routinesDo you face daily struggles just getting your child out the door in the mornings? Are you always late for work because your 7 year old refuses to put his shoes on when you ask?

You’re not alone.

At Tender Hearts Child Therapy Center, in family counseling we help parents who are facing daily battles with their children. One suggestion we have for parents in family counseling is to implement some family routines. It’s amazing how quickly some of your daily battles with your children will be resolved when you implement and stick to family routines. [br] 

4 Tips to Start a Morning Family Routine:

1.  When you first begin a family routine for the mornings, you’ll find that the routine will be more successful if you wake up earlier than you think you need to at first. Get everyone in the household up at least 15 minutes earlier than you think you are going to need. This includes parents. If you have to have your morning coffee before waking the kids, start an additional 15 minutes earlier. This will give the whole family enough time to get everything done before heading off to school and work and not be rushed or running late. As your family gets more comfortable with the family routine and things begin to run more smoothly in the mornings, you can adjust your wake-up times.

2. The second tip we tell parents in family counseling sessions is to get everything done the night before that can be done. For example, pack lunches, lay out clothes, plan breakfast, gather up homework and all other school items in backpacks and put backpacks by the door. For younger kids (or teenagers who just take too long) get showers and baths the night before, as well.

3. To make mornings run even better, give your children more responsibility. Have a morning checklist for your children. This can be an actual checklist or just one that parents go over with their children before leaving. Checklists can include things like:
• Eating breakfast
• Getting dressed
• Hair and teeth brushed
• Put on shoes
• Get backpacks and lunches

4. To try to avoid the morning procrastinators, give your children an incentive if they get ready early. Allow them some time for TV, reading, a computer game, or something else they like to do before heading off to school. [br] 

Tender Hearts Family Counseling Tips for Afternoon and Evening Routines:

Since most families are super busy with after-school activities, it’s easy to get out of daily routines. However, as we tell parents in family counseling sessions, children need routines to feel safe and secure in their environments.  Regardless of how many after-school activities your child participates in, there is one thing that every child needs to have in his afternoon and evening routine: homework. It is very important early in the school year to establish a homework routine for your children, even if homework is light in the beginning of the year, but it’s never too late to begin a new family afternoon routine.

Sample Afternoon Family Routine:

  1. Provide a healthy snack, but not too close to dinner.
  2. Allow some “down time.” Younger children will want to play and be physical to burn off the energy built up from sitting all day at school. Older children will probably want to watch TV or socialize with their friends
  3. For younger children, check backpacks every night for notes from the teacher and homework. Add important school dates to your family calendar.
  4. For older children, review assignments, homework, and projects from each class. This can be something as simple as asking your child what he did in math class, science class, English class, etc. while you are preparing dinner.
  5. Provide a space for your child to complete his homework. Remove distractions from the homework area so that your child can focus on the homework.
  6. Check or review homework for completion once your child has finished and pack everything in the child’s backpack for a smoother morning.

Finally, while routines are important for children, it is also important to be flexible with your routines. We tell parents in family counseling that it’s important to make changes as necessary to fit your lifestyle. For example, if you always fix a big breakfast for your children, but you consistently run 10 minutes late, try simplifying breakfast to cereal and toast and save those big breakfasts for the weekends.

If you’re exhausted from the daily battles with your children, family counseling can provide you with support and practical strategies to help end the battles once and for all. Tender Hearts Child Therapy Center specializes in providing Family Counseling to specifically address your family’s unique needs. We don’t use cookie-cutter methods in our family counseling sessions. We pull from a variety of parenting methods to help you find the solutions that work best for your family. Call us Today!

What to Say (and Not to Say) to Your Teen to Improve Family Communication

Family Communication with TeenEver feel like no matter what you say to your teen, your teen just isn’t listening to you or doesn’t care what you have to say?  You’re not alone.  We all know that family communication is vital maintaining a good relationship with our teens.  But sometimes it’s hard to know what to say.  [br]     

From your teen’s perspective, mom and dad are being too overbearing or trying to pry into their personal business and they just “don’t get it.”   [br] 

So, how can a parent work on improving open family communication with their teen?  Here are 4 suggestions on what to say and what not to say to your teen.   [br] 

Try Saying:  “What do you think?”

Avoid:  Lecturing   [br] 

Effective family communication with teens starts with effective listening. Parents sometimes have a tendency to talk more than they listen, especially when they feel their teen is making a bad decision. But this tendency to lecture only creates conflict and makes it more unlikely that your teen will feel comfortable talking to you about something important in the future—not what you want to do to create open lines of family communication! Be sure to listen to what they have to say in a nonjudgmental way. No matter how much you disagree, start by letting the teen openly express what he has to say before thoughtfully responding. Another good recommendation is to pick at least one meal each day to sit down and eat as a family. This gives families an opportunity to talk about the day’s events or anything else that’s on their minds. If meal time absolutely does not work with your schedule, try to pick a specific time of the day, each day to talk to your teen. Mealtimes are often the easiest but finding the time whenever you can is the most important thing to developing better lines of family communication.   [br] 

Try Saying:  “Thank you for taking out the trash.”

Avoid Saying:  “You’re just going to turn out just like your brother.  Why won’t you ever listen to me?”   [br] 

Another point for parents to keep in mind is the concept of “self-fulfilling prophecies.” In this sense, “self-fulfilling prophecy” means that if parents continually talk negatively or do not trust their teen, the teen’s behavior may begin to more closely resemble what mom or dad are already implying. Parents of teens may often take a more controlling or negative tone when speaking to their teen, especially if there is already good reason for mom and dad to be on guard. When parents take a more negative stance in their conversations, the teen may feel like mom and dad do not trust them and nothing they do or say will make a difference. Therefore, they may feel they have nothing to lose with their behaviors. Be careful with taking a negative tone and focusing only on the negative with your teen. This will only make them shut down even more and leads to further damage to the open lines of family communication that parents are hopefully trying to encourage. While it may be hard in some cases, always try to focus on whatever positives your teen is doing and not just the negatives. By also taking the time to mention and talk about the good things the teen is doing, parents can promote their chances of keeping more open lines of family communication.   [br] 

Try Saying:  “Tell me more.”  or “I’m listening.”

Avoid Saying:  “Don’t worry about it.  You won’t even remember this in 5 years anyway”   [br] 

Remember when you were 13 years old and your parents said something along these lines? While parents may mean well when they say something like this, and quite often they are exactly right, teens interpret this kind of thing differently. Mom and dad “just don’t get it” or “they don’t understand” are common reactions on the part of the teen. Many of you probably remember feeling that way yourself when you were a teen. Yet we so often repeat our parent’s mistakes now that the shoe is on the other foot and we are parents ourselves. Be sure to listen and let your teen know that you are hearing what they are saying. Don’t simply brush over what seems like an insignificant problem to you if your teen comes to you or opens up about something that is on his or her mind. If the problem is important enough that your teen comes to you for advice or just to “vent,” remember to keep an open mind and never minimize what may be an important issue at that time in their life.  If you want better family communication, then you need to be a good listener to your teen and not just expect them to listen to you only.   [br] 

Try Saying:  “Now that you are older, we can discuss a later bed time.”

Avoid Saying: “Bedtime has always been 9pm.  No arguing.  Rules are rules.”   [br] 

As children grow older and enter the teenage years, parents often have trouble accepting the fact that rules and expectations need to change as well. As a parent, it’s easy to rattle off the rules that have been in place for the past several years. But as teens grow older, it is our duty as parents to adapt and adjust those rules to allow our teen to enter a world of more freedom coupled with more responsibility.  It’s easy to simply say, “no, you know the rules” without really stopping to think about what your maturing teen may be asking for. Parents who keep an open mind and model good compromising and negotiating skills are not only teaching their teen a valuable life lesson but also building respect and maintaining open lines of family communication.   [br] 

If you’re struggling with what to say to your teen and want to improve your family communication, call Tender Hearts Child Therapy Center today to schedule a family counseling appointment and start learning effective communication skills from a trained Family Counselor!  [br]