A Common Voice

May is Mental Health Month. The National Federation for Children’s Mental Health again declares the first full week in May, May 4-10 as National Children’s Mental Health Awareness week. Chapters and State Organizations across the nation are meeting to share ideas and resources to make Children’s Mental Health Awareness Week 2008 the most successful week ever!

Wear your green ribbons to support this National awareness week.

May 20^th…Adolescent Stress/Renee’ Tinder

June 24^th…Setting Boundaries

JULY…NO WORKSHOPS…enjoy the sunshine!!!

August 19^th…Creating a Strengths Packet

All Parent workshops are on the third Tuesday of the month at the A Common Voice office: 3580 Pacific Ave/Tacoma Workshops are FREE to parents. No registration is required. Bring a friend.

Sorry no childcare. Walk-ins welcomed.

Boundaries define us. They define what is me and what is not me. A boundary shows me where I end and someone else begins, leading me to a sense of ownership. We are responsible to others and for ourselves.

Boundaries are not walls used to shut out other people, but to help us differentiate our self from someone else. We each need to take responsibility for our own choices. A common boundary problem is disowning our choices and trying to lay the responsibility for them on someone else.

We each need to realize that we are in control of our choices, no matter how we feel. Setting boundaries involves taking responsibility for our choices. You are the one who makes them. You are the one who must live with their consequences. You are the one who may be keeping yourself from making the choices you could be happy with.

To create better boundaries, we must set limits on our own exposure to people who are behaving poorly; we can’t change them or make them behave right.

Happy Mother’s Day!

It is not selfish to take time for you. Clear your mind.

Get organized. Plan

to talk and visit with other people who are supportive of you.

Keep your body healthy.

Do something that you enjoy doing.

Laugh, a lot!

Be good to yourself!

Kids have meltdowns and temper tantrums for two reasons. The first reason is that they have never learned how to manage or have run out of the tools it takes to manage their feelings in a new situation or event. The second reason they have tantrums is because it’s been successful for them in the past. They’ve seen that when they have a tantrum, they get what they want pretty quickly.

Parents need to focus on the fact that a tantrum is a power struggle your kid is trying to have with you. It’s a strategy to try to get his way with the least amount of discomfort to him. Sometimes that means blowing up the most discomfort to the parent. Too often, parents forget that they have the power. This kid is trying to wrestle some power from you. As a parent, you hold the cards. You just have to play those cards well. Part of the hand you’re dealt has to do with your own parenting skills, your background and your natural ability. But a big part of it is how you play those cards: learning how to use your child’s natural skills and abilities, understanding their deficits, and then using your natural skills and abilities to help that child learn to manage situations and understand that acting out and misbehaving is not the way to solve the problem.

Parents have this power and they can do this.

I see it all the time. Believe me, the payoff to their family life and to their children is immeasurable.

www.empoweringparents.com

What exactly do people mean when they say strengths? According to Marcus Buckingham; strengths are an activity that makes you feel strong! Buckingham suggests that we need to pay attention to how we feel when we are doing an activity. Become aware of how you feel in these three areas: before, during, and after the activity, task, or project. Are you so looking forward to it, enjoy it so much that time seems to speed up and hours pass by quickly, and then later when you reflect on the activity you still feel exhilarated and good about yourself? Most likely you are involved in one or more areas of your natural strengths and abilities. Or are you avoiding it, bored half way through it, and can hardly wait for the activity to end? He suggests that we each look at the kind of “appetite” we have for a certain activity.

Are we good at it? If so, it is a strength area. Are we not good at it, but enjoy it; probably a hobby. Are we drawn to an activity and want to put more of it into our lives, both personal and professionally, this is wisdom!

Buckingham directs us to not solicit help from others to name our strengths, but rather to think back when we were younger and clearly define an activity and the parts of it we most enjoyed participating in. He further explains that we, for the most part, are born with our own unique personalities.

We may grow and change from experiences and wisdom, however who we are; our personality within, remains the same. So when we look to our earlier days and reflect on what we truly enjoyed doing or were good at, is a vital key to uncovering some of inherited strengths. His main goal is to help us all identify our strengths so we can mindfully put more of those natural strengths back into our lives, each day, striving for that authentic self to restore our passion, purpose, and performance in our lives! (ACV can help you define your natural strengths; August 19^th, workshop, contact ACV for details).