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Welcome! This is a free newsletter on becoming a Response-Able parent raising
Response-Able children.
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MISSION STATEMENT
Our mission is to strengthen families and improve parent communication skills (including our own) by helping parents learn practical, usable verbal strategies for raising responsible, caring, confident children.
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IN THIS ISSUE
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1. Quote
2. Bumper Sticker
3. Spirit Whisperer Contemplation
4. New Year's Resolutions for Parents
5. The Parent Talk System Facilitator Training
6. We Get E-mail
7. Managing Your Subscription
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1. Quote
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The thing that impresses me the most about America is the way parents obey their children.
---King Edward VIII (1894 - 1972)
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2. Bumper Sticker
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Spotted on a blue Ford van in Chesaning, MI:
Both my daughter and my money go to Central Michigan University.
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3. Spirit Whisperer Contemplation
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Are you struggling today to help one of your children listen to and understand your point of view? What would happen if you switched tactics and concentrated on listening to and understanding her point of view?
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4. New Year's Resolutions for Parents
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New Year's Resolutions for Parents
By Chick Moorman and Thomas Haller
In 2005, I resolve to help my children appreciate that there is no such thing
as failure, only temporary results that people can use as feedback to determine
their next step.
I resolve to remember that experience can be messy. I will allow my children to learn from the messes they make and the cleanup which follows.
I resolve to hold my children accountable for their actions and choices with gentleness and love. I will implement consequences consistently and allow my children to experience the related, respectful, reality-based consequences that flow directly from their actions.
I resolve to make myself dispensable and assist my children in becoming increasingly in charge of themselves and their own lives.
I resolve to refrain from making my children wrong for their choices, even as I hold them accountable for their actions.
I resolve to recognize that my children are in my life as much so I can learn from them as they are so they can learn from me. I will be open to the lessons my children offer me and honor them for helping me learn and grow.
I resolve to fix problems rather than fix blame by maintaining a solution-seeking mindset and teaching my children a problem-solving process.
I resolve to aid my children in their struggle with autonomy by creating a balance of power through a shared-control style of parenting.
I resolve to remember that I want my children to behave in ways that reflect what THEY find unacceptable, not in ways that I, the parent, find unacceptable.
I resolve to welcome interpersonal skill errors as learning experiences and as important opportunities to implement consequences.
I resolve to parent in a way that demonstrates that I believe the only authority children take with them everywhere they go is their inner authority.
I resolve to allow my responses to my children to reflect a knowing that some lapses in self-control are developmentally appropriate. I remember they do certain behaviors because they are 5 or 8 or 14 years old.
I resolve to parent in a way that reflects my belief that the process is as important as the product.
I resolve to remember that I don't have to punish my children for their anger. They are already suffering enough from the anger churning within them.
When I am stumped and don't know how to respond to one of my children, I promise to ask myself, "What would love do now?" I also intend to listen internally for an answer.
I resolve to recall that I can choose to see any parenting situation differently from the way I have been seeing it. I will remember that perception is always a choice.
I resolve to relax, remembering that relaxing does not mean resigning.
I resolve to make my approach to parenting reflect the notion that raising a child is more about drawing out what already exists in a youngster than it is about putting something in to fill perceived deficiencies.
I resolve to focus on the main purpose of parenting: the creation of who and what we really are as human beings.
I resolve to remember that "being right" doesn't work.
I resolve to parent as if I believe that a child's I AMs (I am athletic, I am creative, etc.) are more important than his or her IQ.
I resolve to live today as if attitudes were more easily caught than taught.
I resolve to help my children and myself stay conscious of the choices we are making.
I resolve to remember the adage, "If you want a behavior, you have to teach a behavior," and I resolve to put that adage into practice in my home.
I resolve to see the hurting child in the child that hurts others.
I resolve to "be" the change I wish to see in my family.
I resolve to talk less and listen more.
I resolve not to teach my children to have a happy, productive life, but rather to help them choose a happy, productive day.
Chick Moorman and Thomas Haller are the authors of The 10 Commitments: Parenting with Purpose (available from Personal Power Press at toll-free 877-360-1477).
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5. The Parent Talk System Facilitator Training
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Do you want to make a difference in the lives of parents and children? Would you like to see children in your community, school, or church grow up feeling capable and responsible while holding themselves and others in high regard?
If so, please join us.
We are looking for interested adults to become local facilitators of the Parent Talk System's Language of Response-Able Parenting model.
Take a giant step toward being of service to the parents in your community, school, or church group by helping them learn effective verbal skills to use with their children.
This is your opportunity to join the growing number of people from around the world (USA, Mexico, Spain, Canada, Australia) who have learned how to help parents raise responsible, caring, confident children.
You don't need to have a teaching degree. You don't even need to have experience presenting to groups. We will help you learn all you need to know to put the highly effective Parent Talk skills into the hands of parents in your church, school, or organization.
You will leave this three-day training with the skills and confidence to touch the hearts and minds of parents in your community!
Parent Talk System Training Schedule:
February 3-5, 2005
Grand Rapids, MI
Spring Arbor University
Facilitated by Chick Moorman and Sarah Knapp. Limited to 25 participants. Graduate credit available. To request a detailed brochure, email ipp57@aol.com. (Be sure to include your mailing address.)
April 4-5, 2005
Santa Barbara, CA
Sponsored by Mastery Life and Children of the New Earth Magazine
Facilitated by Chick Moorman. Limited to 25 participants. Request a brochure from Ivonne Delaflor, director of the Parent Talk System in Mexico and California, at idelaflor@cox.net.
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6. We Get E-mail
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Hello Chick and Thomas,
I love The 10 Commitments book. It is so concise and useful.
I just have to tell you what I have been doing with it. As you know I bought 10 copies. (Thank you for the generous discount.) I passed out 5 for Christmas presents to relatives and a couple of friends who have children. I have heard positive comments from four of them already. But my real excitement is wrapped up in what I did with the other five copies.
I wanted to give them this holiday season to interested parents as a donation, anonymously. But I wanted to be sure they ended up in the hands of people who really wanted them. So a couple of weeks before Christmas I got this great idea. I call it reverse shoplifting.
I went to each of the 5 bookstores in town and put one of The 10 Commitments on the book shelves. Actually, I put them in prominent places where shoppers would be able to see them. I just smuggled them in and dropped them off, one per store. It was really fun for me to be so positively sneaky. This idea really appeals to my desire to remain anonymous and my quest to add fun and adventure to my life.
I can only imagine what happened when your marvelous book was taken to the cash register. It has a bar code on it so I'll bet it got rung up. I'm hoping that the bookstore people saw it and ordered some more.
Hope you had an exciting holiday.
(Name and location withheld by request.)
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Dear Name and Location Withheld by Request,
Yes, you are indeed, positively, sneaky. As you can imagine, we approve.
Many exciting things are happening with The 10 Commitments. In less than two months we have had people order multiple copies to use in a book study group, a school district ordered 1,000 copies to distribute to all parents of children age five or under, and now you have begun the ritual of reverse shoplifting. Our hope is that all three of those ideas catch on and the book continues to spread throughout the world, helping parents and children everywhere. Thanks for sharing your unique brand of holiday joy.
Warmly,
Chick and Thomas
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7. Managing Your Subscription
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A.) If you are receiving the newsletter as a forward and would like to insure that you get your personal free subscription, e-mail ipp57@aol.com and request to be added to the parent newsletter.
B.) To remove yourself from this list, e-mail ipp57@aol.com and ask to be deleted from the parent newsletter.
C.) Back issues of the Response-Able Parenting Newsletter can be found here.
D.) Are you interested in receiving our educator newsletter? If so, e-mail ipp57@aol.com and request to be added to the educator newsletter list.
E.) Please recommend this free e-newsletter to any parent who is interested in adding tools to their parenting tool box.
F.) Please notify us if your e-mail address is about to change. Send your name and new e-mail address to ipp57@aol.com. Be sure to let us know your old e-mail address so we can unsubscribe it.
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To find out more about workshops, seminars, and keynote addresses presented by Chick Moorman and Thomas Haller, contact them at (toll-free) 877-360-1477 or visit www.thomashaller.com or www.chickmoorman.com.
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Copyright 2005 Chick Moorman Seminars and Haller's Healing Minds, all rights reserved. Share this with your circle.