Better Parents, Better Kids Weekly Newsletter Issue #5

Note From Tanis Nicole Wright

Welcome To Your Better Parents, Better Kids Newsletter Issue #5!!!

I'm Tanis Nicole Wright, Director/Head Coach of the Better Parents, Better Kids Parenting Program (http://www.betterparentsbetterkids.com )

and co-writer of our Parenting E-book Better Parents, Better Kids (http://www.betterparentsbetterkids.com/info )

Today we will be continuing with Part Five of our "10 Instant Ways To Become a Better Parent" series. Today's topic is about learning communication and conflict resolution skills.

10 Instant Ways To Become a Better Parent - Part Five

Learn Communication and Conflict Resolution Skills: Communication and Conflict Resolutions skills don't always come naturally and many people also pick up dysfunctional ways of communicating like cutting people off, talking over people, invalidating what people say or not owning their own issues or feelings when they talk.

How you communicate is how your children are going to learn to communicate.

So if you want to be able have functional communication with your children, as well as if you want your children to have excellent communication when they go out on their own in life, learning as much about functional communication techniques and conflict resolution skills as you can is a definite benefit.

Assignment

In our Better Parents, Better Kids E-book, (http://www.betterparentsbetterkids.com/info ) we go into detail about Communication and Conflict Resolution Techniques, so I thought we would do something a little different instead for your assignment for this week's Newsletter which is an awareness exercise that can be a lot of fun.

The next time you sit down to have a discussion with your child take two pillows, hand one pillow to your child and keep the other one for yourself.

For this assignment we want you to focus on how we often cut people off when we are talking without even being aware of it, often out of habit or because we are more dominant than the other person or because we are really excited about something. For some people it's so natural they don't even realize they are doing it.

So with pillows in hand you and your child now have permission to hit the each other with your pillows whenever the other person cuts the first person off while they are talking.

It becomes a fun, eye opening and memorable experience for everyone involved.

Usually playing it once is enough to get the point across, but if you and your family want to practice your awareness and listening skills, you can have this unique type of pillow fight as often as you like, with as many family members as you like.

You can even make it a game, whoever gets hit the least amount of times (a.k.a cut's the other people off the least amount of times) for a certain length of time during a conversation - wins.

One Last Note From Tanis

Do you have a parenting question that you would like answered?

Send in your parenting questions to "Ask Tanis" at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

and I will be happy to answer your questions as part of our "Ask Tanis" Q & A section here in our Newsletter.

Best Wishes to You and Your Family,

Tanis Nicole Wright

Director/Head Coach

The Better Parents, Better Kids Program

http://www.betterparentsbetterkids.com/

Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

(204) 475-0323