Note From Tanis Nicole Wright

Welcome To Your Better Parents, Better Kids Newsletter Issue #9!!!

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 Nine of our "10 Instant Ways To Become a Better Parent" series. Today's topic is about teaching your children to take care of his or herself.

10 Instant Ways To Become a Better Parent - Part Nine

Teach Your Child To Take Care of His or Herself: Taking care of yourself as we mentioned under Way #1 is the first step, you also need to teach your children that because they are unique, they also need to be responsible for speaking up and taking care of their needs.

You need to give you children permission to take care of themselves, even if it is not the way others think they should. For example, a lot of parents may want to get their children to do their homework right when they get home from school, but your child would focus better after supper instead.

If children aren't aware that they are different than most kids who do homework after school, plus if they weren't given permission to take care of themselves, they would continue to struggle along with their homework instead of taking advantage of their peak studying time period, which in this case is after supper.

Assignment

Your assignment therefore, is to teach your children about the importance of taking care of themselves and that you:

1) Give them permission to take care of themselves.

2) You will support your children in taking care of themselves.

3) That you trust their decision to take of themselves

4) You will encourage them to explore what is highest and best for themselves.

Saying that you trust them is important because not only will they feel good about themselves, they also know that they will betray your trust if they try to take advantage of you.

For example, I (Tanis) explained the list above to my oldest son Joey.

One day, he didn't have a good night's sleep and he woke up the next morning and said to me "I didn't get a good sleep last night so I think it is in my highest and best health to sleep in and not go into school this morning."

Now most parents would say "No way! Give him permission and he'll start pulling that all the time!"

However, I said "Yes". Joey slept in, went to school in the afternoon fully refreshed and energized and he hasn't asked to sleep in again since.

I think the key difference is that Joey knows he has my trust and he knows that I have his back and knows that I have his best interest in mind so he wouldn't want to ruin or take advantage of me, even at a younger age (he was 7 at the time) at a gut level he understands that.

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