Posting someone else’s blog is not something I normally am want to do – except of course when the brain cells aren’t firing on all 8 or when there is a post that must be repeated. And this is one of them -

You may not know this but Matt and I were unable to conceive our own babies! And some pushy, I meant loving, friends convinced us to try foster/adoption. After a year of waffling (Matt!), we went ahead with it. And the rest is, as they say, history x 5!!! Some other time, we will sit a spell and chat about the challenges of fostering or adopting. But in honor of Mother’s Day, I stand beside all those dear ones who have no mommy to give sloppy kisses or mushy cards or even just infuriate.

Please join the fight - where is the mommy-war for the motherless child?

Enjoy your kids this weekend, because they are the reason you can celebrate Mother’s Day – visit again soon!

About the author: By Julie Hellstrom

Julie is an awesome parent (along with her husband Matt) to five adopted kiddos and the owner of the Positive Parenting Skills website.

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You might be wondering what Easter has to do with a lava lamp. Read this new story by Kris Fino to find out!

This Easter for us was like almost any other holiday…..rushed and chaotic.  We want to do the best we can for the 8 year-old we have at home.  Now, we knew Easter was coming.  But even with that prior knowledge, we still discussed it only a few days before it happened. It was like we were surprised that there would be Easter this year or something.  I braved WalMart at rush hour and bought the infamous Easter supplies after work the day before.  I was pretty sure I got everything.  We have our 8 year-old, my two step kids who are 24 and 28, and a grandson, 4.  We have my son’s godparents, and of course my brother and his kids (even though they’re grown, after years of this silliness, I still can’t seem to deny them the traditional basket).

So after work the night before Easter, everything for the big day is in the trunk of the car.  We do our regular thing:  I come home from work.  My husband and I exchange a quick “hello” and an update on our 8 year-old.  We kiss goodbye and he goes to work.  I take over the child care duties which include bath, homework, and reading at bedtime.  After he is in bed he is instructed to not get out or else the Easter bunny will not come.

My son say’s “I know!  Because Easter bunny is bringing me that lava lamp!”

“What lava lamp”  I asked.

“The one daddy and I saw at the mall.”

“How does Easter bunny know you want a lava lamp?”  I asked him.

“Because he knows everything!”  he was emphatic.  “That’s what Easter bunny is bringing me this year for Easter, a lava lamp!”

As soon as he was in bed, I called my husband at work, and he said he would figure something out about this seemingly new development.

So now, of course, as luck would have it, I really didn’t have everything because I knew nothing of any lava lamp.

I went out to the car and piled the goodies and baskets on the kitchen table and got to work.  I started boiling the eggs while unwrapping the movies that Easter bunny thought he was supposed to get, Easter hay, glow-sticks, and bags of candy (and healthy food for the uncle and godparents).  This takes a while, as all of you parents who do this sort of thing must know.  As soon as the eggs are done, I let them cool in cold water, and find the vinegar and food coloring and begin the egg-beautifying process.

After the baskets are all together and the eggs colored, the basket and egg-hiding ritual begins.  By this time it is 1:30 in the morning, and I have been up since before daylight, and can think of nothing else but going to bed.  And I can’t stop thinking about the last minute lava lamp.  How did I not hear about this earlier?

After I get to bed, I fall into a nice sleep.  Suddenly, after about 30 minutes (2:00 in the morning), my son sits up in bed and rubs his tired eyes.  Then he looks over toward the living room and becomes instantaeously excited.  “Mom!  Mom!”  he shouted. “Look!  The Easter bunny brought the baskets!”  I thought desperately about what to say.

“Shhhh!”  I said.  “Its only 2 a.m.  The Easter bunny may still be here.”  I was pretty happy with myself.

The look on his face was something between amazement and horror.  His eyes grew large and his brows furrowed at the same time.  I started to laugh quietly.  The dogs began barking at what I presumed to be raccoons outside.  But his face didn’t change.

“Shhhh!” he persisted.  “Tell Fatty and Pelusa, stop barking!  Mom!  The dogs are going to scare the Easter bunny!”

The whole situation was just too funny, and I couldn’t help myself.  I tried to hold it in.

“Mom!”  he said, now with an angry, fearful tone in his voice.  “Mom! Stop it!  You’re going to scare the Easter bunny!”

“Yes,” I said, “We better be quiet so the Easter bunny won’t leave.  He may still be hiding things for you.” I continued to stifle my laugh.  But he was not having any of it.  He chided me in a serious, frantic manner.  “Mom!  Stop it!  You’re scaring the Easter bunny!”  His teeth became clenched and he was now almost as desperate as he was horrified at my unwelcome giggles.

I told him that if the Easter bunny gets scared, he might not be able to leave all of his goodies, so we better try to get back to sleep now. He agreed, but could only lie still as a board, with his eyes wide open, as if in some kind of trance.

The next morning my husband came through as he said he would.  After spending all of Easter morning finding the hidden eggs and goodies, and digging through his Easter basket, he found a special card on the counter from the Easter bunny.  Inside of it was a note that Easter bunny had gotten scared on Easter eve, but would be sure to send the lava lamp. “Look!  The Easter bunny left me a card!  And it says he got me a lava lamp!”

The following day the “package” had arrived from “Bunny Lane”.

Do you have any similar stories? Share them below, and click the Facebook like button so your friends can enjoy too!

About the author: By Kris Fino

Kris is wife to Robert and mom to Gabriel, a wonderful little boy. She enjoys animals, especially horses, and likes to write about children, pets, and other things close to her heart!

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Did you know that preparing for college begins long before you even start thinking about what schools you want to apply to? There are different aspects of a student that colleges look at when considering an application for admission – things that go far beyond your GPA. As a freshman in high school, it is important to realize that what you do now can affect your college application process a few years down the road.

Now, don’t feel scared! Starting early to prepare for college allows you to find things you truly enjoy, and become involved in a variety of classes and activities. Here are a few things to keep in mind as you are making your way through high school and moving on up to applying for college!

Applying to college can seem scary, overwhelming, and too far in the future. But the sooner you get started, the easier it will be for you! If you think cramming for tests in math class are hard, try cramming for college. You won’t be able to, because it is impossible! Preparing for and applying to college takes time and effort, so get started and don’t forget to have fun – this is your future you are planning for.

Leslie Hughes offers private tutoring with Hughes Tutoring, a Montana Tutoring company.  Joseph Fernandez is a Charlottesville Tutor with Parliament Tutors, a home tutoring service.

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The Power of Example (With a Miraculous Twist)

For this and many other reasons related to the potent teaching power of models, a fruitful question to ask yourself, ideally beginning even before you have a child, is “Am I worthy of my child’s unquestioning imitation?” Daunting, yes. But it’s best to realize early on that whether or not you can answer “Yes” to this question, what you see in the mirror is to a great extent what you will see in your child. And, most likely in your child as an adult.

But don’t despair: Nature seems to have built in a special mechanism that allows us to give our children a fighting chance to surpass us. If our children’s potential was constrained by the limitations of our own accomplishment, we’d be doomed! We’d have to wait until our sixties, seventies, eighties — or maybe never — before we’d feel prepared to be parents. Nature has brilliantly built into the system that our children most powerfully respond to our *inner life*; thus, it is the ideals, aspirations and earnest striving we engage in that greatly shapes them — our upward striving that helps Life, in theologian John Cobb’s words, to “exert its gentle pressure everywhere, encouraging each thing to become more than it is.”^[i]

Indeed, as I look back into my own history as a new mother, I recognize it quite starkly: if this mommy mind meld deal were merely a copy-and-paste situation, my son and my daughter wouldn’t have had much hope. Motherhood brought me to my knees, and it was many years before I recognized that I had suffered from what I’ve come to call CCPD — Chronic Covert Postpartum Depression. I had grief and rage bubbling up all over. It was really hard for me to be present.

But I never stopped striving — for insight, for healing, for wholeness. *And that changed everything*, and I believe it is why my son and daughter have both flourished into their early adulthood.

So what does this miraculous striving look like day to day? Presence. Mindfulness. Renouncing multi-tasking in favor of uni-tasking. Being fully engaged with all of you in whatever you’re doing. UCLA psychiatrist and Buddhist meditator Jeffrey Schwartz discovered that mindfulness (the willful mastering of the flow of thoughts and feelings) could successfully treat serious OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder) and writes in his amazing book “The Mind and the Brain,” “…the exertion of willful effort generates a *physical force* that has the power to change how the brain works and even its physical structure. The result is neuroplasticity.”

This mental force that can change the brain, can certainly change the download of the mommy mind meld. What we hand down to our children as we parent is not simply a linear, one-for-one duplicate of ourselves, and that is where the stunning possibilities of parenting for peace lie: through refining our own consciousness we throw the door open on our children’s  potential.

Where’s Your Head At?

This is why the “biggest bang” intervention you can make in your parenting skill set (i.e., one thing you can do that yields maximum benefit across multiple dimensions of your and your child’s wellbeing) is to begin cultivating your inner life, and mastery over the flow of your own thoughts. Meditation, yoga, mindfulness, contemplative prayer, journaling — these are all avenues by which to do this.

Engaging in a practice of gratitude is also a big-bang parenting tool, beginning as early as possible. Why? The fields of positive psychology and psychoneuroimmunology (mind-body science) have revealed gratitude as one of the most surefire ways to amp up your physical and emotional wellbeing. And epigenetics (which refers to the potent influence we have on whether certain genes we carry are expressed or not) shows us that we have far more power over our own selves and our own destinies than we ever before imagined. And a good deal of that power comes through the influence of our attitudes, our feelings and our perceptions. Here’s a handy list of seven ways to rewire a negative mindset and move toward more gratitude at any time!

Nature’s Own Head Start Program

The reflection of our own inner lives in our children doesn’t wait till the mommy mind meld in infancy to begin. Pregnancy is Nature’s Head Start Program, when a baby’s organs and tissues, including the lifelong foundations of basic brain infrastructure, develop in direct response to lessons they receive about the world — lessons that come from Mom’s diet, her behavior and her state of mind.

It is Nature’s job to create organisms as well-suited as possible to their environment, so the unceasing question asked by the baby in the womb — which is answered chemically and energetically via the mother’s thoughts, feelings, behaviors (and of course nutrition) — is, *What kind of world am I coming into, Mommy, through your eyes?* Chronic, unremitting stress teaches the baby via Mom’s biochemistry that it’s a dangerous world out there, and foundational brain circuitry wires up to thrive in a dangerous world.

What Does This Mean For Adoptive Families?

This is where some of the potent adoption implications come into the equation. Research tells us clearly that babies prepare themselves to adapt to the world “taught” to them in the womb. It is the rare adoption-bound pregnancy that isn’t marked by significant stress: the myriad decision-making challenges, the possible lack of practical resources and support, the internal conflicts that are natural within a mother carrying a baby she is not prepared to parent, and so much else. It’s nobody’s fault, just people being imperfectly human, but the infant bound for a loving, happy, secure adoptive home may simply not have the neural equipment to take that in… at least at the beginning!

Your adopted infant’s brainstem may have been organizing around a maternal heartbeat that oriented him to chaos rather than to serenity — and so he may have a difficult time taking in your loving affection, your calm, your embrace. Bruce Perry explains this so well here. If your infant startles easily, seems hyperreactive, cries a lot — or the converse, seems “zoned out” — is hard to soothe and settle, this can help you understand why.

And if you have adopted an older child who as an infant was in institutionalized care, those prenatal lessons about relational scarcity persisted into the critical early months when we learn foundational lessons about who we are, what the world is like, how we fit into it, and what love is.

For both infants and older children, despite all the love we want to give them, they may have a hard time accepting it. It feels foreign, it feels scary. On very deep levels, adoptees may unconsciously feel that it’s too dangerous to love and be loved, authentically and deeply; how can they trust that they won’t be hurt or abandoned again?^[ii]

This isn’t about blame or guilt, but about the empowerment that comes with understanding. It’s never too late to harness neuroplasticity! The idea is to rewire your child’s most basic neural circuitry to adapt to new environmental information: the world is *safe and secure*. So you want to always be a safe haven, a source of security rather than threat of any kind.

The important thing for adoptive parents to keep in mind — if a baby isn’t responding to your affection, if a toddler or preschooler is pushing you away — is to not take it personally! This compounds the child’s distress and trauma, rather than ameliorating it. Now, this can be a challenge indeed. For all but a small percentage, the road leading up to adoption is invariably a painful one for parents, marked by many losses:  the children they might have had, but for infertility; the child or children they lost through miscarriage, stillbirth, or death; and sometimes even pieces of themselves feel chipped away — their feelings of competence, wholeness, worthiness, and so many other essential, but clearly not immutable, components of self. To then have a baby “reject” them sometimes feels like salt in a deep wound. As I often counsel my parents-in-progress, grow bigger shoulders. Know that it is not about you.

But Stress Is Part of Life!

I’m not suggesting anyone become a blandly response-free Stepford Mom — either before or after birth. Normal, occasional stresses are part of life and part of normal development, but I’m inviting pregnant moms to orient themselves toward a posture of holding a protective, buffering space of appreciation — one of my clients used an image of a crystalline, pink bubble for her baby when she was having a stressful day — so that your baby can flourish as robustly as possible. This is also a technique you can use at any stage of the parenting journey, to help maintain healthy distinctions between your “stuff” and your child’s developing brain, which takes in everything.

And always keep in mind that during pregnancy and beyond, you are your child’s living example: your child’s biological mandate is to shape himself — including the intricate circuitry of his brain — to match the promise of the world *you* portray.

**

by Marcy Axness, PhD, author of Parenting for Peace: Raising the Next Generation of Peacemakers

Images (in order):

Book cover, fair use

crucifixion cruise under Creative Commons license

DrDawn1 under Creative Commons license

N8tr0n under Creative Commons license

About the author: By Marcy Axness

Marcy Axness, PhD, was an Emmy-nominated, multiple award-winning documentary writer/producer in her “pre-motherhood” life. But becoming a mother rocked her well-ordered world and called her toward personal as well as intellectual growth. Once her son and daughter were in school, she turned her penetrating eye and inquiring mind to early human development.

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Turbo-Charge Your Infant’s Brain Development With The Mommy Mind-Meld ~ The Power of Parental Example

by Marcy Axness, PhD

[Even though I refer to the "mommy" mind meld, these principles apply to whomever are the two or three connected, nurturing adults in an infant's life -- father, grandmother, consistent (not rotating) caregiver.]

Imitation is the young child’s primary form of learning, which is why one of my first bits of guidance to parents coming to me for counseling is to cut down by at least 50% the sheer number of words they say to their young child. Children learn from *who we are* and *what we do* far more than from what we say. And credible leaders don’t yammer on and on.

(Because example is indeed the most powerful mode of teaching and learning — not just for children but for humans in general – it is Principle #3 of the seven principles on which my book “Parenting for Peace” is based.)

But I digress. Let’s get to this exciting topic of…

The Mommy Mind Meld

One of the most powerful ways in which this parent-as-model process shapes your child’s optimal wellbeing is in the realm of actual brain development: the relatively new field of attachment neurobiology has revealed that our babies and children actually *piggyback* on the self-regulation capacities of the limbic systems in our own brain! When you hold a distressed infant in your arms, the soothing she experiences doesn’t just come from your secure embrace, but also from the actual regulation and modulation of her aroused nervous system that happens when her immature social-emotional brain actually *links up with* your more mature one!

While the researchers use such terms as “biological synchronicity”^[i] and “limbic resonance,”^[ii] the sci-fi image of “mind-melding” captures it well. Writes one researcher, in evident awe, “It is a biologically based communication system that involves individual organisms directly with one another: the individuals in spontaneous communication constitute *literally a biological unit*.”^[iii]

But it gets even wilder than that, and has more far-reaching implications for your child’s lifelong wellbeing and success: over the days and months and years of such attuned, connected encounters, the circuitry of your baby’s social brain *wires up to emulate yours*! Attachment neurobiology pioneer Allan Schore puts it bluntly: “The mother is downloading emotion programs into the infant’s right brain. The child is using the output of the mother’s right hemisphere as a template for the imprinting, the hard wiring, of circuits in his own right hemisphere that will come to mediate his expanding affective capacities, an essential element of his emerging personality.”^[iv]

What that means in plain English is that engaged, attuned, playful interactions with us are a basic and essential form of nourishment for our babies. Bruce Perry points out that developing brains require human interaction as fervently as caloric nutrition for their healthy growth! (For more on this, read the Mommy Mind Melt excerpt from “Parenting for Peace”.)

What is NOT nourishing to the developing brain is “electronic engagement” — which is largely an oxymoron, as far as the social brain is concerned. I’m referring to Baby Einstein and other info-tainment, as well as data on the screens of iPhones, iPads, and lapware computers designed for babies. The Baby Einstein juggernaut bears commenting on, just in case you feel like the mom who said, “You want to make sure you’re doing everything you can for your child, and you know everyone else uses Baby Einstein, so you feel guilty if you don’t.” In case you missed it, in 2007 Baby Einstein, along with all other so-called educational screened programming, was found to be associated with *delayed* language development; television or video watching at this age, said an American Academy of Pediatrics spokesperson, “probably interferes with the crucial wiring being laid down in their brains during early development.”^[v]

The take-away is, our children wire up to be *us ourselves*, from the very beginning; this foundation then serves as their launching pad, at the most basic level of brain structure, for surpassing us into higher realms of accomplishment, social intelligence, and joyous self-mastery.

(This is Part 1. Part 2 will be posted tomorrow. For all you adoptive parents out there, including us, part 2 should be very interesting. Marcy will be dealing with the adoption implications of the Mommy Mind-Meld. Don’t miss it!)

About the author: By Marcy Axness

Marcy Axness, PhD, was an Emmy-nominated, multiple award-winning documentary writer/producer in her “pre-motherhood” life. But becoming a mother rocked her well-ordered world and called her toward personal as well as intellectual growth. Once her son and daughter were in school, she turned her penetrating eye and inquiring mind to early human development.

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In children, even minor sleep deprivation can affect their ability to learn. It begins impairing memory, attention, and ability to concentrate. Because babies are unable to talk about how they feel, and older kids and teenagers can be poor judges of their own sleepiness, it is up to us to know the signs of sleep deprivation so we can help them to get the sleep they need.  Kids who are hard to wake up in the morning and fall asleep during the day are most likely sleep deprived, and defiant behavior and hyperactivity are signs that chronic sleep deprivation is taking place.

Previous studies of adults have found that not getting enough sleep impairs the brain’s executive control system which helps us to organize, prioritize, and focus on tasks.

Long term effects of not enough sleep are very serious and include maladies such as memory problems, depression, increased perception of pain, and weakened immune system.

Kids may also become more moody when sleep deprived. The possible catch-22 involved here is that the intensity of their emotions may make it hard to sleep, and in turn, that sleeplessness makes them more emotionally intense.

In addition, the stress hormone cortisol is elevated during these times of too little sleep and can be a precursor to appetite increase and alter the body’s response to sugar intake, which are linked to obesity and diabetes.

While these adverse effects of sleep deprivation have been proven, researchers continue to uncover reasons why our health depends so greatly on getting enought of it.  It would be wise for us to start thinking about ways we can get our children (and ourselves) to sleep enough, so that our physical and mental health can remain healthy.

Some coping strategies that we can try are:

• Avoiding caffeine and sugar (especially in the afternoon/evening)
• Turn off television and computer distractions
• Go to bed and wake up at consistent times
• Avoid artificial lighting before bedtime
• Start “winding down” well before going to bed (sleep ritual)
• Avoid alcohol

Of all the healthy choices we try to make every day for ourselves and our families, sleep should be on the list, preferably at the top.

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About the author: By Kris Fino

Kris is wife to Robert and mom to Gabriel, a wonderful little boy. She enjoys animals, especially horses, and likes to write about children, pets, and other things close to her heart!

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April 23-27, 2012

Join us on our blog during this week as early development specialist and Parenting for Peace author Marcy Axness, PhD, shares the latest scientific secrets for how you can easily chart a course of future success for your baby! She’ll reveal:

• the amazing research proving you and your baby are a single biological unit when you interact — and how to use that knowledge to boost both your brains’ power!
• toys and activities that build brain power (and ones that drain brains, too – like Baby Einstein and other screen-based entertainment)
• what the heck epigenetics is and how it can work for you! Insights to use right now…
• how pregnancy is “Nature’s Head Start Program”; knowing what lessons take place can help you start your baby off right… and understand if baby’s early weeks aren’t going so smoothly

Here is a list of all the blogs participating in Marcy’s tour!

Mothering
Eco Child’s Play
Elevating Child Care
Positive Parenting Skills
Creating a Family
Mamahhh

Who is Dr. Marcy Axness?

I’ve asked Dr. Marcy Axness to join us this week because she has some great practical insights for parents (and “pre-parents”). Marcy breaks down the latest neuroscience research into easy-to-use ideas that give some insights into the mystery of the attachment process, including how face-to-face engagement with parents serves as mind-to-mind training for baby. You can read an excerpt from her book Parenting for Peace that gives you the whole scoop – Marcy will be blogging and answering your questions/comments throughout the week in real-time. It’s going to be interactive and fun!

An early development specialist and parent counselor, Marcy is also a popular international speaker on attachment, culture, and child and parent development. Featured in several documentary films as an expert in adoption, prenatal development, and Waldorf education, Marcy’s combination of life experience, cultural acumen, and scholarly credibility uniquely equip her to provide compelling and entertaining guidance through the thicket of choices parents today face in raising children.

Marcy wrote Parenting for Peace as both invitation and challenge: if we really want to change the world, let’s raise a generation “built for peace”… from the very beginning. Her book is a user-friendly scientific roadmap for how to do exactly that – detailing a unique seven-step, seven-principle matrix for hardwiring our babies and children with the brain circuitry for such essential peacemaker capacities as self-regulation, empathy, intelligence, trust and imagination, while in the process, bringing more joy into family life!

Here are a few SAMPLE QUESTIONS to get you thinking:

1. Which routine hospital birth practices should parents refuse for the sake of their baby’s healthiest brain circuitry?
2. You say Baby Einstein and such is not good for baby, but what about the parents who feel like one (actual) mom who was quoted saying, “You want to make sure you’re doing everything you can for your child, and you know everyone else uses Baby Einstein, so you feel guilty if you don’t.”
3. Parenting can be stressful and even overwhelming, so in those heated moments, if the mom or dad of a little one can remember just one thing, what should it be?
4. What about a parent who might flinch at the term “peacemaker”—worried about raising a wimp or a <gasp> pacifist?

Don’t miss out! 

About the author: By Matt Hellstrom

Matt is the parent (along with his wife Julie) to five wonderful kids. He has been self-employed for 25+ years and is the owner of the Positive Parenting Skills website.

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When one of your kids starts to get towards the age of 14, 15 and 16 the thoughts about driving begin to become reality. This can often be one of the most stressful tasks in parenting when it comes to the teenage years, so even the faintest of tips can often help out. Still, perhaps the most important thing to remember ahead of these years is to formulate a plan based on your own family’s situation.

Some teens may be hounding parents about driving for a while before they even reach the right age, while some others may differ. For those who are curious about learning to drive, you can then make the decision about whether to enroll them into some early driver’s education courses. You may not want to initiate drivers educations if the kids haven’t been curious about driving, however as they could be nervous.

Many parents choose to be the primary teacher when it comes to driving, while others may depend wholly on driver’s education courses to tutor their teenagers. There certainly isn’t a correct way and either can be highly valuable depending on the situation at home.

Whether you’ve decided to be a primary teacher or just supplement with driver’s education for your kids, you’re likely to have a big role influencing their driving habits. You will want to make sure the environment is good for passing along info, meaning you want your teenager to be comfortable enough to take as much as they can, as well as ask questions when necessary. This means you aren’t going to want to be harsh or negative during the process. Allow for tips that aim to inform, rather than to judge their driving characteristics. Doing so will help to foster an environment for learning from the parent, as well as keep your child’s focused.

Being a teacher, as well as thinking about your kid driving in general can often make parents anxious and nervous, so it’s important to try and relax and know what you want to pass on, knowledge-wise. For some, the situation of teaching may cause too much anxiety. In this case, it’s probably best just to leave the teaching to a driver’s education professional.

One of the best tips you can pass on to your teenagers before they get their license is good driving practices. With the increase in technology, so too has come major problems with distracted driving. Teaching your children about safe driving habits such as not talking or texting on the phone can be crucial in the long term. These practices could start years before, as parents should be minimizing all use of devices while driving, especially with kids in the car. Doing so reinforces that using mobile devices in the car should not only be minimized for safety, but shows that you are in line with what you’re trying to pass on to your teenagers.

In a couple years time, it’s entirely possible that new laws could shape certain driving practices. The use of cell phones and other mobile technology, even built-in car products, have all come under question from lawmakers in the past few years. This means that teaching some good driving habits may be more important than just developing a characteristic, as it could be the law.

Of course, there are plenty more tips and suggestions that may lead to an easier time preparing your kids for getting their license and driving in general, but these few can be greatly beneficial. As mentioned earlier, it’s important to take a look at your teenager’s situation and analyze to find the preparation you can provide in the long term.

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Thanks Tiger Woods – We  learned a new frustration relieving technique this week watching golf. You think it will catch on?!

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About the author: By Matt Hellstrom

Matt is the parent (along with his wife Julie) to five wonderful kids. He has been self-employed for 25+ years and is the owner of the Positive Parenting Skills website.

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The topic of divorce is a sore subject.  Today many families are a mix of children from each spouse’s previous marriage and children they’ve had together.  Are you one of those families?  This is all around us, and different people are dealing with it in different ways.  Are you a step parent?  Have you been a step child?

My experiences growing up with divorced parents were ugly at best.  My view of step parents and even my own biological parents was tainted by the heartache they imparted on me and my siblings.  No child makes it through a divorce unscathed in some way, but the scars we received were sure to stick around for a long time.  So with all of this gloomy experience delivered by my parents’ divorce, there is something bright that I want to write about:  I want to tell  you about a real situation that I have been fortunate enough to encounter.

Nine years ago I was introduced to some people who were divorced but had two children together.  Both were remarried to different spouses.  There was no contention between them, and they commonly got together for family activities to include the kids.  The ex-husband was invited with his new wife into the home of the ex-wife and her spouse for Thanksgiving and Christmas festivities.  They all went out to eat together for birthdays and other special occasions.  The children’s step father was an amazingly nice man, and very good to them as well as to their real father.  There was no backstabbing or jealousy.  There was respect.  I had never in my life seen something like this. These were genuine people behaving in a mature and caring way.  I was blown way.

Nine years ago I was fortunate enough to have met the “ex-husband”.  I was surprised to be a part of a caring family environment.  These people have become our son’s godparents. We have spent Thanksgivings, Christmases, birthdays, Mother’s Days, Father’s Days, Fourth of Julys, baptisms, and graduations together.  Every occasion has been a good time.

When our son was born, they showed up at the hospital with gifts and good wishes.  I was shocked.  But it was so nice!

In my experiences growing up, this never would have happened.  In fact, the destructive behaviors of all adults involved rack my soul even today.  Its a topic for another time.

That’s why I was so surprised when I met my husband.  Anyone who could be a participant in this way of doing things had to be good!

What kind of experiences have you had?  What can you share about your experiences that may help broaden our sense of how to cope with separation and divorce?  I know I would love to hear about them, and I’m sure others would too!

Need some parenting help?

One tool that we’ve used is Total Transformation by James Lehman. It’s given us a lot of solid, common sense ideas for parenting our challenging children.

About the author: By Kris Fino

Kris is wife to Robert and mom to Gabriel, a wonderful little boy. She enjoys animals, especially horses, and likes to write about children, pets, and other things close to her heart!

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