GenParenting

Parenting resources for all who love and care for children

Purposeful Parenting Pointers

Purposeful Parenting Pointers

by Erik Youngman, Guest Blogger

Purposeful parenting pointers provide potential parameters to ponder.  Parenting could be considered the most difficult job because of the constantly changing variables. However, parenting is also extremely rewarding. Parents can support children success and healthy social-emotional growth in a variety of ways. While appreciating the monumental lifetime responsibilities of parenting, readers are encouraged to reflect about these potential parenting pointers to provide options to consider at different times for different children.

I frequently tell my three daughters and other students to be patient, polite, positive, and persistent. Enjoy reading additional words that begin with the letter “p” that will help parents empower children. [Read more…]

Managing Daily Family Life

Managing Daily Family Life

Once families become busy with work, school, outside enrichment activities, community service, and college and career planning activities, they can easily become overscheduled and stressed by the many demands for their time. Through weekly family meetings, families can sit down together and coordinate their daily schedules. They can determine how household chores will be completed, how to manage allowances, and how they will give back to their communities. Family members can discuss how they will address challenges and an emerging family crisis. They can celebrate successes as a family, discuss family activities, and plan for trips. Each family member can rotate responsibilities when serving as the meeting facilitator or a secretary to record family decisions.

Sample Family Meeting Agenda

A typical family meeting agenda may include the following topics:

  • A celebration and recognition of a family member’s successes
  • A review of each member’s household chores for the upcoming week
  • Clarification of allowances offered to various family members and weekly allowance payment
  • A discussion of the overall schedule for the coming week including parents’ driving schedules for school drop-offs, afterschool coordinated activities, the childcare schedule, and any special events for the family
  • A discussion on any community service or volunteer activities for coordination
  • Ongoing planning for family mini vacations and a longer summer vacation
  • A discussion and updates on family members or friends who are ill, need added support, or any emerging family need
  • Anything else that requires discussion, coordination, or support services

Brainstorming Solutions at Family Meetings

Once a family becomes comfortable with the family meeting format, families can actively discuss challenging and difficult topics in relation to the family’s values. If a family member is suffering from a debilitating illness, family members can brainstorm how they can support the family member per the following examples:

  • All family members can create a series of get-well cards as a family art activity and one member can make sure to mail the card with a message weekly.
  • Another family member can organize a dinner delivery plan with local neighbors, friends, the extended family, and a church group.
  • A parent can organize a driving schedule for doctors’ visits.
  • A family member can help with the financial management of bills and household chores.

As family members work together as a unit and model effective problem-solving skills, the parents and their children model how families can effectively work together to manage daily challenges and emerging critical needs. This model will help children become effective in the daily management of their lives as they become more independent and seek career and college opportunities and experiences beyond their family. [Read more…]

Becoming a School Leader

Becoming a School Leader

Parents are their children’s first teachers. Many feel inadequate on how to become a school leader. Some parents may have had a negative experience in their own academic experiences. Others may have attended school in another country. By participating in their children’s classrooms, parents can learn how to help their children at home with their homework and school projects. Parents can share their own skills, hobbies, and cultural experiences with students in the classroom. Additionally, children will respect their parents’ presence at the school and feel important. Parent classroom volunteers can:

  • Provide food donations when requested and help prepare meals with the students.
  • Donate classroom supplies requested by the teacher and prep curricular projects at home for classroom use.
  • Serve as a classroom parent representative to provide added support for class parties, field trips, and grade-level events.
  • Share a talent or hobby in small group learning centers.
  • Mentor and shadow new classroom parent volunteers.
  • Provide interpretation and translation support for parent volunteers and students

Classroom Support

Classroom parent volunteers will be able to:

  • Gain insight in how their children are adjusting to the new school year with their classmates and the academic course work.
  • Observe how the teacher is coaching and interacting with various students when responding to diverse educational challenges.
  • Advocate effectively with teachers and staff because they have an established relationship and committed partnership with the school community.

School Leadership Roles 

As parents become experienced classroom volunteers, many will receive leadership training from teachers and parent mentors to expand their volunteer leadership at the school. Parents can become school leaders and support the school by:

  • Serving as a parent representative on school and district committees
  • Participating in the school’s Parent, Teacher, and Student Association (P.T.S.A.)
  • Supporting a school’s fundraising foundation with fundraising and sponsorship events
  • Soliciting and advocating for added community partnerships at the school site through community-based organizations and local businesses
  • Leveraging added instructional support services by organizing special events, field trips, and community service projects for students and their families
  • Creating a school-based performing arts program with local artists, museums, and community theaters
  • Expanding physical fitness and nutritional programs with community-based organizations and sports groups

As parents partner and expand their roles at school, they will become more confident in supporting their children’s academic needs and successes.

Academic Learning in Home-Based Activities

Academic Learning in Home-Based Activities

Children learn best by exploring their world at their own level of understanding with toys and projects that will facilitate learning in many different ways. Parents can select toys that reinforce social and emotional skill development through situational play, games, and books. These may include situational play activities when constructing houses and communities with building blocks, Tinker Toys, Lincoln Logs, Magna Tiles, Lego, and other construction materials. Preschoolers and younger elementary age children love to play house, cook, be a fireman, respond to emergencies, play doctor, and create construction sites with various props and relevant toys. Older elementary school-age children and teens love to play Monopoly while they invest in properties, the game of Life as family members make life plans, and the game of Clue as they solve a murder mystery. There are a multitude of books that help children learn about how to manage feelings and challenging social/emotional situations at home and school. [Read more…]

How to Form School Partnerships – Part 2

How to Form School Partnerships – Part 2

Last week, we described how Kyle was able to overcome an enormous power struggle by:

  • Talking about previous successes and the current challenge of not being able to complete the assignment
  • Expressing feelings of frustration, anger, sadness, and fear from the student and his parents
  • Meeting with the teacher and the student together to brainstorm a satisfying solution
  • Following-up with Kyle to ensure that he felt supported by his parents’ coaching to achieve success
  • Being open to try an alternative solution to a difficult problem
  • Having parents and the student recognize that they were caught in a power struggle and that the parents were owning the student’s problem

[Read more…]