When we recognize the root of our feelings, family life can be more manageable for everyone involved. Help your kids deal with their big feelings and set yourself free from extra guilt and shame.
Bio
Michelle Nietert MA, LPC–S is an author and speaker and Clinical Director of Community Counseling Associates in Dallas, TX. She’s a former educator and school counselor with over 20 years of experience in private practice treating individuals, couples, children and teens. Michelle’s writing can be found on the MOPS blog, in Lifeway’s Parenting Magazine and she is the Mental Health columnist for Just Between Us Magazine. To discover more about Michelle as Your Mental Health Coach, the Raising Brave Beauties podcast, and her energetic speaking expertise that empowers and inspires, please visit www.MichelleNietert.com.
We begin by talking about how 2020 has impacted families everywhere and Michelle affirms why it’s okay to spend time away from our kids.
- Major milestones of the tween and teen years
- Empowering children to struggle well
- They will experience disappointments, rejection, and all the awkward moments we faced. We can’t bubble-wrap them from those things.
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Struggling well vs. just struggling.
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Brave flexibility and plasticity. We want our kids to be flexible like pipe cleaners, not breakable like popsicle sticks.
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Keeping a good perspective so emotions don’t go everywhere.
“Your kid’s behavior is not your parenting report card. Your behavior is.”
- Emotional Management & Self Regulation
- The most important skill you can teach a 2 year old
- The difference between a tantrum based in disobedience vs. a sensory meltdown.
- Consider the components of children’s behavior in these areas:
- Strengths & Weaknesses
- Temperament (introvert or extrovert)
- Considering special needs
- Learning the degrees of emotion and the coping and calm down techniques we can practice alongside our kids.
- The change that happens with older kids and why we need to become a coach and ask more questions
- Important information about brain development
- When to check for abnormalities like learning disabilities, auditory processes
- When to check with the experts for “typical” teen behaviors
- How to help prepare our kids for the inevitable.
Emotion is energy in motion, and depending on how you’re wired, it’s easy to catch that emotion.
Resources Mentioned in this Episode
Loved and Cherished Devotional
Raising Brave Beauties Podcast
Untangled: Guiding Teenaged Girls through the Seven Transitions into Adulthood
Episode 109 | You Don’t Have to Do It All
Do you have what it takes to be a homeschool mom? Yes! We’re busting the myth that you have to do it all to be effective.
Episode 108 | Know Your “Why”
How knowing your “why” is fuel for homeschooling and how to encourage characteristics of the heart that you can’t measure with a grade.
Episode 107 | Countercultural Parenting
Author, speaker, and Moms in Prayer podcast host Lee Nienhuis offers guidance to every parent seeking to raise Jesus-following kids.