by Jen Forristal | Sep 26, 2017 | Umbrella Intro
Do your coping skills bring people closer to you or push them away?
A big study out of Harvard has found that meaningful relationships are one of the best prescriptions for better emotional, mental, and physical health as we get older. Read the study highlights here.
Especially when our lives are rainy, we need good relationships to thrive. What happens to you and your kids when the stress picks up? Do you have positive coping skills that deepen your relationships through stressful times or do you end up pushing those close to you away?
Investing some time into building positive coping skills for you and your family could be one of the best investments you make into your future wellbeing.
Featured image by Andre Hunter on Unsplash.
by Jen Forristal | Sep 25, 2017 | Empathy
We tell our kids a lot about what a situation means with our immediate reactions. This week, pay attention to the reaction you have when your child shares their challenges with you. What we think is often written all over our faces – even before we begin to speak! – and our kids create a lot of meaning from this.
Let me share an example.
Umbrella parenting is about helping our children feel less victimized by the day to day trials of life. If our child comes home and shares that someone was unkind to them, it’s common to react with surprise, anger and words like “that’s awful” or “how could they do that”. That can give your child the message that an injustice has been done to them, leaving them in the victim seat. Instead try reacting with empathy. Of course it’s hard when someone is unkind – but it isn’t a surprise, it’s a normal part of life. There are many reasons why kids can be unkind. Sometimes they have bad days, learn poor coping strategies from siblings or peers, don’t get enough sleep, and a million more. By expecting it to rain sometimes in our kid’s lives and reacting with empathy we tell our children that we know these things are hard but also something normal that everyone experiences from time to time.
Learn more about how to react to your child’s challenges in our blog post, “Turning Threats into Growth Opportunities: 4 Steps to Coach your Child through Challenges“.
Featured image by Ekaterina Kartushina on Unsplash
![[Infographic] Achieving Stress-Free Behaviour Change](https://umbrellaproject.co/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Stress-Free-Behaviour-Change-Infographic.png)
by Jen Forristal | Sep 21, 2017 | Authenticity, Umbrella Intro
Download a PDF copy of this infographic here.
Week 1
The kids estimated that they would need 16 boxes for the week based on the fact that they were bickering a few times/day.
Number of boxes coloured: 3.
Number of times I lost my parenting cool: zero.
This week we have reduced our success threshold to 8. Continue this process until the behaviour is held at an amount that feels age appropriate and try to have fun with it. A little humour goes a long way when it comes to getting kids to buy in!
by Jen Forristal | Sep 20, 2017 | Kindness, Umbrella Intro
Can you see how gratitude, empathy, purpose, resilience and kindness are shaping the story of these two incredible humans and allowing them to weather life’s challenges? It’s not chance but skills that give us the power to thrive.
Children learn primarily by example and you can help your child build these powerful skills by sharing stories like this one.
Watch this story with your kids by clicking here
by Jen Forristal | Sep 19, 2017 | Umbrella Intro
School provides a wide selection of rain to help our children learn coping skills. A great conversation to have as school gets going is what some of the normal “rain” might be this year, emphasis on normal. Not all these things will happen to every child, but every child is likely to face some of these challenges.
What this conversation does is helps them to expect some level of adversity instead of being shocked when it happens. This can help them feel less like victims in these challenging situations. Once you have gone through a few examples and your child understands what you mean by rain, ask them what at school feels like rain to them?
Share a few things that felt like rain to you in school. Explain that mixed in with all the sunny days, some of these rainy days are normal and expected.
Here are some examples I use:
- Friends being unkind
- Feeling left out
- Strict teachers
- Pressure from teachers/coaches
- Making mistakes
- Not doing as well on a test as you hoped
- Having trouble learning something new
- Meeting new people
Featured image by Annie Spratt on Unsplash
