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Youth (10-18)

Religion Affects Self Government Learning Capacity

2 Comments / All, TSG Principles, Youth (10-18) /

Lately, my teenage son doesn’t want to go to church with the family.  I don’t really want to make him go.  Even though he is not especially religious right now, he is still a good boy.  Should I be worried about this? 

     It is really common for children, and sometimes even adults, to go through a time when they don’t feel like being dedicated to religion.  It is hard work to live righteously, and follow religious principles.  All the really religious people I know have one thing in common.  They are all disciplined.  Since it is so common for youth to go through a

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Bubbles are no big deal.

Leave a Comment / All, Relationships, Youth (10-18) /

One day I was walking passed my daughters bedroom when, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed my daughter’s 3 year old friend emptying the last of a HUGE 100oz refill bottle of bubbles onto the carpet.  She had climbed the closet shelves to the top and got down the bottle, so that she could dump it.  What did I do?  Did I lose my cool?  No way.  This wasn’t my child.  I walked into the room and said

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Christmas Character Building

1 Comment / All, Relationships, Using TSG Skills, Youth (10-18) /

Samuel Smiles said, “Worst of all are the grumblers and growlers at fortune–who find that whatever is, is wrong,” or not enough.

Quiet a few years ago, we had a Christmas day that changed all the Christmas days to come.  We had a nice large Christmas with lots of presents for the children.  The children opened their presents, and then the grandparents came over with gifts.  After opening a present from a grandparent, one of my children said, “Is that all?” 

I about died!  Not only was this a huge social no-no, but my child was behaving very selfishly and that was unacceptable.  This kin

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Christmas Sweater

Leave a Comment / All, Relationships, Youth (10-18) /

I recently read a book called the Christmas Sweater.  In this book, the main character (a teenager) makes a lot of mistakes.  Glenn Beck, the author, tells what the teenager was thinking and how he really wanted to change, but felt it would show weakness to admit he was wrong, or that he needed help etc.  This was a great photo into the mind of a teenager.  This was a great, easy read. 

 This book shows how important it is to “seek first to understand, then to be understood.”  In the story, the adults didn’t really know how to handle the teenager’s attitude, but a mysterious, guardian angle

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Changing generations

Leave a Comment / All, Children (4-10), Home Culture, Relationships, Toddlers (0-4), TSG Principles, Youth (10-18) /

The Universe is governed by laws. One of those laws is that an older, wiser species comes before the new, innocent young of the same species to guide the younger toward right choices and acceptable behaviors. I have heard parents say before that their children didn’t come with instruction manuals. This is true, and each child is uniquely different, but I have wondered if parents make statements like these to make themselves feel better

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Fighting with non-family members

Leave a Comment / All, Children (4-10), Relationships, Youth (10-18) /

“I have been reading your website and listening to your CD’s and practicing what I’ve learned from you.  It has helped tremendously with the level of peace in our home.  A situation occurred last night with my 12 y/o which has me a bit stymied.  He was at a church camp-out and playing flag football with some other boys.  One boy in particular has given him trouble on and off through the two years we have lived here.  This boy will slap my son and then say it was a joke, yell at hi

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Bad Habits

Leave a Comment / All, Children (4-10), Using TSG Skills, Youth (10-18) /

“Some of my kids have developed bad habits such as finger-sucking, nose picking (and eating it), fingernail chewing, and touching their genitals.  Do you have any experience or advice on helping children successfully break these kinds of habits?  Some of my children have started doing such things from the time they are babies (finger-sucking), or have developed the habits a little later at around age 3 or so.  And one daughter in particular seems particularly prone to this type of thing (she’s eight now).”

I did have some youth who had behaviors which are not social

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Mom’s hang-up

1 Comment / All, Relationships, Using TSG Skills, Youth (10-18) /

“Thanks so much for all the wisdom and inspiration you share.  I have a son (age 11) who zapps so much emotional energy from me.  Over the last several months, I’ve really been trying to see things as they are and trying to determine how to handle things.  He is a great kid.  He’s the first one to help a younger sibling who is hurt or to give up his ice cream cone is one of his younger siblings dropped theirs.  He is also the one who complains the most, rolls his eyes back into his head and gets “that look” when things do not go his way.  I know that he is often “out of instructi

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Using the Rule of Three

Leave a Comment / All, Using TSG Skills, Youth (10-18) /

“Another question I had was, does the rule of 3 start over for each incident? Are the 3 consequences for staying out of instructional control as relating to the first incident? I just want to make sure I understand correctly. So if a child hits his brother, and gets out of instructional control and has the consequences for that earlier in the day, and then later disobeys about something different, the rule of 3 would start over for the later incident, correct? Consequences aren’t cumulative for different offenses, so that because the child got to SODAS with hitting his brothe

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Stop Being so efficient!!!

2 Comments / All, Announcements, Relationships, Youth (10-18) /

Two days ago my son set up all of his little army figures in army formation and came to me and said, “Mom, will you play army with me?” 

The first thought I had was, ‘I can’t right now, because I am trying to get this canning done.’

The second thought I had was, ‘maybe I can play for just a few minutes to say that I did and then get back to the canning.’

Luckily, I didn’t act upon any of those thoughts.

I looked at the army guys and looked at my son’s face.  I realized that army is not a fast game, and it isn’t meant to be.  It’s meant to be a game where you figure strategy, and di

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Girl in doorway

The Times We Live In Part 2

1 Comment / All, Youth (10-18) /

“My husband works at a jail and just a few weeks ago a man we both know from school and church was brought in on sexual charges. His niece was supposedly the victim. Both of us were very surprised, as we wouldn’t have expected him of doing such a thing. Whether he is guilty or not, we will probably never know.However, after discussing it, we both thought that not only is it important to try to protect our children from this type of thing, we also need to take steps to protect OURSELVES and our own reputations.”

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