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Inside Out Personal Edition “You can't change the direction of the wind. . . but you can adjust your sails!” ---Jimmy Dean Kim Olver, MS, NCC, LPC www.TheRelationshipCenter.biz Kim@TheRelationshipCenter.biz
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| This Month's Feature Teleclass FREE Teleclass-Empowerment Parenting We cannot continue to parent our children the way we did when they were younger children, or even the way our parents parented us. The world is different! Children are different! If we do not learn new innovations in parenting, our efforts will likely be ineffective at best, and actually destructive at their worst. Join us for this teleclass and learn about the inherent conflict between parents and their children, as well as ways to circumvent it. You can reasonably insure your child’s safety and still maintain a positive relationship Click Here for a full description and to register |
A Message from Kim I want to apologize to readers for a technological problem I experienced this month. Apparently, my email account was full and I wasn’t notified of the problem. I received several emails that were blank because my email account had no room to download new messages. If you were one of the people who sent me an email message over the past month and you did not receive a reply from me, please resend your email. I typically respond to my email within a 48-hour period. Again, I apologize for any inconvenience. The good news is that right now I am sitting on the beach in Ocean City, MD. The weather is perfect and I’ve been told the water is even warmer than it is during the summer months. Of course, I’m not actually brave enough to try the swim but the outdoor hot tub is really looking good to me. I am here doing two presentations of Empowerment Parenting to a conference of child welfare workers. I am always in awe of how these ideas cut across cultures, socio-economic status and gender. There is something worthwhile for everyone in the Empowerment Parenting program. Why don’t you check it out at www.empowermentparenting.com? |
In this Issue Book Review
Relationship Q&A About Kim Olver Click on the link below for a description of this amazing
F - R - E - E teleclass. Offered the second Tuesday of every month. Next Class October 10, 2006
FREE Teleclass-Anger Management Are you someone who is confronted with angry people in the course of your life? Spouses, children, extended family members, neighbors, community members who have tempers and like to yell at you? Want to learn ways to take the wind out their sails and have them communicating more cooperatively? Then this class is for you! FREE Teleclass-Empowerment Parenting We cannot continue to parent our children the way we did when they were younger children, or even the way our parents parented us. The world is different! Children are different! If we do not learn new innovations in parenting, our efforts will likely be ineffective at best, and actually destructive at their worst. Join us for this teleclass and learn about the inherent conflict between parents and their children, as well as ways to circumvent it. You can reasonably insure your child’s safety and still maintain a positive relationship FREE Teleclass Do you find that your happiness is often
contingent on people, circumstances or
things that you have no control over?
Do you feel like life is just passing
you by while you wait for.... Inside Out
Thinking is such a powerful way to unleash FREE Teleclass-Relationships from the Inside Out Learn the skills you need to create the relationship you deserve. Learn about the seven deadly relationship habits and how to replace them with loving and caring habits. Start improving that relationship you have with your signifcant other by registering for this amazing class today. FREE Teleclass Goal Come on now; are you serious this time about keeping those New Year’s resolutions? Let’s really get serious about setting those goals for next year. This teleclass will give you a time-proven system for setting and actually attaining those New Year’s resolutions. No more excuses. Register for this call today. All you need is a telephone. ************************ Foster Parenting Teleseries Six (6) Week teleseries. Click on link for more information or to purchase. Foster Parent Agencies - Please click here to order this teleseries
Chats Kim will be available in her chat room for questions and dialog on the following dates and times: All Chats are from 7:30 - 8:30 p.m. EST |
Punished by Rewards Do you believe in the concept of rewarding positive behavior and either punishing or ignoring negative behavior in the hopes of reinforcing the behavior you define as acceptable in your children? It’s hard not to when pop psychology is based in behaviorism. Unfortunately, what you don’t know is that research provides staggering evidence against this approach and the evidence actually supports the concepts behind Empowerment Parenting. The book, Punished by Rewards, by Alphie Kohn, provides a thorough review of the literature involved with using rewards to shape behavior. One of the most popular reasons this idea is perpetuated is because it works! Yes, you can get many children to do the things you want by rewarding positive behavior, particularly when you find a reward the person values. The problem is that they are only working for the reward. They have no desire to improve or increase the occurrence of the behavior you want except as it relates to them getting their reward. What does this mean for the long-term? It means that you are not reinforcing the behavior you think you are. Once the reward is no longer offered, the research shows that the behavior will not only stop but go to an even lower frequency than was exhibited before the reward was offered. Another thing that occurs is that when we offer rewards for behavior we want to see, the child can become dependent on the reward system and eventually it will appear that the all the child will work for are bribes. Then, we blame the child for being unmotivated when it was really our rewarding behavior that created that condition in the first place! Another thing that Kohn tells us is that anytime we offer a reward for a specific behavior, we decrease a person’s interest in the behavior we are trying to create. Sure we can get him or her to engage in the behavior to get the reward but it isn’t because they like or enjoy the behavior. In fact, just the opposite occurs. Whenever we offer a child a reward, we are sending the message that the behavior we want them to engage in must be a tedious, uninteresting one or else why would we have to motivate them to perform it? We actually teach them to hate the behavior we are trying to reinforce! Talk about counter productive! And the final reason I want to mention for not rewarding comes from the idea that we are interfering with a person’s right for autonomy. We are all born will the inner desire for freedom. We don’t like to be restricted or controlled. We want to determine our own destiny. This is human nature. Anytime we try to control another person’s behavior, no matter how subtly, we are discounting the person’s right to their autonomy. Even rewarding is a subtle attempt to control another person’s behavior. The people who are most susceptible to this are those with a high need for freedom. They will smell the manipulation attempt from a mile away and will resist your attempts to control them. Am I saying spontaneous rewards are bad? No. When we spontaneously celebrate accomplishments, there is no attempt to control. We are simply recognizing that celebration is in order when someone achieves a particular thing. The person didn’t KNOW he or she would get a reward for complying so he or she didn’t experience the feeling of being manipulated. The thing that Empowerment Parenting works to create is intrinsic motivation. We were all born with a desire to accomplish things. Somewhere along the way, behaviorism and behavior modification may have decreased our internal motivation. Empowerment Parenting teaches parents how to help their children regain their sense of power by fueling internal motivation. Copyright © October 2006. Kim Olver. All rights reserved
NOTICE: This article is free and can be copied and reproduced as long as the copyright and bio is included at the bottom of the article ****************************** "Stop trying to perfect your child, but keep trying to perfect your relationship with him." --Dr. Henker This quote is perfectly in line with Empowerment Parenting and Punished by Rewards. As parents, we need to stop trying to change our children to mold them into our likeness or the likeness of the "perfect child" we have in our minds. Encourage your child's individuality. Allow your child to be the person he or she was intended to be. The most important thing is your relationship. Gary Zucov says, "Relationship is the root of all influence." This is so true. When we are attempting to "perfect" our children, we are pressuring our relationship and consequently damaging the relationship we have with them and reducing the influence we have. It's a vicious cycle. Stay focused on the relationship and notice the results you get. ******************************
Punished by Rewards Today I would like to recommend the book, Punished by Rewards, by Alphie Kohn. This book explores the research to explain that not only punishment is bad for our long-term goals for our children, but rewards are also bad. Click here to order this book ******************** When negotiating with your children, remember your need is to keep your children safe, while their need is to explore their world, with increasing competence and independence. Both of you have the right to have your needs met. Sometimes parents are so afraid to allow their children to get their exploration needs met that they frequently say no to their requests for increased freedom and independence. Instead of saying no, try saying, “Yes, once I am convinced that you have the skills you need to keep yourself safe.” Try to help them get their needs instead of preventing them. Because Empowerment Parenting tells us that when we block a person’s legitimate ways of getting their need met, then they are going to continue to seek other ways of getting that need met. Many times their alternate solutions are less responsible than their original request. ******************** Q:
What do you think of the parenting program Love and Logic? When we get into power struggles with our children, I think no one wins. Even the person who is successful in getting their own way loses something in the exchange. The relationship becomes strained, damaged and sometimes even irreparably broken. With Empowerment Parenting, I teach that the parents’ needs are not more important than the child’s; neither are the child’s needs more important than the parents’. Everyone’s needs are equally important so Empowerment Parenting helps parents learn critical negotiation skills so both they and their children can come away winners, while maintaining and even strengthening the relationship between them.
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