By Karen Shulz-Perez, PhD

Keep your promises

• Don’t make a promise that you will not be able to keep.
• Keeping a promise teaches children that certain people can be trusted and are subsequently trustworthy.
  
• For each promise you keep, your child will feel the positive emotions and learn the positive actions related to it.
• If you are not sure you will be able to keep a promise, make it a surprise instead.

Learn from kids as they live in their moment in time

• This involves putting less attention on worries, concerns, mistakes, things to do, things that bother you, today, tomorrow and yesterday.
• Managing to do this allows you and your children to live life simply in the moment of “now” and be engaged in whatever the activity is now.
  
• Don’t try to perform other activities (housecleaning, telephone calls, etc) while spending time with your children -- enjoy the moment, live it together!
  

Expect it to spill, drop or to be broken.

• It will happen -- it will spill, be dropped, or be broken.
• And, when we expect it to happen, we are less surprised and thus not so reactive to it. If you expect it to spill, it would not be a surprise when it does occur and it puts a different slant on the situation. This will allow you to be less panicked, disappointed and decrease your stress.
  
• If it doesn’t spill, we are grateful. Thinking this way will allow us to appreciate the fact that most often, things really don’t spill and don’t get all over the floor, furniture or clothes. This allows us to stop spending our time focusing on the annoying exception -- when it does spill.
  
• This process is not wishing for something “bad” to happen, but allowing yourself acceptance of things that happen and not expecting our happiness to be based on whether our children spill, drop or break something.

Never miss a chance to say “I love you”

• Saying “I love you” to your child makes them feel good.
• It reminds them that they are not alone in the world and that you care for them.
• It raises their self-esteem; and, you feel good too!
  
• They develop a quiet confidence and a sense of inner peace.
  
• Telling someone you love them, is simple, painless and free.
  
• It can also erase previous mistakes -- remember this, when you are having difficult times with your children.

If you have children, set your agenda aside

• When you are emotionally and rigidly stuck to your plan of the day, you create stress and an inability to be flexible. This creates lost time with your children.
  
• Yes, there are times that you need to make plans and stick to them; but, sticking to a rigid agenda truly does not allow you to complete as many tasks as you would like to do because you are inflexible.
  
• Know your “ideal schedule or plans”, but learn to keep it on the back burner -- otherwise you will be trapped at home, become agitated and frustrated.
  
• If you don’t learn to set your agenda aside, you will teach your children to be rigid, inflexible, agitated and frustrated.

Set a good example

• All of our actions are seen by our children and embedded into their consciousness, without thought.
  
• While any single action may not seem to have much of an effect on them, there is definitely a cumulative effect.
  
• And, it is up to us to determine what type of example we want to set for our children -- whether it be loving, positive, and helpful or lazy, selfish or vindictive.
  
• Setting a good example also helps to reduce stress, anxiety, anger and depression in both you and your children.
  
• It also helps in creating positive behavior and attitudes with everyone.

Let them win an argument for a change

• The strategy here is to “let” your child win an argument for a change -- it reduces stress, anger and anxiety between you and them.
  
• Understand, that no person truly wins an argument; the situation is two people both trying to prove a different point.
  
• If you don’t come to an agreement (someone winning) then both people feel bad and neither has learned anything.
  
• If they have objective information to back themselves up, let your child “win”.
  
• There is no harm in agreeing with your child (“you don’t spend enough time with me, you never let me go”). Agree -- “that is true, I don’t let you go ….; or you are right, I have not spent enough time with you”. Not only will this decrease stress, it will increase their self-esteem and honesty.