Have you ever considered being a Parenting Coach?

Have you ever considered being a Parenting Coach?

My experience as a mother of an adult today remits me back to the challenges that we had on his teenage years.  One thought that always crossed my mind was, did I do a good job?  However, thinking back I see that our relationship was always blessed with great communication.

In the past couple of years, I have geared my studies towards life coaching and my current work with parents on a one-on-one basis showed me that communication was the greatest handicap of parenting today.  In May 2011, we just facilitated a seminar for 32 parents called “The Necessary Tools for a Healthy Parent/Children Communication” at Life Choice Program Education.  The feedback was overwhelming; it showed that the parents are very interested in learning about technique and skills that will facilitate their communication with their children.  Over 70% agree that effective communication is the number one tool to have a good relationship with people, parents, and children.  The coach provides many strategies to help parents improve their communication with everyone involved.

The relationship between parents and coaches is warm, trustful and honest.  When this symbiosis comes into play, the parents allow themselves to speak freely about their feelings and emotions, and when a professional Coach is ready to actively listen to them, it can guide them into an array of strategic tools that can improve their knowledge about their own feelings, and in return allowing parents to be more honest with their children, earning their respect and trust, and letting the miscommunications to naturally diminish.

Conflicts and frustrations are the enemies as they are not the true feelings that should be taken into account when dealing with children.  Parents need to focus on issues and the awakening of this new conscience, is facilitated by a coaching session that permitted the parent to see and deal with their own issues and consequently feelings, placing them out of the way at the moment of communication with the children.  The coaching process make parents feel more relaxed, secure, motivated and ready to take on the task at hand.

When is the most difficult time you face when raising your children?  The overall consensus is that teenage years are the most complex, as the children are no longer subject to parenting direct orientation and growing into an adult with their own choices and identity. 

When our children become teenagers, many changes occur in our lives, marriages, divorces, death in the family, newborns, social influences, and not to forget hormonal changes to both, children and mothers that may occur simultaneously.  Considering all those elements, Parenting Coaching is an effective way to give an opportunity for the self-development of parents, with this knew acquired knowledge of themselves, parents are now ready to share, inspire and be aware of what is going on in their children’s lives; with this, building a stable relationship with their children that will than spruce up in to a high value adult.

Parenting coaching is not only about the children, nevertheless it is a great experience to all involved as human beings.  The improvement of tools and techniques allow a much healthier communication in their personal life and/or their family life. The benefits of Parenting Coaching are to help parents learn how to respect and be respected, reflect about their actions, focus on what is missing in their relationship, as well as have some orientation on how to guide and understand their children.  Parenting Coaching will encourage parents to build up their self-esteem and confidence, as well as to deliver their values and beliefs to their children with love.

Madeleine Cruz

Mod IV - July  2011.

Do you know what it is to be creative?

The word creativity simply means an attitude of the will to do or make something different.

To some people to be creative it is easy, to others is almost impossible, or better said is not so natural for them.  Sometimes we ask ourselves when we see a very creative person: “how can he be so creative?”

Many times this generates in us some frustration for not been able to act creatively. However, the good news is that creativity is part of us, we carry it in our essence and we just need to develop it. But, how can we do it?

Taking notes – you can have a small notebook to take notes of anything that you see different or calls your attention, some novelty, what comes to your mind, a word, a text, a music, take notes so later on you can organize your ideas.

Observe everything around you – Observe the people, the environment, what you can learn or the ideas that you can take from what you listen, from what is been taught to you – active listening is one of the great tools for been more creative.

Don´t limit yourself – go forward with curiosity and do not limit yourself only to your knowledge, research complementary information, search additional details about what you heard or read. Sometimes the unknown sounds unattractive because you don´t know it, the interest to know something unknown can give you the chance to have new ideas.

Get out from your routine – search from something different than what you are used to do regularly, something that you have not done yet! This helps you to have new ideas or re-think about the ones you already have.

Be optimistic – Don´t see anything as the problem, use your creativity (imagination), and use your ideas to focus on the solution. For example, in times of economic crisis one can reduce its cost, its expenses and to do that we need to be creative and with this creativity we can do something different and good for society. Many successful organizations started in times of economic crisis.

Share your ideas – Think Win + Win, you win, I win, we all win! – Sometimes you can share your ideas with other creative people and they can support you, or they might want to build something better with you. Don’t be afraid; combine your ideas with others.

When a person is open to learn, to listen, to research, to share, to search, to innovate… this person is creative and will obtain much success in life! Why not just do it?

Madeleine Cruz

Misbehavior can be sparked by loss

Mark Gregston - Guest Columnist - 9/13/2011 11:25:00 AM

Loss in the life of a teen is like is an empty space in their heart aching to be filled. It can range from their loss of popularity to their loss of a parent. It can be an adopted child’s loss for not knowing his or her birth parents. If a teenager is working through the pain of loss, it will likely affect their behavior. Trying to fill that void with something other than what they really long for won’t work, even if what you have to offer is better. What’s necessary is to understand and to help them work through it.

Think about a child who has lost a parent through death or divorce. The child feels the loss of that parent. If the other parent has remarried, there may be nothing wrong with the replacement. But your child’s longing is to not have that loss, at all, and every time they are around their step-parent, they are reminded of what they no longer have.

If your child is adopted, then every normal family is a reminder to your child that his is a “different” kind of family. It doesn’t matter that you are a good parent and your family is supportive and loving. You remain a constant reminder that his birth mother gave him up, which is not what your child may have wanted. He may never have wanted to be adopted. These feelings won’t be there all the time, nor will they start until the child is a little bit older. But they can be intense when they do occur, and they can last a few months or a few years.

Losses tend to control teenagers by the needs they create. They can be either real or perceived. I describe loss as, “Not getting what I want, need, or hope for, or that which I am deprived of, that which I am unable to keep, that which I am unable to find, that which I fail to win, or that which once was, but now isn’t.”

Let me give you some examples. Loss can be felt from: missed opportunities, unmet parental expectations, bad decisions, an inability to do what I think I should be able to do, the loss of a parent or the cohesion of the family through divorce, or even the loss of one’s self-respect or sexual purity. Or perhaps your teen has experienced the negative effects of unmet expectations, not being heard or understood, not being loved and cared for, or not feeling valued or esteemed. Maybe your teen has unfulfilled dreams, has missed goals or opportunities, or longs for something unattainable. Or maybe they feel loss from uncontrolled happenings, a medical problem, something about their appearance (too thin, too fat, too tall, too short, etc.), or where they live bothers them.

The intensity of teen misbehavior or depression can grow as their losses build up in their thinking in the introspective teen years. And outside of true psychological or physical issues, a child rarely behaves abnormally without first experiencing some kind of loss. So, it’s very important for a parent to understand and begin to deal with the losses in their teen’s life if misbehavior is showing it ugly head.

Every child is unique in the way they respond to their losses. But let me list five of the most common responses to loss:

Anger. Anger is the emotional response to a teen not getting what they want. It is the number one response to loss. When teens perceive a loss, the resulting void is often filled with frustration or anger. The more intense the loss, the more desperate their behavior, and greater their anger. When you intervene in the life of your child in order to curb their inappropriate or unacceptable behavior, they can become even angrier. Identifying that the anger is resulting from a loss is imperative to getting to the bottom of it.

Minimizing. “It’s not that big of a deal.” Minimizing on the part of the teen reduces the importance of their loss so it won’t demand anyone’s attention. Or, they may act as if it didn’t happen, and convince themselves that everything is really “okay.” When a teen minimizes losses, it can build up in their life and come out in other ways. If you know your teen has experienced a loss, it is critical to find a way to get them to talk about it — if not with you, then with a counselor.

Guilt. Another common response to loss is guilt. Teens can have an ongoing sense of regret, and feel terrible about something that’s happened, or something they’ve done. They avoid dealing with it, especially if they were part of creating the loss to begin with. Underneath this thinking is the belief that dealing with their loss may cause something else in their life to fall apart, resulting in additional loss. When one domino falls, it knocks out the rest of the dominoes too. Instead, they just feel guilty and it can come to the surface in their behavior.

Shame. ”I’m embarrassed that I couldn’t handle it.” They may wonder why they aren’t equipped to just deal with it, or why they didn’t see what would happen before it happened. Underneath this thinking is a belief that they should be able to take care of everything on their own, and know what to do every time trouble appears.

Fear. Fear is a strong emotion. Fear and anxiety grows significantly as losses occur in a teen’s life that can undermine their future or their relationships, especially as they get closer to the time they’ll be expected to step out on their own.

Uncovering your teen’s losses
As the parent of a teen, you are in a unique position to help your child by looking beyond they way they are behaving, and examining their needs and understanding their losses. Sometimes that requires a good counselor.

I remember counseling a 16-year-old boy whose behavior had suddenly changed. His parents were worried, so they contacted me. After a short time talking with him, he told me that he was having a sexual relationship with his high school teacher. His parents were shocked when they learned of it. They knew was something was wrong, but attributed the trouble with their son’s behavior to raging hormones and normal teen angst. They had no idea that the son was dealing with loss in the form of guilt and shame. Bewildered at finding out the truth, the parents asked their son, “Why didn’t you ever tell us what was happening to you?” Their son simply responded, “Why didn’t you ever ask?”

Parents often don’t like to ask such tough questions as, “Has anyone ever said or done anything that was inappropriate to you?” Parents often focus on their teen’s behavior, not what’s causing it. They can overlook the obvious, or attribute their teen’s bad behavior to other things like bad friends, problems in school, experimenting with drugs, even outright rebellion.

Do your parents know everything that happened in your life during your teen years? What makes you think you know everything that is happening in your own teen’s life?

If you see a drastic change in your child’s behavior, something else is going on, underneath it, fueling it. It’s important to ask, and keep asking until you are satisfied you understand what is happening in the life of your child. It may not be sexual abuse, but it may be something else, just as traumatic to your child’s unique soul.

Our role as parents is two-fold: Truth and Grace. There is a tough and tender side to being a good parent. Sometimes the truth is painful, but your child needs you to be strong enough to give it to him. The graceful side of parenting means you understand your child longings, and move toward him with compassion during the tough times.

During adolescence, teens are caught in the “Muddle in the Middle.” They begin thinking like adults in a discerning way, but they don’t know what to do with the resulting feelings. And understanding that God promises to help recover a person from loss is not something they can fully comprehend until they are adults. Parenting a child who has experienced deep loss is a matter of helping the child to work through the loss and the resulting feelings, and also waiting and watching for God to use every situation for His good in both your life, and the life of your child.

This issues was talked about in depth on a radio program called “Dealing With Loss.” To listen online look for the program dated September 10, 2011 at http://www.parentingtodaysteens.org.

How To Create The Best LinkedIn Profile

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Hi Everyone, I just read this article, and I think it is one of the best.... Claudia Nunes

How To Create The Best LinkedIn Profile

• AUGUST 17, 2011 9:11 PM
• ARTUR
• 1 COMMENT

LinkedIn has become one of the best job hunting grounds for professionals. Swarmed with recruitment consultants, LinkedIn seems to be teeming with opportunities – particularly for those in finance, media, advertising and technology. This ever-growing social network for professionals allows individuals to create resumes online without even touching HTML.

Since it also allows recruiters to find candidates, candidates to look up the company/employees and companies to check candidates it’s a win-win-win situation. The problem is that if your LinkedIn profile is weak then neither recruiters nor companies will not find you. That means no one wins. If you want everyone in that ‘recruiter-you-company’ circle to win, follow these simple steps and your LinkedIn profile will be out there with the best.

Best LinkedIn Profile – Step 1

100% Profile completeness

One of the most important factors influencing how high up in search results your LinkedIn profile appears is your profile completeness. Whilst next steps will go into more details on how to optimise your profile, keep that at the back of your mind. Reaching 100% profile completeness is a must.

Best LinkedIn Profile – Step 2

Make sure your profile is visible outside your connections

Another thing to check is whether your LinkedIn profile and activity broadcast (shares, tweets, etc.) is visible to people outside of your connections network. Just go to your account settings and turn on visibility settings.

Best LinkedIn Profile – Step 3

Add as many connections as possible/suitable

Although this seems like a no brainer, it’s crucial that you’re connected to as many friends, colleagues, teachers, fellow students, etc. LinkedIn provides a useful ‘People You May Know’ functionality (under Contacts). Whilst you might not know all people on that list, you will find many people you haven’t thought about too. Once you’re connected, check out you new connections’ groups and see if any of them are worth joining.

Best LinkedIn Profile – Step 4

Optimise your profile

If you think about it, LinkedIn uses similar metrics to Google when it comes to ranking relevant search results. The good thing with LinkedIn is that it’s relatively easier to improve your LinkedIn profile rankings than it is with Google.

Firstly, make sure that you change your profile URL so it ends with your first name and surname – see my profile for example – Artur Jach. This will help to get your public LinkedIn profile to rank on page 1 in Google when someone searches for your name.

Secondly, make sure that you repeat relevant keywords in the summary, previous experience, skills, interests, honors and awards, and education sections. At the same time remember that you’re writing it for real people so make sure it still reads well. There are many angles you can take and topics you can use to find opportunity to include keywords, e.g. your responsibilities, clients, achievements, university module names, etc.

Thirdly, make use of the headline (below your name) and include relevant keywords in there too. If it’s the job that you’re after you can also include your email address in the headline – make it easier for recruiters and companies to get in touch. Whilst you’re editing the headline you must specify you location and industry. This will increase your chances of ranking well for industry or location based searches.

Lastly, make use of three external link opportunities (under Websites). Link out to your blog or a website, your employer’s site or any other site that is relevant to what you’re trying to achieve by improving your profile. One thing to note here is that when you edit the ‘Websites’ section you can select ‘Other’ from the drop down and customise the link anchor text. This can boost the level of optimisation of the destination website.

Best LinkedIn Profile – Step 5

Maximise relevant & minimise irrelevant experience info

This should be straight forward. If you’re after being more visible for the search term ‘web developer’ then expand on your professional or academic experience relating to development. Although it’s worth mentioning your previous jobs, there’s no need to write essays about your work as a chef or a builder.

Best LinkedIn Profile – Step 6

Make yourself contactable

There are several areas in your LinkedIn profile where you can provide contact information:

• Personal Information section
• Add your email address to the headline
• Configure the built-in Twitter functionality (if you are on Twitter)
• Provide a link to external page with your contact details in the ‘Websites’ section

Best LinkedIn Profile – Step 7

Ask for recommendations. Then ask again!

From this step onwards we get to optional activities which can make your profile really stand out and what can make it that 10% better than others.

Recommendations are very important factor for LinkedIn as well as for potential recruiters and employers. They are also very difficult to get. However, once you get 2-4 good recommendations from your friends, colleagues, associates or family it will not only help your credibility but also profile visibility on LinkedIn. If you’re familiar with SEO, think about recommendations as inbound /external links from high quality websites. Additionally, people giving you recommendations are likely to include relevant keywords in your recommendation.

Best LinkedIn Profile – Step 8

Join relevant industry groups

Joining relevant LinkedIn groups is like vote of confidence – you effectively tell LinkedIn you actively seek industry news and you deserve to be visible. I want to stress the word ‘relevant’ here. The group name and conversations taking place within it can be matched with keywords you optimised your LinkedIn profile for in previous steps.

Best LinkedIn Profile – Step 9

Participate in groups and share news

You can improve your LinkedIn profile ranking further by actively participating and engaging in group discussions. Sharing interesting and relevant articles with the group helps as well. I’ve seen massive improvements in my own profile rankings after sharing my SEO related blog posts with SEO focused groups. Strongly recommended!

Best LinkedIn Profile – Step 10

Create an active industry group

You can also take it a step further and create your own group. If you’re a specialist in the area and don’t mind spending 15-30 minutes a week managing the group then why not? This is another activity which helped me to push my own LinkedIn profile up for target keywords.

Best LinkedIn Profile – Step 11

Use LinkedIn applications and link with your Twitter

Yet another add-on which allows showing off your skills and knowledge (and number of keywords on your profile page) is LinkedIn Applications. Although some are better than others, I’d definitely recommend configuring the ‘BlogLink’ or ‘WordPress’ (to display your blog’s RSS feed) and ‘Google Presentation’ or ‘SlideShare’ (to show off your awesome presentations).

Although discussed in previous steps, make sure you link your Twitter account so your Twitter feed is displayed on your profile. Note you have to make it visible to the outside world by changing activity broadcast settings.

5 Tips On How To Market Yourself As Your Main Product

by Coree on December 1st, 2009

With so many Marketers in the mainstream social media world, how do you set yourself apart from the rest as the one people trust and buy from? It has long been said that people do not buy products from salespeople, they buy YOU…the salesperson.

People usually start into Social Media Marketing in one of two ways:

1. They have a product already but no social media skills to understand how to market in the new media

2. They start with a blog, no product to sell and just start marketing themselves as a source hoping to one day to actually have a product

Which ever category you may have fallen into, you’ll need to distinguish yourself…YOU and what you stand for…before you’ll see success in social networking.

Personal branding is now more important than ever in communities. People are buying you. If I don’t like you, I’m not only NOT going to buy from you, but I am blocking you and telling all my friends what I think of you too. (Hmmph!)That’s the power of social networking. We all talk, and word of mouth can be your best friend or your worst enemy.

How To Make YOU Your Main Product:

1. Set Up Profiles On The Big Three:

Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Pick one of those 3 as your home and get really really good at it. Don’t waste your time (or others) by pinging hundreds of social networks that you never frequent. I started out on all of them then realized that without focusing on one network I was spreading myself too thin to be an authority on ANY of them.

2. Hook Up With Other Up n’ Comers:

Get to know others in your field or niche that have the same goal as you. I’m not saying give them all your secrets, but be willing to share ideas and experiences that you have learned from and they will do the same.

Have you ever had a friend that made it big before you did? How did you take it? We can either get jealous and angry that it wasn’t us that made it, or we can put all that silliness behind, celebrate with them and learn from their experience. Chances are they may take you right along the success pathway with them!

3. Hook Up With The Influencers:

I’ve said this before but it bears repeating. In social media your ROI is your Return On Influence, so borrow the influence of others if you don’t have much of your own yet. You will be glad that you made friends with a few fire starters when you have them start tweeting out your blog posts and then your product launches for you. Just remember, the big names in Social Media are being pitched all the time, so be real with them.

Try to find conversations that you can fit into and add value to. If you can’t, then start a topic of conversation of your own. Comment on their blogs, meet them at conferences and MeetUps, spend time getting to know who they are before you start telling them who YOU are.

4. Be Unique:

When I buy something for myself I tend to look for things that are a little different than what everyone else is buying. I may like the main idea behind a trending product, but generally I don’t want to be just like everyone else. I’m weird that way.

I’m that way about my writing too. I like the ideas that many people are talking about in social media, but I don’t say it the same way. That’s another thing that’s cool about social media…it allows everyone to be themselves. You can build your own community of people that like you because you don’t follow the crowds or you’re not afraid to say when something really sucks.

You’re selling yourself and YOUR personality, so be different. Be liked, or be hated, but be the best you can be at either!

5. Choose Who/What You Promote Wisely:

Another old saying to remember is, you are who your friends are. Like it or not, who you associate with or the products you promote all affect the perception people have of you.

I have worked with some top names in MLM business opportunities. I have seen the good, the bad, and the ugly side of network marketing. Because of that, I deliberately separated my blog and my name from any association with that niche. When it comes to business opportunities, I am very hesitant to promote to my community.

I would still talk to any of these MLM leaders and I appreciate their personalities, but the image I want to display is one of authenticity and professionalism. And by professionalism I mean knowing my stuff and calling things as they really are.

If you don’t get anything else out of this article, I hope you walk away with this one concept:

You will never get people to really like you for who you are if you are never really YOU in front of them.

Market yourself as authentic you. Like people. Smile. Care. Listen. Learn. Share. In the process you’ll find that opportunity to promote your products but what people will remember is YOU.

By the way, if you don’t find fulfillment or happiness in what you do, you might as well go back to having a job working for someone else because you will never be happy until you are happy doing what you do everyday. Just sayin…

What makes you decide to buy from someone? What quality or perception did you pick up that made you say yes to that person? How can you adapt the same qualities into your own personal branding plan of action? Can you see where you can do things differently now? Please share your comments below.

To Your Success,

P.S. ~> Don’t forget that I am giving away Google Wave invites to the top two commentators each week. You see the rules for the Google Wave Invite Top Commenter contest to get some ideas to help you win. Please be sure to follow Rule #1. You must COMMENT on the blog itself to win, Tweeting the post will add an additional entry, but will not count unless there is also a relevant comment posted on the article of your choice. Good luck!

http://www.marketlikeachick.com/5-tips-on-how-to-market-yourself-as-your-main-product/

THE DAILY MOTIVATOR

THE DAILY MOTIVATOR

If you want to live richly, live intentionally. Choose what you wish to create, and then experience the immense satisfaction of making it so. 

Instead of being consumed with doubts and fears about what might happen, be focused on what you will cause to happen.

Listen to your heart, and take the initiatives that most closely resonate with what you hear.
 
Absolutely accept and embrace whatever randomness life brings your way. Yet do it from a perspective of your own choosing.
 
Get the very most from each day by making the intentional choice of how to spend it. Instead of being pushed in a hundred different directions by the conflict and complexity that surrounds you, harness the energy of your passion and purpose.
 
Direct yourself, consistently and persistently, toward the places, situations, experiences, people and results that you wish to have in your life. You have more than enough energy, opportunities and ability, when focused in a specific direction, to achieve whatever you choose.
 
So choose to choose. Decide how your life will be, this hour, this day, this year, this century, and live the true richness of making it happen.
 
Ralph Marston