Parenting Launch Sequence
Successfully letting go of young adults
By Dwight Bain, Nationally Certified Counselor & Certified Life Coach
Parents are told to give their children "roots and wings" from the time they are born until it is time to leave the nest, some twenty years later. I believe that the first part comes easier than the second, which may not come at all for some older adolescents these days. Let me explain a few factors to help you understand why some kids never seem to launch into early success as young adults.
Giving a child 'roots' is about shared traditions, values, personal accountability to a moral standard of behavior, such as the 10 commandments or the golden rule as well as providing a safe and loving home environment. I believe most parents do their best to care and provide for their kids. I also believe that most parents try to build these core values into the heart of their kids which will always show up through their behavior and choices later on in life. When a child clearly understands what they believe they are stronger and more focused to go through the teen years without getting hung up on the distractions and temptations that cause so many of their peers to stumble and fall.
Frankly, I don't think most parents really struggle with knowing what they should be doing, because they know what they want their children to learn and if you ask them, they usually have a pretty clear vision of how they want their children to behave. It’s been my experience that most parents do their best to give their kids the strength of being deeply rooted into a personal belief system of some kind, especially in understanding right from wrong and how to respond to the world around them in a reasonable and responsible way.
If they aren't directly building these values into the lives of their kids, they are likely supplementing those values through regularly attending a house of faith or some other form of ethical values education (for instance, consider the great programs available through faith based groups like the YMCA), or even through targeted exposure to positive messages through the entertainment and media they let their kids experience. Giving kids traditional family values will root them into knowing what they believe, but it won't always protect them when they are challenged by their peers as to why they believe it.
► Common fights about the ‘flight plan’
So, how do you take a child that you have loved, cared for, taken care of and protected for their entire lifetime the right amount of space to 'fly' forward on their own wings? Let me warn you ahead of time, it's often hard to find the right level of balance on this subject and kids and parents often experience their greatest conflict during the teen years trying to figure out just the right level of responsibility and independence for each stage of life!
Yet as hard as it may be for parents to even consider letting go of the children that they have invested so much time and energy into, it is essential for the child’s healthy development and inner strength as a person who will one day have to move out and move on as a young adult to tackle issues directly throughout their life without the security of knowing that mom and dad’s watchful care is always going to be near.
The goal is for them to know what they believe, and when tested, to pass the test and live out those beliefs in spite of the pressures around them.
► Dangerous truth- over-protective parents slow strength building
Here's why this is such a problem for some loving parents. If you never let a child test their wings by moving a little further away from mom or dad's care, then sometimes they end up developing the symptoms of fear, extreme shyness or a social phobia and end up being afraid of moving forward in life. Not all kids will develop psychological or emotional fears because of overprotective parents, but it can be one of several factors that slows down their personal development and inner strength to move forward toward the next stage of life. Yes, we love our kids, but remember, part of that love is to equip them and prepare them to one day leave the nest to literally launch forward, just like a space shuttle launch sequence at Kennedy Space Center.
Think about all of the years of planning to create a successful launch into space. Literally everything that takes place for the years leading up to a rocket launch date is done to safely and strategically accomplish the goal of getting into space safely. That’s the driving force of NASA engineers- to get that big bird off the ground at Cape Canaveral and into orbit toward the stars.
There is an incredible line of dialogue in the movie, “Astronaut Farmer” (staring Billy Bob Thornton), where the father-in-law tells his wanna-be astronaut son-in-law, “I really respect you son. Most dad’s can’t get their families to share a meal at the table together and you- you’ve got your whole family dreaming together!” The film tells the story of a dad who reflects the power of never giving up on his life-long dream of orbiting the earth, and more importantly shows the courage, patience and teamwork of a whole family coming together to make an impossible dream become an incredible reality.
Space flight can be a lot like parenting- we spend years getting them ready to have a successful launch because one day we know that we will have to do a launch sequence to countdown the days as they head out to another stage of life. This is the way that God designed it- kids are supposed to move out and move on to build lives of their own. If overprotective parents stall that process, it scrubs the launch and leaves the child stranded on the launch pad, while their peers are blasting off toward early success in life. No one wins and it often sets the child up for tremendous problems that could have been solved if the parents had taken a different and more directive approach.
► Blast off- or blow up?
When kids are well equipped to launch into early success during their young adult years they soar and it’s a joy to watch. If you have ever seen a launch up close from Cape Canaveral you know what I mean- words can hardly describe the power and the sheer excitement of knowing that not even gravity can stop that rocket from what it was designed to do- blast off toward the stars! However, when what I’ve been referring to as the parenting ‘launch sequence’ is interrupted by well meaning, (or sometimes fearful) parents they often blow up, because the kids crash in some way. Sadly, these days it seems there are more crashes than successful launches.
So what to do? Here are some parenting tips to coach you to build strong kids now, so they can one day go out and build successful lives as adults. That’s a parent’s job, to give them the roots of belief and then equip them with the wings of healthy resources to fly.
When this process happens, a child grows through each stage of life with a better experience and then grows stronger from the momentum of moving forward in a powerful way because they were set up to win by parents who weren’t afraid to point them toward the stars and launch into the life that God designed for them to live. Millions of other parents have successfully launched their child from birth toward adulthood and you can too.
Know that you are not alone in this process and that it’s not too late to dream about what your son or daughter could be when they launch into a successful life of their own.
Reprint Permission- If this article helped you, you are invited to share it with your own list at work or church, forward it to friends and family or post it on your own site or blog. Just leave it intact and do not alter it in any way. Please include the following paragraph in your reprint.
"Reprinted with permission from the LifeWorks Group weekly eNews, (Copyright, 2004-2008), To receive this valuable weekly resource visit www.LifeWorksGroup.org )
About the Author
Dwight Bain is dedicated to helping people achieve greater results. He is a Nationally Certified Counselor, Certified Life Coach and Certified Family Law Mediator in practice since 1984 with a primary focus on solving crisis events and managing major change. A critical Incident Stress Management expert with the Orange County Sheriffs Office and corporate trainer for over 1,500 business groups on the topic of making strategic change to overcome major stress- both personally & professionally; Dwight is a member of the National Speakers Association who partners with the media, major corporations and non-profit organizations to make a positive difference in our culture. Access more counseling and coaching resources designed to save you time by solving stressful situations by visiting his counseling blog with over 150 complimentary articles and special reports at www.LifeWorksGroup.org
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
7 Strategies to Survive the Holidays
7 Strategies to Survive the Holidays
By Dwight Bain, Nationally Certified Counselor & Certified Life Coach
Have you ever wondered why traditional holidays are so stressful? Instead of being called the ‘most wonderful time of the year,’ it seems that we should rename it to be more accurately called the ‘most difficult time of the year’. I believe you can break the pattern of stressful holidays by realistically changing your perspective to directly deal with predictable daily pressures and then by using strategic coping skills to steer around or even better steer away from the bigger problems that tend to ‘pop up’ this time of year.
Face it. There are as many factors to cause our stress levels to build to an explosive level as there are people on the planet. Everyone has complexities and challenges different from others, yet there are some universal pressures everyone has to address no matter their age, gender or marital status. Stress tends to go up as we age because there are more factors to consider, more people to deal with and more responsibilities. The older you get, the more you are forced to change and deal with issues directly, or get stuck in the habit of repeating the same problems over and over again until you die. Yuck!
Is this bad news for everyone? No, because I believe that God designed you to have a healthy and balanced lifestyle, and that He will always provide you a way to move past daily pressures to live out your real purpose. You control the choices needed to change and improve your life more than you realize. Understanding the pressures, (counseling insight), and then using a strategic approach to achieve greater results, (coaching application), will position you to break out of the unhealthy patterns of the past to have a balanced and better future.Here are the four most common factors that steal joy away from the holidays followed by seven strategic ways to finish the year healthy and strong. Use these insights to move from barely surviving the holidays to really thriving in the New Year as you enjoy the blessings of living out a lifestyle of lasting success.
#1- Loneliness-
Holidays are designed as a time to be with friends and family making positive memories. Not so for the person who wounded by dysfunctional relationships or dealing with rejection from divorce while trying to rebuild their life alone. The continual holiday music, movies and television specials aren’t comforting to people feeling detached, rather they are hurtful because they serve as continual reminders of what’s missing in their life. (Keep in mind that writers and artists tend to create entertainment material that reflects the world as they would like to see it and not as it really is to maintain some level of perspective about the many people who struggle with loneliness during the holidays).
#2- Unfulfilled-
The end of the year is a relief for some and a time of reflection for others. Wisdom says to evaluate your progress this year in light of your overall mission, purpose and core values to see if you are on track for a lifetime. Worldly culture pushes people toward being too busy so that they virtually ignore all of that journaling to live for the moment hoping that everything will just mysteriously work out “happily ever after” like the ending of a Children's story book. Many people get caught up in the busy events of the holidays to avoid having to look at the real issues in their life. Remember, the more you ignore the important and fulfilling things in your life, the more you will try to fill the emptiness with meaningless activities and materialistic stuff. Stuff can never fill the 'black hole' of being unfulfilled without purpose, but the clutter does allow people to have a logical excuse to avoid actually dealing with being responsible to spend your life doing what you were born to do.
#3- Stressed-
Everyone has stress to deal with from the cradle to the grave, its part of life. Learn to view each activity or action as either causing stress, or relieving it for you and the people around you. Now, think about many of the activities and actions that fill up our Franklin Planners from November to January. Things like, waiting in line to buy a gift, then waiting in another line to have that gift wrapped; or sending out hundreds of cards to people at the last minute, who may not even have time to open it and see who it’s from during the midst of their own holiday stress; or sampling a little bit of every type of food at holiday parties and still expecting to not gain weight; or spending an extra thirty hours putting up decorations and still getting enough sleep. Stress is emotional pressure from things feeling out of control, and it’s easy to get out of balance when so many things are being thrown at you this time of the year.
#4- Tired-
If you aren’t already exhausted from trying to squeeze more and more seasonal events and decorations into less and less available time, just wait five minutes and you will be. Everyone has a certain amount of these very limited resources to manage…energy, money and time. While the amounts of each may vary during different stages of life, it’s usually just from a trade of one for another. (Example- If you work more hours, you make more money, but give up more energy to get it. If you are carefree and have all the time in the world, you probably had to give up financial stability to get it. Kids are allowed to sleep late, but they don’t have to make the mortgage payment at the end of the month).
Fatigue isn’t limited only to a loss of physical energy it can overlap into emotional burnout or spiritual emptiness, which then negatively affects our personal and professional relationships as well. The more tired we are, the more we tend to have a negative outlook, experience low morale, feel moody and un-motivated to change.Okay, now that you have seen some of the most common reasons we end up feeling so much stress, let’s move forward to understand and apply a new approach to achieve a greater result in your personal and professional life.
Here are seven strategic and proactive steps you can take to move from feeling holiday stress to experiencing a memorable experience of holiday success for you and those you care about this holiday season.
7 Strategies to Change from Holiday Survival to Holiday Success-
1) Celebrate- laugh, rejoice, giggle, gather, sing and count every blessing as you enjoy all the good things in your life instead of just focusing on the pressures and problems. Then join in with others who are so busy celebrating the wonders of life that they don’t have time to stop and criticize the weaknesses and flaws. Like the old saying my mother used to tell me, ‘two men looked through prison bars- one saw the mud and the other saw the stars.
2) Connect- with people instead of being alone. There are more community activities this time of year than you could ever imagine. Visit special programs through churches, or by asking friends and family what they are doing, or where they are going and see if there is an extra seat on the bus going there. We were designed for relationship instead of isolation, so if you aren’t plugged into a healthy environment of positive people, use this time of year to ‘shop’ all the options available to see where you best fit and then plug in to connect with others who are likeminded to enjoy a stronger connection all year long.
3) Care- about people instead of caring about material things. One of the most memorable things you can do is to come alongside to add value to others in need during the holiday season. You might help a needy family, or ask groups like Hospice, or the Salvation Army, or a woman’s shelter about a person or family that you might be able to help with special gifts of food, encouragement or time. The memories you make will be greater than any gift-card you have ever received.
4) Choose- to be healthy with your intake of food, sugar, caffeine and alcoholic beverages which are more common during the festivities of the holiday season. You can solve a lot of the ‘let down’ feelings that are common this time of year by maintaining your regular schedule and daily routines. Especially make the positive choice to get enough sleep and protect your body from wearing out from exhaustion, or getting weaker from sleep deprivation, which makes you more prone to catching the cold or flu this time of year.
5) Cash- instead of credit is a better way to solve a lot of the after holiday stress of opening up statements full of debts staring you in the face. The impulsive purchases you make in December may take years to pay off, so solve this stressor by sitting down to list our your expectations of the holidays and then factor in how much this is going to cost in real dollars. Working from a planned budget will protect you from the huge temptation to buy more things than you intended from stores overflowing with commercial appeals of great deals. If you can’t afford it, it’s not a gift rather it’s just one more impulsive debt to repay.
6) Contact- Use the holidays as a time to reconnect with the people that you may have lost touch with through the year. Use festive postcards, greeting cards, or our family's favorite, a photo greeting card to see a recent picture of how big the kids have grown! Some people take time to write out detailed letters of what happened during their year, which are great to read. (Remember that the letter should be written as to share blessings and praises to bring hope, not full of prideful bragging to somehow using Christmas as a platform to show how much better your kids are than their peers.) The Internet makes it easier than ever to stay connected with others through emails and e-greetings. Use these tools as a strategic way to stay connected in building a stronger relationship and you may develop a deeper friendship that opens the door to enjoying a new friendship long after this years holiday season is repacked back into storage boxes for next year.
7) Creator- The holiday season is rooted in rich spiritual traditions. The best strategy to overcome holiday stress is to replace it with the deepest level of meaning that a person can experience in their heart and soul and spirit. I challenge you to allow the holidays to draw you to God in a new way so you might experience what choirs of angels sang over a stable thousands of years ago, "peace on earth and good will to men." Developing a personal relationship with the Christ of Christmas will move you from feeling alone in the world, to being part of something bigger than yourself, and something that will live on forever. When you sense God's presence, you can feel His peace and power every day.Look at it this way, experiencing God's presence will be like opening a present every day from someone who loved you so much that He would rather die than live without you.
This is the real reason hundreds of millions of people on this planet will stop everything to bow their heads and quietly pray on Christmas Eve. If you already know the true meaning of Christmas, enjoy the season with your family and friends. If you aren't sure what this all means, I challenge you to let God's love come into your life today so that you never have to feel alone again.Balancing these strategies will speed you on your journey from stress to lasting success which is the best gift you could ever receive because it lasts forever! Once you have mastered these key areas, make sure that you tell others so they can enjoy a better quality of life with you as well.
Reprint Permission- If this article helped you, you are invited to share it with your own list at work or church, forward it to friends and family or post it on your own site or blog. Just leave it intact and do not alter it in any way. Any links must remain in the article. Please include the following paragraph in your reprint.
"Reprinted with permission from the LifeWorks Group weekly eNews, (Copyright, 2004-2008), To receive this valuable weekly resource visit www.LifeWorksGroup.org or call 407-647-7005"
About the author- Dwight Bain is dedicated to helping people achieve greater results. He is a Nationally Certified Counselor, Certified Life Coach and Certified Family Law Mediator in practice since 1984 with a primary focus on solving crisis events and managing major change. He is a member of the National Speakers Association and partners with media, major corporations and non-profit organizations to make a positive difference in our culture. Access more counseling and coaching resources designed to save you time by solving stressful situations by visiting his counseling blog with over 150 complimentary articles and special reports at www.LifeWorksGroup.org
By Dwight Bain, Nationally Certified Counselor & Certified Life Coach
Have you ever wondered why traditional holidays are so stressful? Instead of being called the ‘most wonderful time of the year,’ it seems that we should rename it to be more accurately called the ‘most difficult time of the year’. I believe you can break the pattern of stressful holidays by realistically changing your perspective to directly deal with predictable daily pressures and then by using strategic coping skills to steer around or even better steer away from the bigger problems that tend to ‘pop up’ this time of year.
Face it. There are as many factors to cause our stress levels to build to an explosive level as there are people on the planet. Everyone has complexities and challenges different from others, yet there are some universal pressures everyone has to address no matter their age, gender or marital status. Stress tends to go up as we age because there are more factors to consider, more people to deal with and more responsibilities. The older you get, the more you are forced to change and deal with issues directly, or get stuck in the habit of repeating the same problems over and over again until you die. Yuck!
Is this bad news for everyone? No, because I believe that God designed you to have a healthy and balanced lifestyle, and that He will always provide you a way to move past daily pressures to live out your real purpose. You control the choices needed to change and improve your life more than you realize. Understanding the pressures, (counseling insight), and then using a strategic approach to achieve greater results, (coaching application), will position you to break out of the unhealthy patterns of the past to have a balanced and better future.Here are the four most common factors that steal joy away from the holidays followed by seven strategic ways to finish the year healthy and strong. Use these insights to move from barely surviving the holidays to really thriving in the New Year as you enjoy the blessings of living out a lifestyle of lasting success.
#1- Loneliness-
Holidays are designed as a time to be with friends and family making positive memories. Not so for the person who wounded by dysfunctional relationships or dealing with rejection from divorce while trying to rebuild their life alone. The continual holiday music, movies and television specials aren’t comforting to people feeling detached, rather they are hurtful because they serve as continual reminders of what’s missing in their life. (Keep in mind that writers and artists tend to create entertainment material that reflects the world as they would like to see it and not as it really is to maintain some level of perspective about the many people who struggle with loneliness during the holidays).
#2- Unfulfilled-
The end of the year is a relief for some and a time of reflection for others. Wisdom says to evaluate your progress this year in light of your overall mission, purpose and core values to see if you are on track for a lifetime. Worldly culture pushes people toward being too busy so that they virtually ignore all of that journaling to live for the moment hoping that everything will just mysteriously work out “happily ever after” like the ending of a Children's story book. Many people get caught up in the busy events of the holidays to avoid having to look at the real issues in their life. Remember, the more you ignore the important and fulfilling things in your life, the more you will try to fill the emptiness with meaningless activities and materialistic stuff. Stuff can never fill the 'black hole' of being unfulfilled without purpose, but the clutter does allow people to have a logical excuse to avoid actually dealing with being responsible to spend your life doing what you were born to do.
#3- Stressed-
Everyone has stress to deal with from the cradle to the grave, its part of life. Learn to view each activity or action as either causing stress, or relieving it for you and the people around you. Now, think about many of the activities and actions that fill up our Franklin Planners from November to January. Things like, waiting in line to buy a gift, then waiting in another line to have that gift wrapped; or sending out hundreds of cards to people at the last minute, who may not even have time to open it and see who it’s from during the midst of their own holiday stress; or sampling a little bit of every type of food at holiday parties and still expecting to not gain weight; or spending an extra thirty hours putting up decorations and still getting enough sleep. Stress is emotional pressure from things feeling out of control, and it’s easy to get out of balance when so many things are being thrown at you this time of the year.
#4- Tired-
If you aren’t already exhausted from trying to squeeze more and more seasonal events and decorations into less and less available time, just wait five minutes and you will be. Everyone has a certain amount of these very limited resources to manage…energy, money and time. While the amounts of each may vary during different stages of life, it’s usually just from a trade of one for another. (Example- If you work more hours, you make more money, but give up more energy to get it. If you are carefree and have all the time in the world, you probably had to give up financial stability to get it. Kids are allowed to sleep late, but they don’t have to make the mortgage payment at the end of the month).
Fatigue isn’t limited only to a loss of physical energy it can overlap into emotional burnout or spiritual emptiness, which then negatively affects our personal and professional relationships as well. The more tired we are, the more we tend to have a negative outlook, experience low morale, feel moody and un-motivated to change.Okay, now that you have seen some of the most common reasons we end up feeling so much stress, let’s move forward to understand and apply a new approach to achieve a greater result in your personal and professional life.
Here are seven strategic and proactive steps you can take to move from feeling holiday stress to experiencing a memorable experience of holiday success for you and those you care about this holiday season.
7 Strategies to Change from Holiday Survival to Holiday Success-
1) Celebrate- laugh, rejoice, giggle, gather, sing and count every blessing as you enjoy all the good things in your life instead of just focusing on the pressures and problems. Then join in with others who are so busy celebrating the wonders of life that they don’t have time to stop and criticize the weaknesses and flaws. Like the old saying my mother used to tell me, ‘two men looked through prison bars- one saw the mud and the other saw the stars.
2) Connect- with people instead of being alone. There are more community activities this time of year than you could ever imagine. Visit special programs through churches, or by asking friends and family what they are doing, or where they are going and see if there is an extra seat on the bus going there. We were designed for relationship instead of isolation, so if you aren’t plugged into a healthy environment of positive people, use this time of year to ‘shop’ all the options available to see where you best fit and then plug in to connect with others who are likeminded to enjoy a stronger connection all year long.
3) Care- about people instead of caring about material things. One of the most memorable things you can do is to come alongside to add value to others in need during the holiday season. You might help a needy family, or ask groups like Hospice, or the Salvation Army, or a woman’s shelter about a person or family that you might be able to help with special gifts of food, encouragement or time. The memories you make will be greater than any gift-card you have ever received.
4) Choose- to be healthy with your intake of food, sugar, caffeine and alcoholic beverages which are more common during the festivities of the holiday season. You can solve a lot of the ‘let down’ feelings that are common this time of year by maintaining your regular schedule and daily routines. Especially make the positive choice to get enough sleep and protect your body from wearing out from exhaustion, or getting weaker from sleep deprivation, which makes you more prone to catching the cold or flu this time of year.
5) Cash- instead of credit is a better way to solve a lot of the after holiday stress of opening up statements full of debts staring you in the face. The impulsive purchases you make in December may take years to pay off, so solve this stressor by sitting down to list our your expectations of the holidays and then factor in how much this is going to cost in real dollars. Working from a planned budget will protect you from the huge temptation to buy more things than you intended from stores overflowing with commercial appeals of great deals. If you can’t afford it, it’s not a gift rather it’s just one more impulsive debt to repay.
6) Contact- Use the holidays as a time to reconnect with the people that you may have lost touch with through the year. Use festive postcards, greeting cards, or our family's favorite, a photo greeting card to see a recent picture of how big the kids have grown! Some people take time to write out detailed letters of what happened during their year, which are great to read. (Remember that the letter should be written as to share blessings and praises to bring hope, not full of prideful bragging to somehow using Christmas as a platform to show how much better your kids are than their peers.) The Internet makes it easier than ever to stay connected with others through emails and e-greetings. Use these tools as a strategic way to stay connected in building a stronger relationship and you may develop a deeper friendship that opens the door to enjoying a new friendship long after this years holiday season is repacked back into storage boxes for next year.
7) Creator- The holiday season is rooted in rich spiritual traditions. The best strategy to overcome holiday stress is to replace it with the deepest level of meaning that a person can experience in their heart and soul and spirit. I challenge you to allow the holidays to draw you to God in a new way so you might experience what choirs of angels sang over a stable thousands of years ago, "peace on earth and good will to men." Developing a personal relationship with the Christ of Christmas will move you from feeling alone in the world, to being part of something bigger than yourself, and something that will live on forever. When you sense God's presence, you can feel His peace and power every day.Look at it this way, experiencing God's presence will be like opening a present every day from someone who loved you so much that He would rather die than live without you.
This is the real reason hundreds of millions of people on this planet will stop everything to bow their heads and quietly pray on Christmas Eve. If you already know the true meaning of Christmas, enjoy the season with your family and friends. If you aren't sure what this all means, I challenge you to let God's love come into your life today so that you never have to feel alone again.Balancing these strategies will speed you on your journey from stress to lasting success which is the best gift you could ever receive because it lasts forever! Once you have mastered these key areas, make sure that you tell others so they can enjoy a better quality of life with you as well.
Reprint Permission- If this article helped you, you are invited to share it with your own list at work or church, forward it to friends and family or post it on your own site or blog. Just leave it intact and do not alter it in any way. Any links must remain in the article. Please include the following paragraph in your reprint.
"Reprinted with permission from the LifeWorks Group weekly eNews, (Copyright, 2004-2008), To receive this valuable weekly resource visit www.LifeWorksGroup.org or call 407-647-7005"
About the author- Dwight Bain is dedicated to helping people achieve greater results. He is a Nationally Certified Counselor, Certified Life Coach and Certified Family Law Mediator in practice since 1984 with a primary focus on solving crisis events and managing major change. He is a member of the National Speakers Association and partners with media, major corporations and non-profit organizations to make a positive difference in our culture. Access more counseling and coaching resources designed to save you time by solving stressful situations by visiting his counseling blog with over 150 complimentary articles and special reports at www.LifeWorksGroup.org
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