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Raising Happy and Confidant Children Informative. Empowering. Practical. The FOURTH "R" of EDUCATION: RELATIONSHIPS - Learning the Skills
Successful relationships and parenting doesn't happen by accident. Decades of experience and research has shown that healthy, lasting relationships are most commonly built through emotional intelligence, EQ. Unlike IQ, emotional intelligence can be learned and by practicing this work both parents and children increase their emotional intelligence. Help children develop the Five R’s of Successful Living: Resourcefulness (problem solving and creativity)
Learn to guide children’s behaviour and help them reach their fullest potential.
Children learn by modelling - by watching how their parents regulate their emotions. Learn how your childhood experience effects your parenting and how to change this.
Compassionate Parenting is guaranteed to: • Increase cooperation, self-esteem, and self-discipline in children and parents• Reduce anger, resentment, and hostility in children and parents. • Deepen emotional connections between parents and children.
Think Motivation More than Consequences Motivation happens before behaviour Emphasis is on before-the-fact emotional motivation of behaviour, rather than after-the-fact consequences. Consequences are after the fact, either too little or too much, but always too late.
Implement discipline with positive parental motivation to protect, nurture, guide, encourage, influence, set limits, & co-operate. Most adults attempt to change children’s behaviour in avoid or attack motivations which produces guilt, shame, or fear. These inhibit learning, lower self-esteem, cause resentment and aggression, and tend to make children selfish and sneaky.
Learn how to guide our children to be motivated by their core values, interest and compassion, not fear and temporary submission. Empower children to come up with solutions that work for them and you. Instill optimism "It's easier to build strong children than to repair broken men." - Frederick Douglass _________________________________________ Our PARENTING WORK is inspired by: Giving The Love That Heals: A Guide For Parents by Drs. Harville Hendrix & Helen LaKelly Hunt; www.gettingtheloveyouwant.com or www.harvillehendrix.com The Compassionate Parenting work of Dr Steven Stosny; www.compassionpower.com InnerBonding work of Dr Margaret Paul www.innerbonding.com and The Nurtured Heart Approach by Howard Glasser www.difficultchild.com _________________________________________ WHO SHOULD ATTEND…
For the General Public and Professionals Come with your partner, friends or on your own THIS WORKSHOP WILL BENEFIT YOU BY…
CONSCIOUS MARRIAGES MAKE HAPPY FAMILIES Research shows that the greatest gift you can give children is for parents to love each other and to express this openly. _________________________________________ UPCOMING BORN TO ♥LOVE PARENTING WORKSHOP RAISING HAPPY & CONFIDENT KIDS Presented by Susie Itzstein, Shelton Huettig & Catriona Lightfoot Plus OPTION of 6 weeks FOLLOW-ON SESSIONS "THE HEART OF PARENTING" Facilitated by Catriona Lightfoot of Connection101 DATE & TIME: 28 - 29th JULY | 9am - 6pm VENUE: Econo Lodge, City Star Brisbane, 650 Main Street, Kangaroo Point QLD 4169 REGISTER: http://www.imagomatters.org/schedule.php EARLY BIRD SPECIAL by JUNE 30 __________________________ _______________
with Catriona Lightfoot: ATTENDEES’ FEEDBACK... “A great workshop which really opened my eyes to see what I could be doing for my children and didn’t know about before the course... Goes a lot deeper than anything I’ve done before....I loved everything & learned I have to shift my issues to help my children.” Andrea, WA “The workshop combines powerful dialogues and most recent theories on child rearing and taught me to pause and reflect on what is going on in me when I get reactive with my children. Instead of jumping straight into problem solving mode and ‘Mum knows best’ I now see our conflict as an opportunity for healing, creating connections and moving into curiosity, love and respect for my children’s decisions, preferences and thinking. Go for your life and enrol!!” Ranka Joyce, Parent Effectiveness Training Facilitator, Perth, WA “Incredibly powerful! Although the workshop felt like a big time commitment it flew by. Informative sessions and practical demos really helped me absorb it all. I left feeling very enlightened and motivated to practice it with my 4 children, aged 2 to 15yrs. Your dedication to improving family relationships is awesome.” Pip Wynn Owen, WA “As a mother of 4 boys and as a Therapist, I craved to know what makes a healthy family. Imago teaches openness & understanding between parents & THEN parents and children, not one at the expense of the other giving a deep understanding of what matters in families. The workshop teaches the value of creating conscious dialogue with children and the value of open parents willing to build their relationship out of care for their children. Incredibly valuable.” Leah O’Brien, Relationship Counsellor/Coach, Perth WA
_______________________________ ARTICLE OF THE MONTH BORN TO ♥LOVE - MOTHERS MATTER Raising Happy and Confident Kids is one of the most important jobs you do – It lasts a lifetime! The focus and tip for this month is if you want your children (and parenting) to change you have to do something different – and this is true for ALL your relationships. I know it’s stating the obvious but doing the same thing over and over and expecting something different to happen does not work! To get something different you have to do something different and usually we need to be taught how. Some parents tell us it sometimes feels like parents and children are from different planets and speak a different language. Like they’re lost in a strange country with no map book and no interpreter or guide, or these days no GPS! "Successful families don't just happen. It takes every bit of combined energy, talent, desire, vision and determination you can muster." says Stephen Covey in the Seven Habits Of Highly Effective Families. Learning concrete skills and practical strategies is something every parent needs. The experiences we give our children will stay with them forever.
Do you remember the first time you held your baby and the deep amount of love you felt? …..The promises you made to yourself that you would do whatever it took to be the best parent you could.....And yet,…… children don’t come with instruction books! Are you at a stage where your children don’t listen to you? What about your listening and the way you talk? Are you kind and gentle and respecting, valuing and validating? Have you paid attention to these? Do you have good communication skills? Are you getting curious? What do you do or say in reaction to your children? What sets you off? There is gold in your reactions. Study your responses. Do you see a pattern? Your children can trigger your greatest nightmare or they can be your greatest teachers – your choice. All parents have times when they find themselves doing or saying things to their children that are against their better judgement. “I don’t want to yell at my children, they just push my buttons and I get so mad I can’t seem to stop myself.” For parenting programs to be fully successful they need to include helping you to understand your emotional responses to your children and how your childhood experiences affect your parenting and how to change this if what you are doing isn’t working. And by working I mean that both you and your child are happy. From earliest childhood, our brains are actually formed and wired according to what is repeated in environments around us. Childhood conditioning automatically and invisibly directs our life. It is important to identify what is your unconscious childhood template of a loving parent-to-child relationship.
Let’s look at parenting from a different angle. What about your relationship with your mother? This seems especially relevant with us celebrating Mother’s Day this month. I find that in workshops where people explore their relationships with significant people in their early life the most re-occurring and common theme people share is about estrangement and separation and alienation between them and their mothers. Many share of deep pain and disconnection. There are so many aching, broken hearts and a longing for loving, and yet this longing is often covered up by many different false beliefs people have about themselves.
False beliefs and negative self talk such as: - I’m not lovable, I’m the problem; it doesn’t matter what I do it will never be good enough; I can’t rely on anybody; it’s all my fault; I’m a joke; I’m stupid; I don’t deserve......; I’m to blame; I don’t fit in; I don’t belong; there’s basically something wrong with me; others will always let you down; I’m inadequate, inferior, defective; I don’t have a right to exist; you can’t trust anyone …....and so on......and on.....
So I think again about babies and little children and instantly am reminded of how precious and almost unbelievably beautiful these little beings are. How remarkable, how unique, how amazing!! Children aren’t born thinking such things about themselves. Children are born ready to love and to receive love. I am regularly touched by the love and cherishment I see parents have for their children, especially babies and young ones. So what happens as they grow up, as we grew up? Where does the preciousness go, the sense of cherishment, the marvelling at their/our perfection….Where does that fierce sense of protection and caring and looking after go? The loving and being lovable and loved………Why does the criticising start, the judgements,….the complaining….?
I am asking lots of questions. There are answers. A good parenting course will help you with the answers. Imagine being filled with much joy and gratefulness when thinking of the great privilege you have by the children that are in your life at whatever age they are. And turn it around and feel grateful for the extraordinary and magnificent human being your mother is. Imagine how different the world would be if it was the norm for everyone to learn how to be a parent and how to be a good partner. How absurd it is that we don’t prioritize and actually make it compulsory education for everyone to learn information, TOOLS and skills to navigate these two most important journeys - the foundation of everything else in our society. All life is about being in relationship - be it with ourself, partners, children, family, friends, work colleagues, neighbours.... We need skills and we need to learn them and to regularly update our learning. Falling in love with our new babies is easy...........staying loving is another matter.... we all need to learn how.
I send wishes for the Happiest Mother’s Day this month to all our mothers who we all at some time or another thought was the best Mum in the whole wide world…….how long is it since you told them you love them?….. And also our gratefulness to all mothers who truly are committed to being the best possible mother you can be. Being a parent is one of the most important jobs you do. It lasts a lifetime! A WORLD OF LOVED AND WANTED CHILDREN WOULD MAKE A WORLD OF DIFFERENCE "Children who don't listen have parents who don't listen" Steven Stosny
Click here for more information about our workshops Shelton Huettig, M.A., Marriage and Family Therapist Susie Itzstein, B.A., Psychotherapist/Educator
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