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Elyssa


In my previous post (http://lyssapathoflife.blogspot.com/2013/04/chapter-3-part-1-are-you-making-your.html), I promised to reveal my personality.

My Personality Priority is “Comforting” and Secondary Personality Priority is “Pleasing”. I am a little surprised by the first one as I like to follow schedule especially when it comes to my kid although I am not rigid about it. Which personalities did you fall into?

In any case, let us look at how we can improve ourselves knowing our personalities.

Superiority
1. Love Unconditionally – make your children feel you love them under no conditions
2. Push away the negativity – keep in mind that even your child is doing something the wrong way, they are still trying
3. Listen instead of lecture
4. Encourage effort
5. Let the children choose – let them make age appropriate decisions
6. Give yourself some slack

Controlling
1. Limit ordering, correcting and directing
2. Quit correcting – don’t insist on everything to go your way
3. Give up control & give choices – Let your children make some decisions throughout the day
4. Relax! – Choose your battles and deal with those of importance first
5. Limit your “no(s)”

Pleasing
1. Learn to say No – whether to your kids or other people. You cannot please everyone and your job as a parent is not trying to
be their best friend
2. Let yourself be loved unconditionally – your kids respect and affection is not based on how much you do for them

Comforting
1. Root for routines – consistently follow routines made up for your children
2. Balance tolerance with toughness – Too much tolerance may cause a kid to be spoiled
3. Allow natural consequences to play out – establish natural consequences where appropriate


And now for TOOLBOX SOLUTION NO.2 ….The CALM Voice

Just as I shared a little earlier on a post by Dr Laura, McCready also promotes on being calm in any situation. Her advice is to always use the “Calm Voice” whenever you can even if you aren’t talking directly with your child

By using your calm voice, your child will eventually learn that they do not have to raise their voice every time things don’t go their way. And with using that calm tone, it is much faster to calm a child in tantrum rather than raising our voice trying to get our message through

Using the calm voice, it will even help you personally to deal with your everyday issue. So, why not try it?


Elyssa
I have to admit that I have a bad temper since young up till I am an adult. It is not easy for me to go through the process of positive parenting. Therefore, these posts from Dr Laura helps remind me that I am not alone. That I am not the only one who finds it hard. I feel that the post below is one of those posts that helps me remind myself on how it would help making the process easier. First, I need to learn how to control my own emotions. This is not a bad thing, because no matter how old you are, being able to control your emotions brings so much more positive outcome rather than negative. It may even help improve my relationship with my spouse :)

http://www.ahaparenting.com/_blog/Parenting_Blog/post/Change_Your_Child/


"I find I’m already 10 steps into reacting and I’ve headed down the “traditional” path with whatever issue is at hand with my kids. When I can remain calm, it certainly helps the situation as opposed to when I get heated up and emotional, which only makes things worse. It makes me sad to know that until now, I have not been a good example of emotional regulation at all. And it's so disheartening to see my kids doing things that I know they saw us do.....throw something, slam a door...."

Sounds familiar, right? Regulating our emotions is at the heart of our ability to parent the way we’d like. In fact, it’s at the heart of most of the ways we trip ourselves up, from over-eating to procrastinating to fighting with our spouse.

As parents, we know it’s our responsibility to provide for our child’s physical needs: food, shelter, protection. What about our responsibility to parent from a state of love? We often hear that good parents love their children unconditionally, but we all know that no parent always feels loving. So we’re left on our own to figure out how we can restore ourselves to a state of love during the inevitable ups and downs of daily parenting.

This task -- regulating our own emotions so that we can offer loving guidance rather than anger to our children -- is fundamental to good parenting. But it's not just good for our kids. This inner work is what allows us to grow into our own full potential.

Is it hard? Yes. I think it's the hardest work any of us will ever do. But it's completely possible. Here's the secret.

When you let yourself experience your emotions, they dissipate. So by simply sitting with your upsets -- breathing and feeling but resisting the urge to act -- you clear out your own feelings of frustration, disconnection and unhappiness. Love rushes in.

What about anger? That's just a defensive reaction to fear, pain and grief. Once you let yourself feel the more vulnerable emotions under your anger, they'll evaporate -- and so will your anger.

You might even say this process transmutes fear, pain and grief into love, because we're creating love where there wasn’t love before. Our hearts get bigger, and we grow as people, as well as parents.

Does that mean we don't address what's bothering us about our child? No. In fact, we become more effective in creating the life we want, which is always a life of more happiness, joy, and loving connection with our child.

That isn't just a fancy way of saying that we become willing to tolerate something that we may have yelled about before, although that may be true. For instance, we may realize that it's okay for our child to feel angry, and stop reprimanding him for that, even as we teach respectful interaction. Or we may realize that her jacket on the floor isn't nearly as important as how she treats her sister. Or we may begin to see our child's strong will as a positive trait, and find better ways to partner with her. None of these positive responses is possible if we don't start by managing our own emotions.

But what if our child is stuck in a counter-productive pattern and really does need to change? Our own emotional self-regulation is also the key to helping him.

Here's why:

1. Children learn emotional regulation from us. If we go into "fight or flight" so will they. If we can stay calm, they learn that it's not an emergency, and they calm down.

2. The emotional safety we create for our children is exactly what allows them to heal, grow and thrive. Like us, children WANT to feel happy and connected, but sometimes their fear or anger gets the best of them. Our calm gives them a path back to loving connection.

3. When we provide a calm "holding environment" for our children, they feel safe enough to experience their emotions, which is what allows those big feelings to evaporate. Kids learn that feelings are just part of being human, and we don't have to fear them OR act on them.

4. Children are sensitive barometers of our moods and tensions. If we have an unresolved issue, we can count on them to subconsciously pick up on it and act out. So very often, when we work on our own issues, we find that our child's behavior changes.

5. When we show up differently, so does our child. Remember, it's always your child's action + your reaction that produces the outcome.

The good news is, even if our children have learned some counter-productive habits, it's never too late for them to learn to manage themselves emotionally. The key is our role-modeling.
Learning to regulate our emotions is a lifelong journey. For today, just notice your own moods and feelings. Breathe through them, but don't act until you're calm. Every time you do this, you're actually rewiring your brain...and creating changes in your future behavior.
I guarantee you'll see your child change, too.

May you make miracles today, large and small.
Blessings,
Dr. Laura
Elyssa
Before I was a mother, being sick was no big deal. Just need to take my medical leave and rest as much as I can at home, not bothering about the outside world and that includes my husband because he is an adult who is well capable of taking care of himself....and me :P. Sometimes, I am actualy glad I am sick so I can get a break from work and just sleep and watch TV for the whole day.

But now that I am mother, I dread being sick especially when my child is also sick at the same time. I can't even care much for myself, how do I care for my child? Then you might say, how about your hubby? What if my hubby was also sick at the same time??? Yikes!!!!

All I can say is, being a sick parent with a sick child is a disaster
Elyssa
With the GE13 over, everyone is still speculating on what went on. Was there or wasn’t there a blackout in Bentong? Was there or wasn’t there “magical” ballot boxes appearing at the last minute? Apparently, there was no blackout as confirmed by an opposition supporter who was there at that time. If this was really made up, I am really ashamed about it as it means the opposition supporters this time stood at the same level as BN who is well known for their dirty tricks. Do we really want to be at that level? As for the believers to the “story” on what happened, which included me, can you really blame us? We have been living in a country lead by a government who lied to us for so many years. Corruption, money laundering, cover up deaths, accusation, etc have made us one angry bunch of Rakyat. Hence, whatever stories that was made up about them, we would have believed it. As of now, I do not even know what is real and not.

Looking at all the movements like Bersih being held and the support of the Rakyat for a clean country with a fair democracy, it was never about racism. All race stood together to fight for this. I do admit, as a Chinese Malaysian, I did utter words like, the Malays have it all etc. And I know personally some Malay friends who are afraid that we Chinese will take over everything. But for the past 2 years, I have never felt more Malaysian than I did before as the mindset has slowly changed especially in the younger generation. Although the older generation still have the same thinking, but the younger generation are now more open minded. The Malays in the younger generation are actually fighting for equality as much as what we the Chinese wanted. And with this, slowly, everyone’s eyes are opened and realized the culprit to such feeling before is due to how we were “raised” by our government. This was when we join hands and start fighting for our rights as the Rakyat of Malaysia

The elections were never about siding the opposition or the government. The core reason is for us to get what we deserve. We do not know for sure IF the opposition wins, that we will have a brighter future. But we do know we need a change. Not a change on the party who rules us, but a change on our system who does not side us. Hopefully (*praying real hard*) that the extra wins by the opposition for the GE12 & 13 will put our government in an alert mode and start changing according to what the Rakyat deserves. In the meantime, let us continue to fight for a clean government.

As for me, I am ashamed to say I only stood by the sideline this time around as I am not even a registered voter. My first step to change is to register myself as my children deserve a better future.
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