Every parent wants to prepare their kids for the challenges of the real world, but shielding children from struggles can unintentionally limit their growth. Resilience, independence, and financial literacy are crucial life skills often overlooked in modern parenting. Lee Benson, a seasoned entrepreneur and author of the Value Creation Kid framework, has developed a proven…
As parents, we’ve all been there—stuck in a cycle of reacting to our kids’ bad behavior. We correct, scold, and sometimes punish out of sheer exhaustion. It’s what many of us experienced growing up. My mom, for instance, had a wooden spoon handy for discipline! And while reward systems might seem like a better solution,…
Parenting can feel like an endless cycle of triggers, reactions, and meltdowns. Your child screams or hits, and before you know it, you’re raising your voice or sounding just like your own mom or dad. It’s exhausting, and it often feels like nothing works. But there’s a way to break the cycle. It starts…
As the holiday season begins, Thanksgiving provides a perfect moment to reflect on what truly matters: the people in our lives and the unique qualities they bring to the table. This year, instead of focusing only on gratitude in general terms, why not take a deeper look at the strengths and gifts of those you…
Overcome Holiday Overwhelm. Intentional Focus for Every Enneagram Type Intentional focus on our common unconscious trap allows us to reframe the negative into a positive. I love Christmas songs because they carry a sense of hope, nostalgia, and anticipation. Songs have a unique way of grounding us, helping us to overcome the overwhelm and reminding…
The Enneagram goes far beyond its nine basic types. While most people identify with types like "The Helper" or "The Achiever," some may not fully resonate because of the unique role instincts play in shaping their type. In this episode, we focus on the social instinct, which fuels our drive to connect, belong, and be…
Have you been in a dry, hard patch in the past several months? Do you feel like a grape being crushed underneath stomping feet? And do those feet belong to your kiddos? Do you feel like you are dying on the vine? Well guess what? I just learned something on my recent trip to Napa…
"Good parenting needs to be learned and practiced since much of parenting is counterintuitive. The natural thing to do is often the wrong thing to do so we need to learn new skills and practice them until they start to feel natural". Here are some examples: Too many reprimands Trying too hard to be a…
I recently spoke with a parent whose marriage is in a deep pit. I felt compelled to share my deep pit story and how prayers, soul searching, and a powerful, identity-revealing personality tool helped me crawl out. At the 21-year point, my marriage had withstood many twists and turns. However, when my husband and I…
"I don't know any parent who says, 'Yeah, I really want my kids to grow up feeling manipulated by tech designers — manipulating their attention, making it impossible to do their homework, comparing themselves to unrealistic standards of beauty," -Tristan Harris, former design ethicist at Google and the co-founder Center for Humane Technology ‘The Social…
Teach them according to their temperament My little West Highland White Terrier, Milo has a BIG personality. When he first came home, I was planning to train him like I did my other terriers. However, this white fuzzy fur ball had his own unique personality that did not respond to the techniques I had previously…
Quarantined Tips for the Temperaments We are living in unprecedented times! I am amazed every day as I read neighborhood chats and social media posts by the wide variety of reactions people are having to everything regarding COVID 19. "I am absolutely loving having my family around me, keeping them safe and providing for them."…
Almost every day when it came time for 9-year-old Lucy to do her chores, there was a fight between she and her older brother. Even though her parents had set up a system where she did the dishes on even days, and her brother did them on odd days, she would complain about the injustice…
As a parenting coach and former teacher, I know that parent/teacher conferences can strike anxiety into the heart of a parent. For this very reason, I used to make phone calls to parents just to tell them how well their child was doing in my class. When the parent answered and heard it was little…
I remember being a young mom with two toddlers under the age of two in diapers. My days consisted of chasing them around the house repeating the words “no” and “be careful” over and over just to survive. My kids are teenagers now, but I was still interested to read about a UCLA study which…
Now that my kids are 15 and 17, I can't exactly enroll them in vacation bible school or cooking camp like I used to! They work jobs, but they are usually home during the day and gone in the evening. This was a fun project we all enjoyed because we got an old patio set off…
All year, my seventeen-year-old son Nathan juggled homework with band practice, film and music competitions, his part-time job at Chick Fil A and playing chauffeur for his younger sister. The first day of summer after he brought home that final report card with a 4.2 GPA, it wasn’t the right time to have the “what…
Are Screens Making us Blind? If you cross your eyes for too long, they will not get stuck that way and staring at screens will not make you blind, but it may have a very adverse effect. A recent study from the Journal of Experimental Eye Research showed that children under the age of…
Are Screens Making us Blind? If you cross your eyes for too long, they will not get stuck that way and staring at screens will not make you blind, but it may have a very adverse effect. A recent study from the Journal of Experimental Eye Research showed that children under the age of…
Why Kids Lie and How to Handle It. We’ve all experienced it. That moment when our innocent and obedient child looks us square in the eye and lies to us for the first time. I remember it well. I was snuggled next to my twelve-year-old daughter, Jordan, watching Frozen for the fifty seventh time. Suddenly,…