I am so passionate about parenting, kids and helping families live the life they imagine that I sometimes get super excited even in a one-to-one meeting that my natural coaching hat comes out. Yesterday I had the privilege of having a one-to-one with wonderful business owner who is a wife and mother of two and after offering some advice here is the wonderful email I received from her that read:
“You really have me thinking about so many things.
– Setting my own personal goals
– re-addressing our family mission statement
– re-instituting a family discussion once a week
– Opening up discussion with my daughter about everything 🙂
– Opening up discussion with daughter about goal setting
Wow…Must be pretty rewarding to help someone so much with just one meeting :). Mind blowing! I’m sure you work miracles in an actual session”.
I wrote an article for a regional magazine in middle America several months ago about parenting in a digital age and after working with more parents I am still amazed when I see the baby sitting devices out in full force. Handing a kid, a device and worse, allowing them to go on social media, untether and unsupervised is akin to giving your kid your car keys and saying go for it. Why parents don’t understand that by giving their kids open access on social media they are giving them access to every piece of information in the universe and then we say don’t mess it up, handle it appropriately, make the right choices. WHAT?
Where are the rules around these sites and how they should use them? Parents have to create very clear rules and defined boundaries while being intimately involved and acutely aware to keep kids safe. Most parents I see thing its cute if their toddler is navigating an electronic device, and they are detached if their teen or pre-teen is on social media. Parents need to monitor and talk with their kids about what they are doing, when they are doing it and how much time they are spending doing it. Our kids deserve better!
What’s missing from most families is “Family Time”. “Family Time” is probably the most important time of the day for families to connect and reinforce bonds. Regardless of what time of the day it occurs, its’ the most important piece to ensuring that families stay connected. This is key. When you don’t maintain consistent “family time,” it’s much more difficult to keep strong connections and clear communication with loved ones.
The preservation of “family time” is an invaluable resource. It can help you overcome gaps that have been passed on from generation to generation. By talking about one’s history and knowing where one comes from, an individual can gain an understanding of something much bigger than oneself and one current individual family unit.