Christmas for the little ones just isn’t complete without Santa Claus. This big, old man with the white long beard is pretty much THE symbol of Christmas for kids. Well, that and the presents under the tree, right?

I’ve noticed that a lot of children line up with their parents to sit on Santa’s lap, only to end up crying when they’re face to face with the big man. A bit of this is the parent’s fault. Imagine how scary it is to suddenly sit on a stranger’s lap and hear a loud “Ho! Ho! Ho!”

I saw this article on Yahoo! Shine and thought it would be helpful.

According to Ryan Johnson, there are three ways to introduce toddlers to Santa Claus: books, movies and TV and Dolls and figurines. Here’s an excerpt from Johnson’s article.

Books

As with everything else, there are countless books out there for kids at Christmas. We started reading them last week, and she’s already totally into them. They’re what she goes for now when it’s time to read, and she loves the reindeer, elves, and Christmas trees. There’s one in particular, Christmastime is Here with the LittlePeople, that has a huge photo of Santa on the front, and contains pages and pages of flaps to lift. When she picks up that book, she yells out “Ho Ho Ho!,” knowing that’s Santa’s mantra. She’s able to pick him out on every page, and she gives a big smile when she sees him. However, a one-dimensional picture of Santa that doesn’t make any noise in a book is quite different than the real thing, so we also turn to…

Movies and TV

Like many children out there, my daughter is quite taken with the Sesame Street gang. She’s particularly fond of Elmo and loves to see him on TV. My husband and I both have SesameStreet.org programmed into our favorites on our computers, so we can quickly pull up a short video to give her a quick fix every once in a while. You can find just about any video you’re looking for, whether you’re searching by character or by topic. Learning to count? No problem. Potty training? The Muppets of Sesame Street can help. So, after a quick search, I found a cute little video of Elmo visiting Santa Claus up at the North Pole. Not only is Elmo excited to see Santa, but it goes into the spirit of Christmas and there’s a song to boot. But again, seeing Santa on TV isn’t quite the same thing as when he’s right in front of you, so we’ve also brought out some…

Dolls and Figurines

Unfortunately, the dolls we have around our house have given me an inkling as to what we’re in for when we go see Santa. Last night, we put her to bed and hauled out all of the decorations. We thought it would be fun to get it all done while she was asleep, and then have her walk through the house with everything glowing this morning when she woke up. And it was fun! She loved it and continued through every room with a look of wonder on her face. Until, that is, she spotted the two Santa dolls we have with our respective school logos on their sweaters. These Santas are probably 12 inches tall and are too cute. She took one look at them, furrowed her little brow, and took off running as fast as her little legs would carry her. My hope is that she’ll get used to them the more she sees them. Only time will tell. In the meantime, wish us luck with our visit to Santa. And if we do have the all-too-common photo of a screaming toddler and an exasperated Santa, at least we’ll have a great story to tell for years to come that will embarrass her to no end.

Now, don’t stop at the three suggestions Ryan gave here. These may or may not work on your child, so trying other things will definitely help. If you have already successfully introduced Santa Claus to your child, how did you do it? I’m sure other parents would like to know.

You have to remember to respect your child. If you wait in the mall lineup for 45 minutes only to have your child completely refuse to sit on Santa’s lap – that’s his or her choice. You can’t force him to do it. In fact I suggest prepping your child ahead of time. Ask him if he wants to sit on Santa’s lap. If he says no, don’t push the issue. It may only be Santa, but do you really want your child growing up thinking that he has to go sit on a stranger’s lap when you tell him to?

Have you ever heard the expression “helicopter parent”? I’m sure many of you have. But in case you haven’t heard the phrase, it was coined in a book called Parenting with Love and Logic by Foster. W. Cline M.D. and Jim Fay, back in 1990.

Helicopter parents are parents who hover continuously around their kids, whether the parent’s help is needed or not. I see this all the time at our local school playground. Most of the time parents don’t even realize they are doing it.

I hear helicopter parents saying things like, “Erin, don’t touch that. Your hands will get dirty. Erin, watch out for the boys playing ball. You don’t want to get in their way.” They usually say something at least every 20 seconds. They are almost never outside of arm’s reach of the child.

With a young toddler who is just learning to walk, this makes sense. You can’t have 18-month old Matthew wandering in front of the swings only to get kicked to the ground by some other innocent child. But when your child is not in harm’s way, it’s time to relax and let your child learn on his own.

Kids learn through social interaction. If we hover over them and keep trying to help them through every little difficulty in life, we are robbing them of their chance to learn. By the way, this goes for non-social situations also. Things like getting dressed, putting on shoes, pouring the milk in the cereal bowl … parents should encourage their children to learn these skills on their own. Learning is a gift, and nobody likes to have their presents stolen, right?

But that’s not why I wrote this article. I really wrote it to talk about Ostrich Parents. I came up with this phrase while I was at the park with my kids because I asked myself, “What’s the opposite of a helicopter?”

In the context of parenting, my answer is an ostrich.

Ostrich parents have their heads buried in the sand. And by “sand”, I really mean buried in their iPhone, BlackBerry, phone conversation, newspaper article, or whatever. The point is that ostrich parents don’t pay much attention to their kids.

I think ostrich parenting is equally problematic because it robs the child of the opportunity to be coached and encouraged by his parent(s).

Your biggest job as a parent is to coach your child. In fact, I’ll go further and say that every major adult relationship a child has should be about coaching. Teachers, sports teams, nannies, uncles and aunts, grandparents, etc.

My kids have wonderful teachers at school. Those teachers expect the kids to do their own work, and to make their own mistakes which they can learn from. But those teachers are not ostriches. They don’t have their head stuck in the sand. They are paying attention to the kids and giving them the gentle advice and help that is required to foster learning and development.

Parents need to do the same thing. If you find yourself too distracted from the job of parenting, then you’re just an adult who happens to be in the same room as your child, interrupting to drop a snack in front of them, or to change the DVD, or wipe their bum. That’s ostrich parenting.

My father was an engineer. He taught me to think in terms of extremes. Helicopter parenting is one extreme. Ostrich parenting is the other extreme. If neither extreme seems like a good idea, then the right answer lies somewhere in the middle of the two extremes.

In this case, I think the “coaching parent” is that middle point. Good coaches encourage, teach, support, and help out. But they also allow kids to have enough freedom to make mistakes and learn on their own. They also challenge kids to go beyond their comfort zones.

Be a coach parent.

Enjoy your children,
Chris Thompson

Do you swear in front of your children? Did you start off knowing you shouldn’t, but somehow things started to slip through the cracks and now it has become a habit? Have your kids picked up on the habit? If so, what do you do about it?

That’s the subject of an article I just published.

Please read:
Putting a Lid on it: Two Quick Tips to Get Your Kids to Stop Swearing

Parents should care about what they feed their kids. But they also want something that is easy to prepare. Breakfast is an important part of the day. Most parents feed their children too much junk food including processed flour and sugar. Here is a way to avoid that.

The name of the meal is “Muesli” and it’s made from yogurt and oats, mostly. It’s so simple to make, but tastes incredible. Feel free to change this recipe any number of ways to suit your family.

To get the best possible result, I suggest making it the night before. That way everything soaks together in the fridge. The recipe I’m giving you is for one portion, so just scale it up to make more portions. You’ll probably want to eat this too!

Start by adding 1/3 cup of oats into a bowl. Rolled oats don’t cost very much, but they are really healthy for you. Unlike many flours, they are not processed.

Now add about 1/3 cup of natural yogurt. Use plain (unsweetened) yogurt because flavored yogurt always has sugar in it. We want to avoid sugar. I prefer organic yogurt. It doesn’t cost that much more.

Now add in one tablespoon of natural honey. You can always use maple syrup if you prefer. Both of these sweeteners are totally natural and are much better than table sugar or brown sugar. Stay away from those alternatives.

Then pile in the fruit. I always like to choose fresh blueberries and finely chopped apple. If you are able to use organic fruit, all the better. Otherwise make sure to wash it well because most fruit is treated with pesticides. I like to use about 2/3 of a cup of fruit in total.

The next ingredient is Cinnamon. You decide on the quantity, but one teaspoon is a good starting point. I like to use a lot of it for the flavor. Cinnamon is known to help your body control blood sugar levels. This is important in a society of obesity and, increasingly, diabetes. Cinnamon is helpful and tasty.

Finally, before you put the whole thing in your fridge for the night, add some milk. About 1/3 of a cup is probably the right amount, but you decide based on the consistency you want to achieve. If you can use organic milk, I recommend you do.

Think of all the ways you can modify this recipe! What about adding pumpkin seeds, or unsweetened coconut slices? Maybe some finely ground flax seed? You can buy flax seeds in bulk and grind them up in a cheap coffee grinder.

Feeding your kids a healthy diet is important. Recipes like this can help you set a good example for them.

I don’t normally publish recipes on my blog. If you’re new here you might also be interested in checking out my Talking to Toddlers audio course. This course helps parents overcome the stress of dealing with difficult toddlers.

When I was younger, I used to work as a lifeguard and swimming instructor. It was a great job for me because I loved working with kids all of my life, and I was great at teaching them to swim.

Lots of parents wonder how to get their kids to transition from a crib to a toddler bed. It usually happens around the age of two, but sometimes a bit later.

I’m going to provide a series of tips to help you get your toddler adjusted to a bed rather than a crib. But before I do, let’s talk about why your toddler might resist this transition. It’s pretty simple. People tend to resist change. Once we are comfortable with something the way it is, we don’t like to change it. Toddler behavior tends to align with this basic rule of life.

Change will be accepted by a person when:

1. The new action / behavior is clearly superior;
2. The old behavior / action is unavailable and the new one is the best available option;
3. Change is forced upon them until it becomes a new habit.

Obviously option #1 is the best approach to use with children because it creates no disruption. It’s like offering a child a chocolate cookie for dessert instead of a stick of celery. They will go for it instantly with no hesitation. To get a toddler into a toddler bed, your goal should be to associate lots of positive attributes to the bed.

In the case of switching to a toddler bed, Options 2 and 3 on the above list are essentially the same. You are taking away choice (i.e. you are taking away the crib) and the next best solution is the toddler bed. Specifically, you are taking away the crib without getting agreement from your child. This can cause your child to be upset, but eventually he or she will get over it and the toddler bed becomes a new pattern.

So how can parents get toddlers to willingly switch to a toddler bed? Here are a bunch of ideas for you to try out:

• Go shopping with your toddler. If you can get him to pick out his own bed, chances are that he will pick something he likes (people rarely pick stuff that they hate, right?). This will immediately boost your chances of getting your toddler to actually enjoy sleeping in the toddler bed.
• Setup the toddler bed in your child’s room. Leave it there for a week or more before you take away the crib. If space is an issue, maybe this isn’t something you can do, but if you put the bed there, the child will start to see it as normal. Just introduce it as another piece of furniture and perhaps don’t even mention that you’ll be taking the crib away. If you get huge resistance and are unable to get your child to willingly change to the new bed, you may just have to remove the crib by surprise.
• Play quiet games on the new bed with your toddler. Those toddler wooden puzzles and shape matching games are great things to do on the new bed together. Read books together. Snuggle together and tickle your toddler into laughter. This will ‘anchor’ positive feelings to the new bed very quickly. Anchoring is something I teach in my Talking to Toddlers Audio Course, which all parents should consider for dealing with difficult toddlers.
• Actually tell your toddler that they have a choice as to where they will sleep at night (or at nap time). Then make the bed appealing by offering a “big boy/girl pillow” for when they are in the new bed. Or simply create a reward scenario where the toddler gets stickers for having a nap in the new bed. At this point it should be offered as a choice, not a forced issue. You want to get your toddler to decide, on his or her own, to sleep in this new bed.

If these tricks still don’t work, then you have to resort to taking away the option of a crib altogether. But remember – you don’t need to rush this! You might bring on a screaming fit if your child suddenly finds his crib gone, and a toddler bed in its place. That’s why I think introducing the bed by the crib side makes for an easier transition.

When and if you have to take away the crib, I highly recommend the “it’s broken” excuse. With our first daughter, we were not only moving her into a big girl bed, but also into a new bedroom! We told her the crib was broken. We took the mattress out and put it on the floor of her new room beside her new bed. We let her choose where to sleep. She picked the mattress on the floor, but was curious about the new bed. We let her play on the new bed and lie down on it if she felt like it. We read books together on the new bed. Whenever she asked about her crib we told her it was broken. No arguments.

Within 2 weeks she was sleeping in her new bed. The clincher was this: we took her to the pet store and showed her all of the fish. We bought a small aquarium kit with some pretty (but cheap) tropical fish. We placed the aquarium on her dresser, which could only be seen if she lied in her new bed, not from the mattress on the floor. We cuddled on the new bed at night with the aquarium light on. She loved watching the fish as she fell asleep. It worked perfectly.

If you want to be able to understand how to solve these kinds of problems, check out the Talking To Toddlers Audio Course.

Enjoy your children,
Chris Thompson

If you have a toddler in your house, then I’m sure you are familiar with the terrible twos. This is my first blog entry in what I expect to become a busy blog with loads of postings and user comments. So I thought it would be great to get the ball rolling by posting something that will help parents, and by giving a perspective not often found in the parenting community.

I have two beautiful daughters, but I would be lying if I said they were perfect little angels all the time. Of course they aren’t! We have nicknames for our girls. The oldest is “Monkey”. This was given to her when she learned to crawl in the early years. The youngest is “Kit Kat”, which was invented by my wife’s loving Aunt. It just stuck instantly!

Monkey and Kit Kat do their fare share of things that make us want to leave them with a babysitter for a few days! Most of the time my kids are quite well behaved, but they are normal – they get mad, they fight, they scream, and they throw the occasional tantrum. But it never lasts long and we always have a massive bag full of tricks to deal with these situations. The result is far less stress for my wife and I. We just roll with the punches. My 15 years of experience in NLP and Ericksonian Hypnosis certainly helps, but the strategies I use to deal with toddlers can be learned by anyone very quickly.

What I want to focus on in this blog post is the need to start with yourself before you worry about your child’s behavior. How you behave on the outside is critical because your child will model you. If you scream and yell at your child then your child will scream and yell back at you. Even worse, your child will learn that this is actually something they should do when mad. Believe me, this is NOT what you want your kids to learn!

Now let’s say that you don’t scream at your kids when they misbehave, but you get really mad on the inside, yet you manage to control yourself. This is better, but kids (and all humans/animals) will pick up on your non-verbal signals. The vast majority of communication is non-verbal!

The redness in your face, the heavier breathing, the tension in your muscles and the pace of your speech will serve as non-verbal cues to your child that he or she is succeeding in pushing your buttons.

In another post I will talk about how to actually deal with your children when they misbehave. But for now what I want to get through to you is the concept of relaxation. If you are relaxed and comfortable, your non-verbal communication to your child will be far more effective.

Your inner psychology is directly connected to your outward physiology. Because of this, it is very easy to change your psychology by adjusting your physiology. This direct link is extremely useful to you because you can take specific steps to relax and stay calm when dealing with your kids.

Here are some steps you can take:

1. Take a deep breath and exhale in a controlled, calm manner.
2. Say something out loud in a very casual tone of voice. It doesn’t matter what you say, so long as you use the same voice you’d be using when talking to a close friend. Pick a phrase that you can use consistently, such that it becomes an “anchor phrase”. An example of this would be, “It’s nice to know you can always relax whenever you want to”.
3. Recall a past memory (anything that comes to mind) when you were totally relaxed. For a few seconds, just remember what you saw, what you heard, and how good it felt. This will get you back into that same state very quickly.
4. Take note of any remaining tension in any parts of your body (you’ll begin to notice where tension builds up for you during moments of stress). As you notice where the remaining tension is, take a moment to visualize calm, soothing white light shining on those spots of tension in your body, and just imagine that the light is melting away the tension. Pretending it is happening is no different than having it really happen – your unconscious mind doesn’t know the difference!

This whole process may take you 10 seconds. It’s purpose is to completely alter your physical and emotional state so that you’ll be in a more resourceful state to deal with the “problem child”.

When your kids are misbehaving, 10 seconds can seem like eternity. But you know better. Believe me this is 10 seconds well spent. Now, when you deal with your children, you’ll convey a stronger and calmer message, you’ll get better results, and you’ll feel better about the outcome.

Enjoy Your Children,
Chris Thompson