Thursday, May 21, 2015

Parenting Without Power Struggles, a book review

My greatest accomplishment in life was becoming a mother. The ups and downs of parenting together with the love of my life and my best friend is indescribably awesome yet quite challenging. The balance of being a good parent and communicating with your little ones can be rough at times. Yet, it is through my mistakes that I have learned my greatest lessons from my kids. But with every year new challenges arise and I have learned to use every resource I have in my parenting bag of tricks that include:tips from other moms and dads, teachers, my husband, my parents, from the internet, and books. Books especially have different approaches and they don't fit every kid or parent. So read to find a book that fits your family I say. Sometime, it doesn't hurt to learn through strangers either and that is one of the things I like about this book. The different cases in this book have been very similar to what I has been going on in my household. Having a boy first,my husband and I dealt with the challenges of eating healthy foods for my picky eater and then potty training. Most challenges were of a physical nature. With my girl, I have experienced more of a psychological challenge in defying my authority to reach her own independence. My 3 year old had an attitude of a teenager and the mouthiness to go with it. I could not believe the things she would say. " Stupid Mom", " Go to your room" to me when she was mad at me, "You are not being a good mommy," "I can do it myself" and then came the dangerous choices to run away from me at schools, parks, and this had to end. Sending her to her room did not help. Taking away toys did nothing. Timing her out in a corner. I tried these punishments for months with little success. Then, I was told about this book. I was pleasantly surprised in the approach,the mind maps, exercises in the book, and the easy to read setup of the book. Overall,this book has been life changing for me. I stop trying to teach her when she's upset which use to lead to yelling matches and slamming doors. Now, we go through a cooling down phase apart. She goes to one are and I go to another. I simply tell her I love her,but mommy needs quit time alone. I started with our relationship choosing one of the six stages of attachment : Proximity(hugging/closeness), Sameness(things in Common),Belonging/Loyalty( when you are on child's side, you got his back,coming alongside your child, Significance( looking into your child's eyes, sending a letter, sharing her importance),and Being Known ( when child speaks you listen, refraining from lecturing and offering advise). I found out that I had less in common with my daughter than my son. So I worked on changing what we did together from chores to playing Candy land, we became closer. Although, we still have much work to do. She has had less running away incidents, better communication, she takes initiative to do chores like emptying the washer and helping me with laundry . This is one book I plan to add to my personal library in a hardcover. Very helpful book. I highly recommend it to those open to change in their relationships with their kids. Changing behaviors of kids starts with work on relationships between family first. http://www.amazon.com/Parenting-Without-Power-Struggles-Resilient/dp/1451667663

Wednesday, May 20, 2015

Review of " The Lost Husband" by Katherine Center

I found this book on Goodreads.com. It has been a couple months since I used this site. But, the idea of a lost husband and the description peaked my curiosity. I admit I love farms and have visited a couple of small So Californian farms in the cities of Ontario, Oak Glen, and Cherry Valley, so I was interested in reading about a goat farm. The widow written in first person was a pleasant surprise. I loved seeing the world through Libby's eyes. I love writing in the first person when I write my stories which have only been self-published on Amazon Kindle. I haven't written in years until now. Focusing on my little ones who are now 4 and 6 years old. Reading this story spurred the writing juices inside of me to start again. So reading Katherine's 290 page book in three days was a record for me. I can't even remember reading that many pages in a long time. I have read 400 page historical novels in a weeks time staying up into the wee hours of the night. This heartwarming novel about a family that lost their father and husband is full of subtle twists. I love reading about people and how they react to life's challenges, and how they perceive other people's actions. I was totally immersed in LIbby's life on the goat farm in Atwater, Texas with her Aunt and O'Connor, the handy man, farm hand. I hate when I have to keep rereading a paragraph because I couldn't understand what the writer was saying. I love plain English. Simple language. I can appreciate Shakespeare, but I am not that type of writer or reader. So if you want, short, drama, and some action. Check out Amazon.com for Katherine's book. I plan to read her other books now and plan on buying The Lost Husband. I give this book 5 * * * * * stars. I even Facebooked the author to let her know I have reviewed it on Goodreads and shared it on Facebook. So enjoy. You could also try it out at your local library like I do. I only buy those I really, really love. http://www.katherinecenter.com/books/the-lost-husband/ http://www.amazon.com/Lost-Husband-Novel-Katherine-Center/dp/0345507940/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1432168472&sr=1-1&keywords=the+lost+husband