Back in the day, when the wise men heard the good news of the king about to be born, they set out on foot and on camels to find the baby.  The navigation system they used was a star.  The followed the star fatihfully, which was rumored to be shining down on the baby boy.  While it must have taken them much time, the gorgeous star ultimately led them to the baby Jesus.  When they arrived, they worshipped Him and bestowed gifts upon Him.  Their perserverance to the truth led them to their King and they rejoiced. 

Are you focused on following a star this holiday season?  What is it?  It is the star of the perfect gift, or the perfect home, or the perfect body? Is it seeking an apology from someone who will never see that they are wrong?  Is it to have enough money to buy nice gifts? Or is it to have a blessed time with your loved ones. 

I would encourage you to follow the star that brings you peace. My peace is in my faith and when I am true to myself and my faith and follow my star, I am usually not far off the mark.  It is easy to get off course, but thankfully, I am usually redirected!

I hope you have a blessed Christmas and a Happy New Year.  Thanks to Jim Jackson for his inspiration for this blog post at Chapelwood Church yesterday.  If you want to listen to an incredibly uplifting and encouraging sermon, I recommend you down load it from www.ChapelwoodUMC.org.

 

Do you ever find yourself telling a friend that you had been "good" that day because of what you ate? I hear so often people say " I was so good today! I only ate foods that were good for me."  Or, "I am so good. I stayed on my diet all day." Or, I am going to be good and only order a salad for dinner."   Sounding familiar?  What if we did determine our goodness, or our badness (if that is a word) based on what we eat, or don't eat?  It happens more than you think, and if we do determine in this manner, I am in trouble I guess!  You see, I had carrot cake for lunch today?

From where I stand, people are not good or bad based on what they eat or do not eat.  I find most people to be inherently good, actually, but so often I hear that a person was "bad" because they had cake, or because they had french fries at lunch. 
 
I challenge you to consider this concept this week? Do you judge yourself as good or bad, based on your food behaviors? Do you judge your children, or your spouse, based on what they eat as opposed to who they are?  If so, you may be missing the point. 

Try to separate behaviors from the person in parenting.  If your child has made a bad decision, teach them, rather than judge.  See how they respond?

Read more about this concept in more specific form in The Power of Validation.  It is for sale for pre-order at Amazon and Barnes and Noble and will be shipped around January 1, 2011. 

Over the next few months, I am speaking at a number of schools and churches on Parenting, Body Image and Eating Disorders.  The number of calls I have received requesting my time speaking on these topics has tripled over the last few months, and while I am excited about the opportunities I am given, I am also perplexed.  I wonder why the rise?  One thing I do see common to people suffering from eating disorders is a disconnect from a very early age from their bodies and their body sensations. 

If you are a parent, or have ever been a caregiver, think back to when your children were small babies.  They had the ability to naturally let you know when they were full, right?  A baby will never continue to breast feed, or finish a bottle if he is finsihed and full, even if there if milk left in the bottle. When they are full, they turn their heads away from the milk, sending the message to you, even without words, that they are full.  Most toddlers will not finish their food if they are full, even if that food is cake. 

Somewhere along the way, however, children lose this ability.  As parents, we encourage our children to finish their plates even if they are full, or we ask them not to eat when we feel they should not be hungry.  When we tell children to eat when they are not hungry, or not to eat when they are, we are invalidating their body responses. 

The answer to this dilemna can be to teach mindful eating to your children.  Mindful eating is paying full attention to what you are eating, listening to you body cues of satiety, not eating and distracted by the television, homework, bills, texting, facebook, or whatever else may distract you.  Try teaching your kids by example. When you eat, what are you doing? Are you paying bills, watching a show, reading a magazine, driving? If you said yes to any of the above, I guarantee you were not mindful.  Mindful eating reconnects us with our bodies, and we learn better to take care of them.  This makes for a happier body, and consequently a happier child.  

If you would like to come here me speak on these topics, message me and I willl tell you where I am going to be!  
 

 A dear friend asked me a  poignant question recently?  How do you parent with validation when you are not  necessarily in agreement with the actions your child is taking?

This is an excellent question.  Validation is more about feelings and less about actions.  In parenting, it will help you if you are able to separate the feelings your child has, and the action urges he has as a result of these feelings.  It is easier said than done, but it is possible. 

Here is an example: If your son says he is so angry that he wants to punch the wall, what would your response be? 

Think about for a minute and answer it in your head before you read on.......
  
Did you say this: "I can see that you are so angy that you want to punch the wall.  I may feel that angry, too?"
 
Did you say, "I do think punching the wall would be a mistake, though. If you punch the wall, you may break your hand, and you may break the wall, and I would have to get a sheetrock guy out to fix the wall, and a paint guy to come and fix my paint, and I will probably have to take you the doctor because you may break your hand, and then we would have a big giant mess?" 

The answer above doesn't disagree with his feelings, it validates his urges and feelings.  However, it points out that if he acts on these urges, there may be a negative consequence. Believe it or not, just validation of his urge diffuses the entire situation.  He is heard, and not judged.  However, if he does punch the wall anyways(which he might!), he has a consequence, but he knew one would be coming!
  
Pre-Validation, he may have been judged for that urge.  He may have been asked why he would want to do that and what is wrong with him for having that thought?  He may have even been punished for the thought, even if it was just a thought.  I believe that this way of parenting shames children for their thoughts, when it is only a thought.

So, if your child this week makes a decision, or talks about making a decision and you think they are going to make a mistake, try teaching using Validation.  It just may keep them from doing something you know will be detrimental to them in the long run....



  

As parents, do you ever feel as if you are on a roller coaster, sort of like the one found at Sea World, called the Steel Eel?    On a coaster, you may be cruising at a pace that is quick and busy, but not too scary, and actually sort of fun, right?  But then, just when you least expect it, the bottom drops out from you and you are on a part of the ride that  you can not wait to get off of.  This is the part where you think you might die.  I hate that part. 
 
In my opinion, this is how parenting can be.  One minute, cruising along, having a lot of fun and excitement, and then overnight, or in the turn of an hour, or in the quick play of a football game, or in a diagnosis, or a break up with a girlfriend,  all that calm can change.  Your child may be sad, or failing a class, or injured in a sport, or any other sort of situation that may make them sad.

As parents, how do you handle it?  Do you validate that the tough times are tough? Do you tell yourself that it is not that bad and that all parents go through trials or sad times with their children?  Or do you tell yourself that you must be a really bad parent for these things to go wrong?  I hope not. I hope you validate yourself when the times are challenging, and I hope you celebrate when the times are smooth.  

Parenting is like a roller coaster.  Once you get on the ride, you can not get off.  And if you are lucky to enough to get to be a parent, you would not get off that ride no matter what!!
   
Enjoy the ride.....

Sandy!  Love your idea!
 
How about a Validation  challenge?

 If you have a daughter and she comes to you and tells you that she feels fat,
what do you say?  Think long and hard for a minute and maybe write down
your response so you can be clear as we walk through this process. 

This happened to me about 2 years ago with my daughter, who was nine at the
time.  She came to me and told me that she felt like she was fatter than
all of her friends.  This question caused a slight panic in me particularly
as I have personal recovery from Anorexia myself and have a small amount of fear
that this could affect one of my children.  As a matter a fact, part of why
I am so passionate about Validation stems from my honest belief that this
concept can prevent eating disorders and other emotional disorders from
happening to your children, and mine!  When she asked me this question,
even though I know it is completely common for a nine year old to start
observing body differences, I had a rise in fear that she, too would develop and
eating disorder.  Thankfully, I calmed down and responded effectively.
I  paused about two minutes and finally said, “Well, I can see that you feel fatter
than your friends.” And I stopped. 

My husband kicked me under the table and murmured in my ear….”did you just
call her fat?”  I said no, I told her that what she felt made sense. 
 
 After the long pause, she looked up at me with large gray eyes and
said, “Do you think I am fat?”  At that point, I knew we were going to be
ok.  What I said next was, “I do not think you are fat.  But I agree
that you feel that way.  Again, I do not think you are fat.”  She
finally answered, after a too- long pause which caused me to sweat, “OK! 
Do we have any ice cream?!” You see, Validation of feelings is not 
necessarily agreeing.  It is just agreeing with the feeling.

 Pre-validation, I would have argued with her.  I would have told her
that she was beautiful, tall, gorgeous, and that she was made perfectly in God’s
image, blah, blah, blah.  I basically would have told her that what she
felt did not make sense.   Imagine how that feels?  When someone
tells you your feeling is wrong, you may start to question yourself.  This
is what we want to avoid in parenting.  We never want our children to doubt
themselves, because they then learn to look to others to determine how they
should feel.

There will be more on this later…..but for now, try today to validate a
feeling your child has.  See how differently they respond.  Write me
back if you want too!

 Night……

To me as a mom, there is nothing more validating than when your teenager wakes you in the middle of the night because he does not  feel well.  It is validating to me inparticular because it means that just maybe I have given him security that when he needs me, I will be there, if I can.  I think he knows that I will not be mad for being awakened from the deepest  sleep  found in the middle of the night, nor will I get mad when I learn that he has  actually thrown up the orange Gatorade he drank last night after football practice all over his bed, and in the hallway by the bathroom, or if he is the third child in a series of four days to wake me in the middle of the night with this wretched virus!.  

I am just a mom, and this is what we do. We show up!


I write this at 2 am, as this as just happened. The sick child is back in bed and this mom now cannot go back to  sleep.........believe it or not because she is smiling and feeling thankful that
he has awakened me. I could not be  more validated at this early bird hour.  
Maybe it is because he is started high school this year and I sense an urgency to be there in his
life because I know he will leave soon. Maybe I sense that because he does not ask me for much, I want to be
there when he does ask.  Or maybe I just believe in the power of validation so much that it is instilled in me to practice it as much as I preach it!? Or maybe a combination of the above!

 What I do believe its this: Validation is being there for your child,even if you say absolutely nothing. 
Sometimes it just is.  I am  reminded of that this early Tuesday morning and am
thankful.

 What are you thankful for as a parent
today?


 

It is a beautiful morning in Houston and as I have my coffee, make lunches (42 so far for the school year) and breakfast for my kids, I am blown away at how invalidating my home is.  People right and left, literally, at the breakfast table hounding me and invalidating me as why I have not started a blog.  No one understands my feelings about this!   I am feeling just plain lazy about this and am unsure why!  The sweet thing is is that they actually want me to write one because they might just think I have something to say!  Now that is validating, and shocking as well.  Mainly because one is my husband, two are teenagers and the third is a tweenage girl!

All kidding aside, my family is actually the most valdiating group I know! They forever support me, fight for me when I have a cause, tell their friends about me and my new book and job, and encourage me when I am tired from a days work of either counseling, parenting, or a combo of both.  As a parent, validation comes in many forms. It may be that you say nothing to your child when they are sad or have intense feelings, but that you just sit with them and rub their back.  It may be that you drive them to tennis when they want to go, or remember to register them for their horse show when they forgot.  Validating Parenting comes in many forms and you really do not have to be a pro to learn how to do it!  Validating parenting simply means that you tell your child that what they feel makes sense, is valid and that they are not crazy for feeling it.  It is that easy and it will transform the relationship that you have with your children.

As I wrap up my morning before my kids go off to school, I am thankful for this parenting tool.  Kids are validating each other, me and my husand as well.  Try it today.  When your child has an intense emotion or feeling today, tell them what they feel is real and makes sense.  Don't try to argue, just validate.

Have a great day! Glad you read this.......