Sep 11, 2018
I saw a meme the other day that said “I don’t do the KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON thing. I do the spontaneously combust and go totally mental thing. Just FYI…” It made me laugh and think that most parents INTEND to do the keep calm thing, but END UP doing the spontaneously combust thing instead. Why?!? Well, today we bring you HOPE and HELP from none other than Ralphie Jacobs of “Simply on Purpose”. If you’re not familiar with Ralphie’s instagram site where she teaches parents, then you are in for a treat! In addition to all the great tips we receive from Ralphie, listen in to hear our segment called “What?!? What could that hurt??” to hear more funny stories of parenting fails where we GREATLY underestimated the impact of 1 bad decision!”
Ralphie lives in Austin Texas with her husband and their 4 amazing daughters. She graduated in Early Childhood Education from Utah State University and has worked as a preschool teacher and creator of children's organizations and curriculum. Ralphie quickly learned that the best way to impact a child's life for good is to teach parents, so she founded the Instagram feed @simplyonpurose where she writes about parenting, family culture, and living with purpose. She travels the country teaching workshops on positive parenting.
In this week’s episode Ralphie shares how she decided to dedicate herself to helping parents through teaching.
She also spent time laying the foundation of staying calm by teaching us the importance of respect. Most people think of respect in relation to a parent/child relationship as children needing to respect their parent. While this is true, it is just as important for a parent to respect the child. It is through modeling respect that children will learn HOW to respect.
“You do not want to teach your children that the way to gain respect is to lash out at people lower than you on the totem pole.”
5 coping strategies to help parents stay calm...even when they’re triggered:
- Don’t take it personal.
“With parenting we have to check our ego at the door. When we yell, we are taking it personally. It is a personal affront. What’s actually happening is purely developmental.”
- Learn how to stay curious.
- Be
consistent (have clear expectations).
- Walk away...especially if you are the one who’s triggered!
- Use
time to your advantage.
- Change the don’ts into do’s.
- Stop the threats.
- Switch a negative into a positive.
- Wrap what you are saying carefully.
“The number 1 reinforcer for a child is parental attention.”
THE FANTASTIC FOUR QUESTIONS:
- Favorite parenting book: All of Dr. Glen Latham’s books. Here are a few Ralphie mentioned: “The Power of Positive Parenting”, “Parenting With Love”, “Christlike Parenting”.
- Favorite fictional book: “Blackmoore” by Julianne Donaldson.
- Advice you wish you had been given before you had kids: Remember that little things really are little things. Don’t sweat the small things. Sit back and enjoy the chaos.
- Mom fail: Listen in for an awesome story about a time Ralphie was distracted in a place and at a moment that turned out to be very unfortunate!
MOM SQUAD CHALLENGE
Look for the good in your child. Change the ratio of positive to negative interactions with your child to an 8:1 ratio. (Eight positive interactions for every 1 negative interaction). The most effective way to get rid of the “junk” in your childs behavior is to pay attention to the good. If you pay attention to the good, statistics say that 80% of the junk will go away.
We want to thank Ralphie for spending time with us and sharing all of these insights! You can find out more about Ralphie and listen to all of her parenting lessons on instagram @SimplyOnPurpose.