 |
|
Mark Brandenburg has a Masters degree in counseling psychology and has been a counselor, business consultant, sports counselor, and a certified life and business coach. He has worked with individuals, teams, and businesses to improve their performance for over 20 years.
Prior to life and business coaching Mark was a world-ranked professional tennis player and has coached other world-ranked athletes. He has helped thousands of individuals to implement his coaching techniques.
Mark specializes in coaching men to balance their lives and to improve the important relationships in their lives. He is the author of “25 Secrets of Emotionally Intelligent Fathers,” and “Fix Your Wife in 30 Days or Less” (And Improve Yourself at the Same Time).
BOOKS BY MARK BRANDENBURG
Click here to buy
|
|
 |
Monthly Column... |
Showing Your Kids Self-Control
by
, M.A., C.P.P.C., C.S.C.
Most of us want our kids to be able to exercise self-control and to be rational. It would be nice if we could do it ourselves first, don’t you think?
The same patterns seem to keep occurring over and over; our kids push our buttons and we forget everything we know about being disciplined and rational. We “lose it” and say and do things that we will later regret.
Hey dad, do you want to spend a lot of time in your primitive brain yelling or getting angry or do you want to get better?
Good, here are some steps to improve these disturbing patterns that we all
can get into:
• Accept the notion that communicating with your kids when either you or your kids are angry will never be productive. Wait until everyone has cooled down and try again.
• When you do lose it with your kids, don’t beat yourself up about it, it happens to everybody. Do use it as a learning opportunity and commit to getting better.
• Use “I” messages to your kids when you begin to feel frustration and anger, try to avoid blaming or shaming them. Saying, “I’m starting to feel angry” is an effective way to improve your own ability to be aware of your anger and an effective way of showing your kids how it’s done as well. Or…
• Get out of the area yourself and do a time-out! That’s right, leave the area as soon as you’re feeling those old familiar signs of anger coming on. Do anything that will help calm you down; take a walk, do some breathing, etc. Just make sure that you disengage from the potential conflict until a later time.
• At a later time (often it takes at least 20 minutes before we are really cooled down) make a decision about what needs to be done. Do you need to re-visit the same issue with your child? Do you need to apologize to your child for not handling the situation well? After the cool-down you can come from a more rational perspective.
Children can’t be expected to control their behavior when they never see examples of what self-control looks like. Take the challenge of showing your kids what it looks like. They’ll remember it.
Happy Fathering,
Mark Brandenburg M.A., C.P.P.C., C.S.C.
BOOKS BY MARK BRANDENBURG - Click here to buy
 |
25 Secrets of Emotionally Intelligent Fathers
|
|
60 Tips for Fathers to Create Happy, Connected, and Responsible Kids
|
|
"Fix Your Wife in 30 Days or Less" (And Improve Yourself at the Same Time)
|
|
|
 |
