Spark U Coaching

08/24/2017

"4. They can't tame their expression of big feelings.

As adults, we’ve been taught to tame and hide our big emotions, often by stuffing them, displacing them, or distracting from them. Kids can’t do that yet."

I believe expecting children to contain big emotions without teaching and then training sets them up for a lifetime of eventually stuffing their feelings.

Many of kids' so-called "bad" behaviors are actually normal developmental acts of growing up.

05/08/2017

This is such a great idea for kids with Asperger's! They have such anxiety about having a role and a place in the world. Doing this will help them feel useful and good about themselves and it will create a connection between you and them. Thanks Angie Setzler McNulty for posting this.

02/24/2017

A lot of you do not know my dad is having some health difficulties due to Acute Pancreatitis (AP) and a stint in the ICU at the beginning of January. The recovery from AP is a long and arduous one and the after effects of being in the ICU do not help. My father is one of my favorite people in the world and I am feeling helpless about how I can help him regain his strength and return to the vibrant, amazing person he is. So, I have decided the best way I can be there for him right now is to let him know how important he is to me every single day; how much he has influenced who I am and who Blayne (his grandson) is becoming. To that end, I am writing a post every day about something that happened that day and how my father’s teachings influenced the choices I made. On Sundays when I spend time with him, I will read the posts. It will be like a prayer for him each day and then on Sundays, a gift to him for how much he means to me. So here goes…

Today I was really struggling with my coaching skills. I conducted 3 coaching sessions today and felt like I fumbled through each one of them and couldn’t find my footing. I ended the day feeling defeated and wondering what I was thinking and how I would ever make it as a parent coach. Then I thought about my dad and what he would do.

In that moment I remembered being 10 years old and my dad practicing a speech on my brother and I in the living room. He had joined Toastmasters because he decided he needed to face one of his biggest fears. Public speaking. At first he practiced all his speeches on us and he was horrible. Absolutely horrible. Comically horrible. I laughed in the wrong places and told him he needed to talk louder or change this part or that part because it was boring. And here is the thing, he didn’t give up. He persevered despite the fact he was so horrible. Eventually he started winning ribbons, then he stopped practicing with my brother and I and in the end he went on to be a pretty well-known motivational speaker in Seattle with a business teaching people to follow their passion.

This taught me that hard work and perseverance create mastery. It is something I have carried with me my whole life and whenever I have felt like I have today, I remember this lesson and change my focus from what is NOT working to what IS working and how to get more practice so I can master what it is I want to accomplish.
When Blayne was 8 years old I told him he had to pick an instrument to learn. He chose the guitar. He had visions of himself playing like every rock star he followed at the time. When reality hit and he was not coordinated or didn’t have the know-how to be able to play a song in his head, he wanted to give up. I told him the point of learning the instrument was not to be a professional or because I thought he had a gift, but because learning an instrument would teach him hard work and perseverance create mastery. Therefore, he wasn’t allowed to quit until he mastered it. Today he can play any song he has in his head on the guitar. But most importantly, he learned how to create mastery.

And for me… I can’t wait to do my next coaching session because I know it means I am that much closer to mastery.

02/23/2017

"By asking our children to evaluate the situation, separate facts from feelings, and develop a game plan, we’re giving them a lifelong empowerment blueprint for bouncing back from bad situations."

Here's how to teach children to work through a mistake gently, giving them a lifelong empowerment blueprint for bouncing back from bad situations.

02/23/2017

"The quickest way to explain what it means to instill a growth mindset is: Praise your child explicitly for how capable they are of learning rather than telling them how smart they are."

It's so simple, but a lot of people have no idea it's even a thing.

02/22/2017

Here is a great illustration about how effective Positive Parenting can be. If you train yourself to always speak positively to your children (I call this getting to the YES), during a crisis you will give them instructions that will keep them safe.

02/20/2017

After seeing Lion King for the first time, my son, Blayne, immediately started telling people his name was Mufasa and using a low, deep voice like James Earl Jones. He was 4 years old and he kept replaying one scene, over and over again. It was the scene where Scar (the jealous brother of the Lion King) kills Mufasa (the Lion King) by throwing him off a cliff into a valley where he is crushed by a stampede of caribou.

Blayne kept hanging from things and dying everywhere. In the house, in stores, at school.

Me (as I am running down the stairs): Come on Blayne, it’s time to put your coat on, so we can go.
Blayne (laying spread-eagle on the living room floor, on his stomach with his eyes closed): I don’t have to wear a coat. I’m dead.

A few days later we were in a Costco at the membership counter. Blayne was hanging off the counter talking to himself with a British accent in a low whisper… then he changed his voice to a very low timber and fell to the ground dramatically, making sure to lay his cheek on my shoe (I had warned him before about bare skin touching floors in stores).

Again, he lays spread-eagle on his stomach on the floor with his eyes closed.
The man behind us in line: Hey, little boy, what are you doing?
Blayne (loudly and a little annoyed): Don’t talk to me, I am dead!

It turns out Disney movies are a mine field for a 4-year-old. At least they were for MY 4-year-old. I was mystified, utterly entertained and just a little mortified with his behavior. He had been dying all over the place for 2 weeks and I was at a loss about what I could do to stop it. His preschool teacher even pulled me aside to tell me I had to do something because my son was freaking the other kids out; he was dying all day long.

While all of this was very funny and my husband and I were laughing hysterically when it happened, I understood there was something bothering Blayne and he was stuck. I asked his pediatrician if she might know what was happening and she told me he was having trouble processing the fact that Mufasa’s brother had thrown him off the cliff. He was using role-playing to understand the motivations of the characters.

She suggested he and I role-play to help him process the scene he was playing out. I was to start by playing Mufasa and dying at the hands of Scar (Blayne) a few times, exactly as the scene happens. Then I was to start changing the scene and negotiating with Scar to save my life and heal the relationship. At the moment Blayne changed to be a better Scar, we were to switch places and I was to let Blayne be Mufasa and follow his lead.

It went exactly as she said it would and Blayne was so happy to see there could be a different outcome. In fact, he never died again. And by the following week, he was no longer playing the role of Mufasa and had moved on to playing the role of Jacque the Crustacean from Finding Nemo (complete with a full French accent).