Successful parents don't react to their children's non-verbal body language.  If your child does the eye rolling to show frustration or nager, you can say, "Can you see your brains when you roll your eyes like that?"  And then drop it by walking away.

When you're having a serious discussion with your child about dicipline and you see a smile forming on his ior her face, please stop yourself from saying, "Wipe that smile off your face while I'm talking to you!"  Lecturing and threatening them will actually make the problem worse.  When you become upset by your child's nonverbal behavior, you have just let your child know what buttons to push to get you upset.  When you're upset, the child unconsciously knows you are not in control, he or she is.  Not a good place for you at all!

Your child needs to know you are stronger and in control ...   more »

Charles and Jim Fay wrote a great book titled, Love and Logic Magic:  When Your Kids Leave You Speechless.  They have a chapter on dealing with children who are picky eaters and complain about the food.

Myth #1:  If I don't make my kids eat their food, they'll starve to death.  This is never going to happen.  For you parents out there--take heed!  Your children use food as a battleground and you will never win and have control if you force them to eat.  I can think of more important battles for you.

So what do you do when the child refuses to eat what you have prepared?  Simply let it go, telling the child something like, "That's ok with me.  Your next time for eating will be at breakfast tomorrow (assuming this is the dinner meal).  Thank you for making that choice."  This way, the responsibility is placed ...   more »

Another great exercise by Gail and Paul Dennison helps with study skills, math, and riding in a car, bus or plane.

Neck Rolls helps to relax your neck and shoulders.  You can stand or sit while you breathe in deeply and slowly, relaxing your shoulders and dropping your head forward.  Move your head slowly from side to side, in a slow, rolling action.  Imagine breathing out any tension.  As you do this, your chin draws a smooth curve across your chest as your neck relaxes.

Successful parenting happens when you take what the child offers you and turn it around to the child.  Take the martial arts practice Aikido for example.  When someone comes toward you, fighting, you don't confront the atatcker head-on.  Nope.  Instead, you use your center of balance to move quickly, turning the person to catch them off balance, with you in control.

When your child asks you, "why?" you smile sweetly and reply with excitement, "That's a great question!  Let me give you a sheet of paper so you can write out three possible answers for me.  Then pick up the one answer you think is best and come back and show me."

Some families ahve a "why" notebook so whenever anyone in the family says, "why", point them to the why notebook.

I think parenting should be about having fun instead of feeling frustrated.  If you have a child who likes to ask you silly questions or questions to which he or she already knows the answers, here are some responses you can use:

"That's a great question.  What do you think?"

Give the child a silly, illogical, off the wall response such as, "Maybe the birds were flying too low when they skipped over the barn this morning."  Then walk away while the child stops to figure out what you said.

If you have young children (or children that act like toddlers and preschoolers), you may have noticed they sometimes get upset when you want them to stop doing what they're doing.  I would suggest you give them a choice about how long they can play before they begin to play that will end their playtime.

"Honey, Do you want to play for 30 minutes or 45 minutes?"

"Do you want a 3 minute or 5 minute warning about getting ready to end your play so we can do sooemthing else?"

"When your time is finally up, are you going to come quick and snappy or will you show me turtle behavior and move really, really slow?"

If your children give you answers to these questions, they have a vested interest in following through.  Right beofre the time is over, ask the last question again and then see what happens.

Thinking Caps is used to improve your ability to listen better, do public speaking, short-term memory, thinking abilities and spelling.  It also can help improve your concentration while working ont he computer.

Take your hands and place them at the top of each ear.  Using both hands, start at the top of each ear and "unroll" the curved part of the edge of the ears at the same time.  Continue moving your hands down the ear all the way to the bottom of the ear lobes.  Repeat this until you have done it three times.

Talk and Rock

This is a good after school activity between parent and child.  Both of you are sitting on the floor, facing each other, with your legs like a "v".  You're holding hands.  gently, rock back and forth, front to back while the parent asks questions about the child's day.  Maintain a slow rythmn and quiet, calm tone and see what happens.  This is also a nurturing and structuring activity as well.

Marshmallow Fight

This is a great way to deal with an angry child.  Get a bag of large marshmallows and surpise your child by throwing some of them at him or her.  Usually, a child will pick them up and throw them back at you with a smiling face.  Its a great way to burn off angry feelings and have fun at the same time.

Belly breathing improves the supply of oxygen to the blood and brain.  It helps relax you, which increases your energy level.  It will also make it easier for you to read and speak.

Standing up, place your hands on your abdomen.  exhale through your mouth in short little puffs.  Next, inhale slowly and deeply, fillling your abdomen like a balloon underneath your hands.  Slowly and fully exhale the air.  repeat this a few times, making sure you have a natural rhythmn going.

Maintaining Eye Contact

If you have a positive interaction with your child, it increases the chances for healthy attachment.  Make a game of it by having you and your child standing across the room from each other.  You count slowly to five.  If your child maintains ete contact that whole time, he or she gets to walk toward you by taking two steps. If your child has trouble maintaining eye contact, use the blinking method.  When you blink once, the child can take another step; if you blink twice, the child can take two steps foward.

The game ends when the child reaches you.  You can end it with lots of pizzaz and a hug for doing such a great job of looking you in the eye.

Double Doodle helps to develop writing skills, spelling and math.  It also makes it easier to be able to follow directions and improve eye-hand coordination.

Imagine a line drawn the middle of the body, from the nose to the belly button.  Put both hands up in the air and begin drawing identical doodles on each side of the line.  have some fun with it.  It gives your brain a great workout!