Bill Corbett

I received the following email from a parent:   “My son is getting older and I would like to enroll him in a sport this summer.   I have heard horror stories about parents pushing their kids to win, so how do I encourage him to do his best and want to win without making him feel pressured?” First of all I want to acknowledge this mom as an awesome parent for wanting to get your son involved with a sports activity.  Both the physical activity and his experience with a team will contribute greatly to his development.  But most importantly, it will keep him off of the video screen and out of his room for a good portion of the time over the summer. A crucial part of keeping this boy motivated to continue with an activity requires this mom to control and limit the things that would keep her son from wanting to participate in a sport; such as his video games and computer.  I encourage her to put a limitation of time on these time-wasting distractions and de...

This is for all the parents who set out NOT to spank their children, but end up doing it anyway; you are NOT bad parents, sometimes you just don’t know what else to do.  I believe you may get frustrated to the point of using it to gain the child’s attention or as an attempt to stop challenging behaviors immediately.  I can say that I've been in your shoes!  I raised 3 children of my own and often felt myself get to the point of having the urge to spank.  So I feel for parents and know how hard it is when our children push our patience to the upper limits. (Photograph courtesy of David Castillo Dominici and freedigitalphotos.net) I was the oldest of eight children and took notice of my parent’s anger and how it would provoke them to the point of spanking, and they did.  I remember having the sense that one or both of them would be bothered by something outside of my control and then I would do something that kids do and it would push them to th...

Have you ever noticed how your children love to catch you making a mistake, especially when you do something out of order?  Children learn about the world around them by sameness and routine and they crave patterns that they can learn from. One evening we had visitors over for dinner and it was a special occasion.  The food was coming out of the oven in phases to keep it warm.  One of our young guests must have been hungry so she served herself what was on the table and took a bite.  My oldest daughter, the perfectionist child, was quick to catch her breaking a dinner-time rule and called attention to the violation.  Our family procedures had trained her that we all start eating together, after the blessing. Use this teaching tool to your advantage, especially when you want to increase the cooperation from your young children.  Family situations such as the morning rush, dinner time and bedtime are 3 situations that can be stressful on parents an...

The world is filled with people who become angry, toxic and vengeful when something bad happens to them (lose their job, money or a loved one, become divorced, etc.).  They become fixated on blaming others for their setback and strike out to hurt others to get revenge.  It can then take them an enormous amount of time to recover and get back on their feet. Resilient people however, recover quickly.  They are able to heal emotionally faster and then become focused on what was their own part in the problem, how THEY can fix the problem and what THEY can do going forward to minimize the chances that this problem will reoccur.  Resilient people are less likely to hurt others or to find blame outside of themselves. I believe that the majority of effective parents want to raise resilient children who will grow up to become resilient adults.  If you would like to join this group of parents, this article offers some suggestions on what your specific tasks are i...

It’s like a drug, they can’t get enough.  They’ll mysteriously forget about homework assignments just to get it.  They’ll fight you tooth and nail not to lose it.  It’s one of the biggest issues that reduces cooperation for many parents and if they could, they would pass up sleep and food just to have more of it.  What I’m talking about is entertainment media for children, and it is highly addictive.  It’s also referred to as SCREEN TIME and it exists in the form of video games, television shows, computer usage and the Internet, and it must be controlled, supervised and allowed in moderation.  If parents would just understand and implement this, they would get a bonus of more cooperation from their children.  Chores would be done as planned and homework would be completed as agreed. I was hired as a parent coach by a family recently.  At our first meeting, they listed the top five challenges they were experiencing with their oldest child....

Just in time for V alentine’s Day , here are 8 tips you can use, one each day leading up to the big day, for demonstrating love to your children.    Using a family meeting, have everyone create a craft project that represents love to them.   Provide a wide selection of construction paper and craft supplies and allow your children to create whatever comes to mind.   Put the creations on display for everyone to see and enjoy, and photograph them to look at for many years to come. Compose a poem about your child or describing how much you love her. Print it off on special preprinted paper with a border that can be purchased at office supply stores. Frame it and hang it on your child’s bedroom wall. You could even include the child’s picture or her foot or handprints if you had them done earlier. Sign it and read it to her nightly. Have a movie night with your kids, complete with big pillows to snuggle up with and a big bowl of popcorn. The one...

I was in my Philadelphia hotel room when the newsflash appeared on the television screen: “13-year-old Philadelphia-area girl is missing,” and the authorities were pleading for anyone to come forward with information on her whereabouts.   The story was updated the very next night when the local news station reported that the girl was found in a Washington D.C. bus station in the company of a 20-year-old male whom she met online on Facebook. Over the next few days I saw various interviews with the girl’s parents as they demanded justice for the male predator who was responsible for convincing her to leave her home with him.  The authorities apprehended him without incident and charged the young man with “corruption of a minor.”  Perhaps her parents should be arrested with him on the same charge.  How was it that the 13-year-old girl was able to meet him on Facebook without her parents knowing about it?  They were obviously not monitoring her activity and al...