Food Struggles, LRC and Vanilla Cinnamon Granola

Comforting words, practical suggestions and a yummy recipe from a Parenting Network fan...

When it comes to parenting issues, struggles with food are one of the toughest things we face with our children. Are they eating enough? Are they eating too much? Are they eating enough fruits and veggies? Are they gaining enough weight? Or too much weight? Why won’t they eat what I prepare? Why am I chasing my 3-year-old around the living room with a spoonful of oatmeal? Arghh! It’s enough to drive you nuts.

If you are facing food issues with your children you can take heart in the fact that you aren’t alone. Power struggles around food are so common that there are countless books, blogs and articles written on inventive ways to get kids to embrace healthy eating.

I have personally suffered through many a battle over healthy eating with my 3 young children and I’ve discovered that coming back to the techniques offered up by Parenting Network comes in mighty handy when you have a beautiful family meal on the table and your toddler is lying on the floor crying and demanding a chocolate chip cookie.

At times like this I take a deep breath and remember LRC (Love, Respect, Confidence):
L- Love yourself and your family enough to provide healthy and nutritious food choices as much as you can.
R- Respect every one's decision to partake or not in what is served and respect yourself enough not to run around like a waitress catering to every one's individual needs.
C- have confidence that your children will eat when they are hungry and that you are providing a framework for healthy eating that will hopefully last a lifetime.

Sounds easy right? I know how challenging it can be and I am constantly on a quest for the most healthful and least contentions recipes I can create. This cereal is delicious and nutritious and just might set the tone for a healthy day. All three of my kids love it and there are no struggles in sight when the house fills with the smell of cinnamon and vanilla and they race to the breakfast table. A big bowl of this cereal with the milk of your choice is chock full of vitamins, protein, healthy fats and omega 3’s. You could even skip the nuts and throw in some raisins and/or pumpkin seeds to turn this into a healthy lunch box snack.

Remember to breathe, practice LRC and don’t give up! (and I guarantee you won’t have to chase your young child around the room with a spoonful of this cereal)

Vanilla Cinnamon Granola (adapted from The Kind Diet, Alicia Silverstone)
6 cups quick cooking oats (regular or gluten-free)
½ cup maple sugar or organic raw sugar
¾ cup milled flax seeds
½ cup shredded unsweetened coconut
½ cup sunflower seeds
1 tsp cinnamon
1 cup chopped pecans
½ cup melted coconut oil
1/3 cup maple syrup
1 ½ tsp pure vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 350.
Spread the oats on a baking sheet and bake for 10 minutes.
Meanwhile, combine the sugar, flax, coconut, sunflower seeds, cinnamon and pecans in a large bowl.
When oats are cooked add them into the bowl and stir to combine. Then add the oil, syrup and vanilla and stir well.
Place the mixture evenly on 2 baking sheets and bake for 10 minutes, stirring after 5 minutes to ensure even browning.
Let granola cool on the pans and then crumble and store in airtight glass containers.

Lori Wilson is a mother of 3, a vegan, a voice-over actor, a Parenting Network devotee and a writer. You can check out more family-friendly healthy eating tips and recipes at www.lorileighwilson.com.

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Tips for Nurturing Confidence - theirs and ours

LRC - Unconditional Love, Respect and Confidence. Final post in our series.

As parents, it’s natural to want to protect our children or to offer advice to guide them and prevent them from making mistakes. So we go to the playground and say... Don’t climb that high! Watch your feet! Be careful or you’ll fall!

Or, when they’re 12… You don’t want to wear that to school, everyone will tease you. Where’s your back pack, have you got everything in it? Hurry up you don’t want to be late. 

They call us pillow parents. Say we're bubble wrapping our kids.

 

Why do we do this?

Our primal instinct is keep our kids safe and secure, and we can easily become overly protective and fearful. So we opt for the ‘tried and true’ approach to parenting because we think we have a better chance of controlling the outcome. Yet what are we accomplishing here? Are we helping children to be independent-minded, nurturing their confidence to make decisions when exploring their world, not take foolish or undue risks? Likely not. Instead, we’re sending them a clear message that they can’t handle challenges or risks they encounter every day.

We also need to nurture this confidence in ourselves. To believe that our children can handle the outcome of their choices, whether they’re successful or not. Yes, if they fall they might get a few scrapes, if they make a mistake they might get embarrassed. This can hurt. But these scrapes and hurts will heal and our children will learn from their experiences. They’ll learn to bounce back, and that they can cope with failure and mistakes. They’ll develop resilience. These are important characteristics our children will need for a happy, healthy, and successful life.

This means we, as parents, need to stand aside whenever possible and let our children experience the results of their choices. We can be a safety net when needed, or a cheering team in the background. The key is to let our children feel our confidence in their ability to manage what comes their way. Experience in dealing with inevitable failure is the greatest teacher and builds a child’s self-confidence.

If your four-year-old is having trouble tying her shoelaces, for instance, it may be tempting to do it for her because it’s faster and easier that way. That may be so, but there’s real value in holding back and saying: “Shoe laces can be tough! Your brain and fingers will work it out soon enough. So don’t give up!” This gives your child an opportunity to learn for herself.

For example, say your seven-year-old child is dawdling in the morning and not getting ready for school on time. It’s hard not to snap, but it might help to think these positive and encouraging thoughts: You are my lovable, creative and able child. Right now there's a problem that needs our attention. Once we figure this out I have confidence you will behave more cooperatively. It may not turn out perfectly, but we’ll both learn from this. This too will pass! 

Showing confidence in a child’s ability to handle life’s challenges takes time, practice and an encouraging attitude. But it’s well worth the effort. When we believe in our children, they’ll learn to believe in themselves. So make the investment now. Let them skin their knees, experience and learn to handle the hurts in life. They'll be stronger for it.  

Beverley and Doone
parentingtips@parentingnetwork.ca
 

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What is the MOST Important Parenting Tool?

When parents ask us this question we go straight to the three principles that guide and influence everything we do as parents. They dramatically improve our relationships with our children and how our children perceive themselves for the rest of their lives.

It’s our secret sauce in parenting, we call it LRC.  Children raised in an atmosphere of LRC feel loved, valued, sure of themselves, respectful of others, and keen to participate and contribute to the family.

Children not raised with LRC feel conditionally loved, have a lack confidence in their abilities, are disrespectful to others, and are reluctant to cooperate and contribute to family life. These children are more likely to misbehave, be defiant and rebel.

What does LRC stand for?

*Unconditional love for the child, no matter how they behave

*Respect for the child’s ability to make choices and do things for himself

*Confidence that he has the ability to manage the outcome of his choices and decisions

January Challenge: 
Now before you pat yourself on the back and say, I do LRC already!, we challenge

you to practice the following ideas on Unconditional Love and next week we’ll post some ideas on Respect, and then Confidence. We’ll have you feeling great about your parenting by month end!

Part 1 - Unconditional Love 

We all love our children. But if we take a look at what we actually say and do, what might we see? What message are we giving to our children in the words we choose, the behaviors we display, and in the tone of our voice?

Is it: I love you for the wonderful child you are? Or is it: I love you only if you listen, if you behave yourself, or if you turn off the T.V.?

Now, we also love our children 'no matter what'. Who would ever say, I love my child only if she cleans up her room? No one! Yet what we say and do can inadvertently send a message we do not intend. Throughout the day, we might find ourselves saying the following words:  
I will be unhappy if you don’t...
I will be disappointed in you...
OR: It would make me happy if you...

How do our children interpret these words? From the child’s point of view, it doesn’t matter what we intend. What they want is very simple -- love and approval from the parent. If we show, with our words and emotions, that we are angry or upset with our child over a certain behavior, the child may interpret it like this: Mom or Dad will love me more or less if I behave a certain way.

Our child will think we love him more if he performs as we wish and less if he trips up. He’ll think our love is conditional, with strings attached, and this can affect him for his whole life. We might think that he has misinterpreted us, but has he? Could we be sending the message that our happiness or unhappiness depends on his behavior? A child does something noteworthy at school or at home, and we practically beam our love. But then, when he’s not doing his homework and ignoring our reminders, we raise our eyebrows and sigh in frustration and our tone becomes sharper. Or we snap. So our child might think: Mom or Dad doesn’t love me right now. This can feed a feeling of insecurity that will be highly detrimental over time. If a child believes this, it hurts.

Losing a parent’s love and approval hurts a child more than anything

And, it will invite one of three reactions:
* The child tries to win our love back by being obedient or pleasing
* The child hurts us back, retaliates
* The child gives up and retreats into her shell.
Whichever way, she’s discouraged and feeling insecure.

If parents appear happy, sad or mad as a result of a child’s performance, the child not only sees this judgment but internalizes good or bad feelings about themselves.

With time, it can become a given, a conviction, a belief: How well I perform=How much I am loved.

Our solution to this dilemma is simple:

Love and accept our children as they are. Give them unconditional love instead of conditional love. Recognize that performance varies in life, goes up and down, but our love for our child does not. They need to know that no matter how they perform, regardless of whether they succeed or fail, they can count on our unconditional love and support. In an atmosphere of unconditional love, our children will develop a strong sense of belonging, and feel safe in our love.

How do we do this in practice?

Separate the deed from the doer. In other words, I love you; I won’t always love your behavior.

We won’t always love everything our child does, but our love for him is never in question. Say your child is not getting ready for school in the morning. Even if you find yourself raising your voice more than you wished, you can make sure he knows you’re blasting his behavior, not him. Andrew, you know I love you but I’m getting really frustrated at how long you’re taking this morning!

Three Daily Greetings with Hugs

We like to build unconditional love into every day with our children. Here’s an easy way we suggest to all parents. It’s called the Three Daily Greetings with Hugs. Hugging is fundamental to this ritual because it’s a physical demonstration of our love. Of course you can share your love more frequently but this is a powerful practice to start.

The first greeting in your child's day is in the morning.  Instead of “Come on get out of bed, we don’t want to be late, we like to say something warm and caring such as, It's great to see you! I need one of your hugs. Last night's has all worn off. Share the unbridled joy you feel seeing your child. Then you can focus on the needs of the morning, but get that greeting and close connection with your child in there first! They may say Go away! and pull the covers over their heads, but that’s o.k.

The second greeting and hug in the day is when we reunite – when we pick them up at school or get home from work. Before anything else, we like to let our kids know they’re the most important person in that moment, with a hug, a warm greeting, or a few words about how we thought about them during that day. Then they might hit us with their lunch box and say You make yucky lunches, but we know the words of unconditional love got in there, and they learn yet again that they don't have to do anything to earn our love. It has nothing to do with their performance, it's there no matter what!

The third important greeting in the day is bedtime. Even if things go off the rails and get ugly, it’s great to assure them of our love, with words and actions.

Affection can be easier for some parents than it is for others.  

Even if you have trouble with it, this is a good time to dig deep. Research shows over and over again the power of closeness. It’s good for all children, even your teenager. Affection can be as simple as a big smile or a loving rub of their shoulder, or a wink from across the room. Or you might pull them up onto your lap for a cuddle, or have a wrestle on the floor. Little kids like hugs, big kids like hugs.

The bottom line: Love is not supposed to be a tool to manipulate our children's behavior. It shouldn’t be used as a reward or punishment. When we shower our children with our unconditional love, it provides them with a secure and safe place to use their internal creativity, to grow, learn and flourish.

Next week…

We’ll share our thoughts about having Respect for our child’s ability to make choices and do things for himself.

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Warmly, Beverley and Doone

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