This week we welcome Ellen Notbohm to the blog! Ellen is the author of the book, Ten Things Every Child with Autism Wishes You Knew. We chose a question asked by our Facebook community for Ellen to answer in her special guest post. Ellen’s advice is always helpful for parents of children with autism as well parents of typically developing children.
parenting
What’s on your list of New Year’s resolutions this year? Exercise more? Eat better? Read more?
These are all great resolutions–which is why many of us list them year after year and abandon them within weeks.
Instead, why not limit your New Year’s resolutions to actions that can have a dramatic impact on your family life? When you put your effort into meaningful goals that will benefit your household, you can have a profound effect on family relationships, organization, and teamwork in the year ahead.
Following are the top three ways you can make a huge difference in your kids’ behavior and your family dynamics. You’ll see success right away, which means you’re more likely to stick with them throughout the year (and beyond).
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Getting good holiday behavior from your kids.
First stop: your tween’s dance rehearsal. Then, a visit to a local charity. Next, it’s last-minute shopping for gifts, making cookies for your eight year-old’s class party, and then a holiday dinner – and that’s just your Saturday!
A day like that can often drive even the merriest of people to make a less-than-polite grab for the store’s last set of lights or play chicken over that coveted front-row parking space. When kids get thrown into that mix of traveling, visits from relatives, and holiday events – all on top of their normal school work and activities- it’s a winter miracle that they have the energy left to behave at all!
The fact is that kids wear out faster than adults, and that tired or mentally over-stimulated children are the ones most likely to act out or throw fits. Read More →
The holidays offer countless wonders: quality time with loved ones, the joy of family traditions, and at least a few weeks where people are particularly nice to one another. But nestled between the “Secret Santa” gift swaps and the glittering candles, the holidays give us yet another amazing thing – the opportunity to give our kids an attitude of gratitude.
Teaching our children to live a grateful life can’t be accomplished in a few short weeks, but the holiday season offers kids and parents alike countless opportunities to practice giving extra thanks to the people who deserve it – and need it – most. And this is the gift that gives back! Research repeatedly shows that gratitude-rich people score higher in happiness and optimism and have fewer instances of stress and depression.
So don’t wait to make this your New Year’s resolution – use the tips below to start your family on the trail to thankfulness today!
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Guest Post from Ellen Notbohm, author of Ten Things Every Child With Autism Wishes You Knew, 3rd edition (2019).
Playing board games is a great way to have fun and bond as a family. But any game begs the question: do you let your kids win so they feel good about themselves and stay interested, or do you play fair–and win sometimes–at the risk of discouraging them?
Before you stack the deck for the next round of Candyland, keep reading for some helpful pointers below.
The following is an excerpt from 1001 Great Ideas for Teaching and Raising Children with Autism and Asperger’s, 2nd edition (2010) by Ellen Notbohm and Veronica Zysk:
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verdue library books. Smelly gym clothes. Permission slips rushed to school as the field-trip bus is about to pull away. When will kids learn to remember the things they need before the guilty, “Um, I forgot…” phone call?
As you may have heard before, “A child who always forgets has a parent who always remembers.” Which is to say, every time you rescue your kids with constant reminders or by bailing them out when they forget, you actually do them a disservice, as they never feel the sting of their forgetfulness and learn to take responsibility.
I’m not talking about the occasional slips of mind. You know you have a real problem when you’re dropping off a lunchbox or musical instrument on a weekly basis for one of your kids. Here’s how to solve it:
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