Traditionally, many school-aged children love school and look forward to start of a new school year. But for other children, it’s also a time of great stress. In fact, stress—those overwhelming feelings of doubt about ourselves or our ability to handle things—is as common in children as adults.
The greatest challenge to parents today is teaching children to manage stress effectively. Children may react to excess stress with behavior that seems immature, inappropriate, or even disturbing. One child exhibits anxiety and tears the night before going back to school. Another child speaks of new teacher and asks her parents questions while trying to imagine the teacher's personality. Another child enjoys shopping for school clothes and looks forward to seeing new friends.
Stress can be terrifying to children who lack the emotional maturity or experience to understand and deal with it. The challenge for parents, teachers, and other caretakers include how to recognize signs of stress in children of different ages, how to know when stress threatens to overwhelm a child, and what to do about it.
In Nurture Your Child’s Gift, I offer excellent suggestions to help parents cope with their children’s stress. A stressed-out condition can result from a specific cause or from life in general. Here are some examples:
At 17, Jen was a high school senior expecting to graduate with honors in the Spring. Just before Christmas, however, Jen’s father lost his job and the family had to move into the basement of a cousin’s house. Jen soon developed a severe allergy, then asthma. The illness cost her so much time from school that she required home-schooling to make up the difference.
Mark was only two when his parents divorced. Confused, Mark wandered the house, calling plaintively for his father, but weekends with Dad made him cry. Most weekends, Mark developed upset stomachs that were so bad he’d miss preschool on Mondays.
Age-Related Stressors
Toddlers need to feel safe and comfortable. Stress for preschool children can arise from a new face at home or at day care, the disappearance of a familiar face, visiting lots of new places at once, or abrupt changes in the family’s structure, relationships or daily routine. During the grade-school years, children become concerned with pleasing people like teachers, parents, guardians and coaches. School life—even a change in assigned seating or having to take a test—brings higher levels of stress every year. And when it comes to peers, even the threat of diminished acceptance is terrifying. Sleep-overs, birthday parties, sporting events and music competitions can trigger stressful reactions. Through middle school and beyond, the pressures kids feel from parents, teachers, peers, society at large, and from within increases. Children have to learn adapt to these pressures. Because they have grown in their intelligence, curiosity and knowledge of community, demands for their attention, time, energy and effort can often feel like a tug of war. As in the cases of Mark and Jen, it is not unusual for life-altering events to express themselves in illness. At the University of Missouri, for instance, researcher Mark Flinn found that a child’s risk of upper-respiratory infection increases by 200 percent for the seven days following a high-stress event. And parents like Miranda’s might confuse what they believe are normal behavior with an expression of anxiety. Children often display their tensions in small acts that have aggressive undertones.
How You Can Help
There are many ways parents can help their children deal with stress and stressful situations.
Don’t try to fix everything for the child, and avoid offering advice. Sometimes just listening so that your child feels truly heard may be enough to relieve the stress.
As you listen, ask questions that encourage your child to think a situation through. “What’s the next step?” or “How would you handle that?” are good questions. Ask a lot of “what-if” questions, too.
Help children listen to themselves. Nurture Your Child’s Gift suggests quiet-time techniques for children to listen to nature sounds like rain or waves upon the beach, to their own heartbeat, or to recordings of whales, dolphins or birds.
Encourage children to spend time listening to their thoughts. When they feel free to speak their own thoughts aloud about a situation, things suddenly become clear.
Nurture Your Child’s Gift details a diaphragmatic breathing exercise for kids and parents. Shallow breathing is associated with the production of cortisol, the stress hormone. Deeper, effective breathing produces feelings of relaxation and calm.
Use soothing and rhythmic music, even simple drumming, to help your child relieve muscle tension. It works!
Don’t overlook exercise for releasing stress and tension. It works for your child just as it does for you. Have children walk the dog, get on the treadmill or stretch through easy yoga movements for children. Any movement they enjoy will help ease stress away.
Parents can do much to alleviate stress in their children’s lives. Effectively dealing with your own stress is the first step. Showing your kids how to release their stress comes next.
Success habits should not be set in stone because you constantly evolve. As you grow and change so do your habits because you will be redefining your goals and plans.
To create success habits, one essential is that you know what you want to achieve and why you want it. When you feel confident in your “why,” then you can make your commitment to creating it. This requires you to understand how you will change and how this affects your daily life.
You create a plan and there is an end goal.
You evaluate your plan every day to ensure that you are on the right path.
Following these two steps are prime examples of successive steps. Success habits require commitment and focus. To maintain these, you need a positive mindset and to be emotionally invested in achieving your goal. Without these, you could lose interest and momentum. Eventually, you might allow negative self-talk and behaviors to interfere with your practice and plans.
If your end goal changes then put the new goal into your plan and re-check every step to ensure that you remain committed and able to achieve the goal.
It may be that your original goal was to wake at 6.00 am every day as this would give you 2 extra hours before the start of your normal working day’s routine. Waking early is a success habit adopted by the majority of successful people as they understand the importance of time and routine. You may find that 2 hours is not enough time to complete the tasks that you feel are essential for reaching your goal and that you feel stressed and inefficient instead of positive and well planned.
You could re-plan and go to bed slightly earlier so that you can get up at 5.00 am. This would give you an extra hour in the morning to complete the tasks you feel are essential for a successful start to your day. Looking at these small changes in routines and not hesitating to make necessary shifts truly serves to strengthen your habits.
Your day can start in a positive way. This sets you up for success from the start. Develop a morning routine that works for you. It should include a healthy nutritious breakfast, as well as activity that will provide positive motivation for the day ahead. This will probably involve Planning different activities such as exercise, reading, listening to audio recordings, studying, yoga, self-hypnosis, visualization or using positive affirmations.
What works for you? Success routines take trial and error and also involve using different methods depending on the habit you are trying to create and the end goal. Being flexible is crucial. Flexibility ensures that when a change occurs, you view it in a positive light, accept it and go with it.
As you change and your business evolves, your routines may also change. You will want to evaluate which success habits you need. Don’t be afraid to change them, as the changes will create more commitment and focus. For your ultimate goal to be achieved you need to undertake the constant evaluation of your mindset, your habits, strengths, weaknesses, motivation, and goal. This constant re-evaluation will help you create success habits that work for you and not against you.
Success habits should not be set in stone. In fact, they constantly evolve because you will be redefining your goals and plans.
For you to be successful in creating habits, know what you want to achieve and why you want it. You need to committed to creating it and this requires you to understand why it is important to you. How it you change as a result? How will your life evolve?
Success habits require commitment and focus. To maintain both, create a positive mindset and to be emotionally invested in achieving your goal. It is too easy to lose interest and momentum without those goals lingering in your thoughts. If your end goal changes then put the new goal into your plan and re-check every step to ensure that you remain committed and able to achieve the goal.
It may be that your original goal was to wake at 6.00 am every day as this would give you two extra hours before the start of your normal working routine. Waking early is a success habit adopted by the majority of successful people as they understand the importance of time and routine. You may find that 2 hours is not enough time to complete the tasks that you feel are essential for reaching your goal and that you feel stressed and inefficient instead of positive and well planned.
Success Planning
You could re-plan and go to bed slightly earlier so that you can get up at 5.00 am. This would give you an extra hour in the morning to complete the tasks you feel are essential for a successful start to your day.
Start your day in a positive way! This sets you up for success from the start. Developing a morning routine will work for you.
Do you a healthy nutritious breakfast?
Do you have an exercise routine?
Do you read inspiring affirmation for your positive mindset?
Do you hold a specific goal in your mind that represents the day’s accomplishments?
Do you have life activities for reducing stress and promoting positivity, such as exercise, reading, listening to audio recordings, yoga, self-hypnosis, visualization or using positive affirmations?
It is important that you find what works for you depending on the habit you are trying to create and the end goal. Being flexible is crucial. Flexibility ensures that when change occurs you view it in a positive light, accept it and go with it.
As you change and grow, creating the success is so deeply satisfying. For your ultimate goal to be achieved, continue to evaluate your mindset, habits, strengths, motivation, and goal. This constant re-evaluation will help you create success habits that work for you and not against you.
How can a consultant or coach help us adjust our mindset for more positive outcomes? it is the half-full or half-empty glass kind of metaphor...
Negativity can discourage us:
add to our stress,
put a strain on our relationship,
make us less productive, and
reduce our overall happiness.
A positive mindset, on the other hand, has many benefits across our lives regarding our health, relationships, and careers.
But, how do you become more positive? Is it that simple? Take a moment to listen to this brief audio reminder:
Five steps to developing a more positive mindset:
1. Keep a thought journal
If you have a negative internal dialogue continually keeping you down, you need to take action to banish these thoughts. If you have difficulty identifying this negativity a simple first action can be keeping a thought journal. Write down a random sample of ideas in your mind about yourself, events, people around you, and other events that happen throughout your day.
Then analyze these thoughts by reviewing the journal every night and establishing your thought patterns towards a positive mindset.
Do specific events trigger your negative thoughts? Take note of these and the next time you face a triggering situation, review carefully how you are approaching it.
2. Banish negative self-talk
After keeping track of your thoughts for a week or two, you will notice how consuming your negative thoughts can be. The next step is to banish these all together. Next time you write down negative thoughts in your journal, rephrase the wording so that it becomes a neutral statement.
Example:
"Bob forgot to take out the trash again so I had to do it and it ruined my evening."
“Bob forgot to take out the trash. I did it. instead."
This step is a small but effective way to train yourself. Don’t do this exercise only on paper or in your journal. Begin to rephrase your negative thoughts into neutral phrases in your mind. The practice will become automatic and significantly reduces your anxiety.
3. See the positive side
To jump straight from negative into positive thoughts is a challenge and the reason why the neutral-thought stage is crucial. By banishing negative self-talk, you are in an excellent position to see different, genuine positivity in situations.
Refer back to your thought journal and examine again the negative thoughts you have had. For each negative view, can you transform it into at least one positive, upbeat equivalent?
For example, if you dislike a person because they speak poorly to you, think about how you are developing more resilience. What is the positive from that contrary position?
It can be hard to find benefits within challenging circumstances, but there is always a way to see something good.
As the Dalai Lama once said, “See the positive side, the potential, and make an effort.” Sometime, a lot of effort might be required, but it’s worth it!
4. Keep a gratitude journal
A gratitude journal is an incredible way to take stock of all of the beautiful things around you. Every evening you write down the sound, positive aspects of your day. In general, what are you grateful for and why?
Perhaps you are grateful to your friends for their support, for the warm bed where you sleep well, or for the great weather you had that day. Write down all the positives.
When I started a gratitude journal, I found my mind arguing with me and contradicting my positive statements. What I learned from exploring this is when I don't sleep well, the mind complains the next day without fail. Further research indicated that this is a typical pattern, but few people recognize the link between lack of sleep and mental angst or complaints.
5. Learn your sleep habits
This is a sure-fire way to re-ground you, make you gain perspective and make you realize how insignificant that particular trigger may be in the larger scheme of things. Context is essential, so keep shifting your mind towards the positive.
Stay grateful.
Final Conclusion
Practicing these four simple thoughts can help you transform how you perceive the world around you. Positive perception has the power to change your life, improving your attitudes and the ways that you respond to stress triggers.[Be patient and keep working at positivity, as it has so many benefits for your life, so make the most of it!
Can you see the one attribute critical for personal and professional success? What makes coaches so credible with clients and successful in business? Charisma, experience, and expertise are at the top of the list.
It's true. In every action your take in business or life, your mindset is the determining factor which influences your success. Your coaching mindset and plans require the same foundation, a fresh viewpoint about people, money, and solutions.
Here are examples of how a stressed or unconscious mindset could influence your decisions.
1. You think that helping everybody would be great for business. The solution would be to define your audience by temperament, income level, and initial problems you could solve. By defining a narrow path for your ideal client, you earn more and have more.
2. You set a sliding scale in good-hearted effort to turn away no one that you could help. While deserving and lovely, these clients are less than your ideal when it comes to their ability to pay. Can you meet your budget with a lower-end scale? Yes, possibly with a group program or class. Then, would this client enter into private coaching? Did they value your work and you?
Before you can realize your dreams of four-or-five-figure clients, you have internal work to upgrade. Perhaps these changes in the coaching mindset help you be open minded, focused, compassionate, playful or personal?
If you are a caring, heart-oriented supporter, your coaching strengths are:
Being able to re-frame other's doubts,
Listening to one's story,
Modeling the best conversation for the positive parenting with your client's kids.
If you are a charismatic influencer, you inspire those who admire you because
Your nature is gregarious
You enjoy people, and they appreciate your friendliness
You are an excellent example of creativity in action and brainstorming.
If you are an achiever-type coach, your coaching could challenge others
To tackle the project they've ignored
To commit to the exercise routine they need
To manage finances better
To plan the product launch sooner than later
If you are the kind of coach who strategizes, your primary strength is solving people's problems This makes you an excellent consultant. In coaching, you can ask the right questions to help a client strategize:
What is the result you want?
What is the first step you would take to get there?
Can you outline the process?
What resources will you need?
In coaching, you are often the cheerleader for your clients, and gratitude will be a quality that you want your clients to have.
In coaching, you expend energy being with your client. If you find yourself complaining or fatigued, what will you do to better care for you?
Growing Your Coaching Mindset Confidence
Here's something else top-end coaches have in common: confidence. They believe in what they do. They believe in their ability to help others achieve the same thing. They walk on stage or join a webinar filled with the knowledge that what they are about to say will change the lives of those who are listening. That is confidence!!
When you feel confident, you radiate confidence.
Just like how the person you're talking to on the phone can hear a smile in your voice, your potential clients can sense your mindset. If your mindset is not up to par with those you admire and mimic, you'll struggle to make the sale. Work on your attitude and confidence levels, and watch your income soar.
Do you have a plan for coaching procedures for your business? The most efficient ways to deliver new business strategies and increase your coaching income are the goals for this blog course.
Do you have a stand-alone coach training program?
Do you have a group coaching program you offer weekly or monthly?
If you already have these types of programs, then your clients might be ready for the in-depth one-to-one coaching program. The package is a "top of the funnel" offer when establishing coaching procedures.
Your clients would have read your free blog articles, perhaps participated in a group program, or enjoyed an online course. They know you and recognize your work. They know your value, and they'll be more than willing to pay for continued access to you. Moreover, your business experiences make you the perfect person to work with other emerging, talented business women. Your next step is to formalize the coaching package and make it available for sale.
The real value of private coaching is the influence you have and the impact you make on the lives of those you coach. With group coaching or self-study programs, it's difficult to know how many people are putting your expertise to work for them.
In a private coaching program, you'll be connecting with clients one-on-one, and you'll see what's providing the most useful results. Private coaching offers a highly rewarding relationship for both you and your customers.
STEP ONE -->
"Get Clear on the Problem You Solve"
As with every aspect of your business, your private coaching package must be highly targeted to be successful. You cannot just hang out your virtual shingle, call yourself a coach, and expect clients to line up for an appointment. Rather, to position yourself as the expert you are, become crystal clear on exactly:
• WHAT you do • WHO you do it for • HOW you want to do it • WHICH emotional results and tangible changes can you offer and guarantee.
When you can articulate the exact problems, you solve and who you work with, it will be much easier to find your tribe and attract buyers for your program. For example, business coaches might focus on solving:
• Money mindset issues for women entrepreneurs • Brand development for health and wellness coaches • Marketing help for information product sellers • Outsourcing problems for online businesses • Life coaches solve different issues. • Dating coaches have their particular area of expertise. Executive coaches focus on C-level employees.
You have your sweet spot, too, and it’s probably easy to identify.
Specialized Niche: You already know your general area of expertise, whether it's business, life, health, finance, parenting or personal growth.
Target Client Persona: Now think about who your favorite clients are. And if you don’t yet have clients, think about those you’ve helped in the past in any way—even if it’s through email or on social media.
• With whom did you most enjoy working? • What problems were you happiest to solve? • Which issues (and people) left you feeling frustrated and stressed out? • Those questions belong in your coaching package. • Who are your tribe members?These are the people for whom you're building your 1:1 package.
Next, consider what this client's biggest issue is. It's your ideal client's most pressing problem, the one she most needs to solve, and the one she will gladly pay to fix. Maybe her blog doesn’t get enough traffic. Perhaps her online dating profiles aren’t attracting her dream man. Or maybe her finances are out of control. Whatever the problem is, you have the answer and can help her find her answer. When you can craft a coaching package that gets results for your ideal client, you'll have a winning program. People will line up to enroll.
EXERCISE: DESCRIBE YOUR IDEAL CLIENT
If you haven't already done this exercise, spend some time defining your ideal customer. This exercise finalizes the coaching procedures you will put in place for automation. Explain everything you know about her, including her experience level, her dreams, her family life, her frustrations, her income, and anything else that will set her apart from millions of other potential clients. (Use additional sheets if needed.)
EXERCISE: STATE HER BIGGEST PROBLEM
Now that you've identified who your client is, the next steps are:
• Define her big issue concisely as possible, like • Struggles with self-esteem • Lacks confidence • Struggles to lose weight • Desires to explore relations
Start your day in a positive way! This sets you up for success from the start. Developing a morning routine will work for you.
