Corporate downsizing, a sluggish economy and high unemployment has left many people fearful of the future as they struggle to provide for their families. As a result, job fairs are experiencing a record number of attendees and unemployment agencies are being inundated with new applicants daily. In an attempt to obtain employment, today’s job seekers want to know what types of skills are needed and which skills really pay off in the long run. Many are looking to reinvent themselves and retool their skills.

Stopping to ask, “What do I need to learn to fit into today’s job market?” and then seek training to develop the necessary skills are important steps to gainful employment. The concept of reinventing oneself and learning new skills is vital for obtaining employment.

Consider for a moment how the concept of reinventing oneself can also be applied to parenting. Learning new parenting skills is vital to the role of raising responsible children in today’s world. Keep the following suggestions in the forefront of your mind as you look to retool your parenting. Read the rest »

The old parenting paradigm calls on the parent to control the child. Be in charge. Make the decisions. Set the rules. Enforce those rules. Exercise your rightful parenting authority or your children will become unruly, undisciplined, and out of control.

But hold on. What if it isn’t so? What if a controlling parenting style breeds resistance, resentment, and reluctance? What if it creates defiance or the opposite, blind obedience? What if it fails to produce children who think for themselves, develop a healthy inner-authority, and become decisionally literate? Read the rest »

Are you at all interested in raising a thirty-year-old Nintendo player who lays around your house all day eating cold pizza and sucking up diet Pepsi? Probably not. If your are like many of the parents who attend our parenting workshops, creating a thirty-year-old video game player is not high on your list of parenting goals. Our prediction is that you are probably a lot more interested in raising a responsible, caring, conscious youngster who somewhere between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five, is capable of leaving home and living successfully on their own. Read the rest »

When economic times are good, you may be inclined to shop with little regard for price or value. But when conditions turn sour it’s another story. As your dollars must now be stretched longer and harder, you’d better spend each of them wisely.

What brand of watch do you wear? Whether a top-of-the-line Rolex or an economy Timex, recognize both keep excellent time. The current models all do a better job than the “precision” pocket watch your Great-grand-uncle Elmo used as a railroad engineer. The only justification for a high-priced model is self-image and the illusion of prosperity. These are both overrated. Read the rest »

Many of our thoughts about parenting are outdated. Used by our parents and others who have come before us, they have been passed on as worn out hand-me downs that no longer fit the time, the place, or us as uncommon parents.

We recently met a man on an airplane that proudly informed us, “Spanking worked for my grandparents, was used on me by my parents, and I am upholding the family tradition. What worked for them, will work for me.” Read the rest »

Many parents do not know how, do not want to, or lack the communication skills necessary to talk to their children about money in general. So when a money crisis develops, the potential to pass fearful and negative attitudes towards money to the next generation increases.

How effective are you at talking about money? What words do you use when you talk about money in front of or directly to your children? Below you will find a list of the ten best things you can say to your children about money. Use it to gauge your money talk skill level. Read the rest »

Bailout Wall Street. Bailout the banks. Bailout the people and institutions that got us in this financial mess to begin with. Is that a good idea? Who knows? Certainly not us.

We do not know enough, nor do we claim to know enough, about the current economic crisis facing our nation to be telling people what to do about it. We do not have sufficient understanding of all the interlocking ramifications of doing or not doing a financial bailout. The situation is outside our area of expertise.

What is not beyond our level of expertise, however, is what to do about the issue of bailing out our children. Read the rest »