Parenting Allies – A Parenting Forum and Social Network site

We were thinking it would be cool to have a social site similar to Facebook just for parents – then we found out a way to create your own social network, so we went ahead and did it! We decided to call it Parenting Allies, because in today’s world parenting is a tough job, and we need all the friends or allies we can get!

So what is Parenting Allies?

Parenting Allies is simply a place for you to go and share with other parents. There are many areas you can participate in, or you can just go there to look around and see what others are doing. Like Facebook, you can have friends and be notified when they do something. There are many other neat areas to discover, too, for example:

Parenting Forum

There is a parenting forum that is devoted to conversation with other parents in a forum type of setting. With topics such as Teenagers, ADD and ADHD, Adoption and Foster Care, Parenting Products, and Helpful Hints there is a section for everyone.

Blogs

You can create your own that’s just visible to you, you and your friends, or everyone. Of course, you can read others there as well.

Videos, Pictures, and Music

Post your favorite videos, photos, and music for all the parents to see or listen to.

These are just a few examples of what you’ll find at Parenting Allies. Best of all – it’s free to join. Take a look today!

As we work through the Total Transformation DVD’s and CD’s, we thought it would be worthwhile to explain a little about what the workbook is like, so you know what to expect from that part of the program.

The Total Transformation workbook is 118 pages, and it starts out explaining a little about the program, and a little about the creator, James Lehman. Then it immediately jumps into the training – it suggests you watch the Jump Start DVD, then answer a bunch of questions about your child (or children, as in our case – you may need to make extra copies of these pages). These questions are designed to help you identify the behaviors to focus on with your kid(s).

Then, Mr. Lehman suggests going to lesson 1 in the workbook, and taking a pre-test to lesson 1. After you take the test, you are to listen to CD #1 and then go through the exercises and/or additional information in the workbook. After lesson 1 in the workbook, there is a post-test, exactly the same as the pre-test, for you to take and see if your answers changed. He doesn’t do the post-test in every chapter, but he does do the pre-test.

A few of examples of the true/false questions he asks in the workbook are:

1. Children have to learn to feel good about themselves in order to be successful.
2. Inappropriate behavior is usually caused by low self-esteem.
3. When children lose control, they do not know what they are doing or saying.
4. Children will learn to solve their own problems if you only let them.

The answers to the above questions? 1: False 2: False 3: False 4: False

Did you get them all right? I know I didn’t – in fact, when I first took the test I only got 3 out of 10 right! I think I have some things to learn, right? The cool thing is, I have 5 kids and the oldest is 15, but it doesn’t matter – it’s never too late to get started with this program. All of my kids, including the oldest, have changed significantly from the techniques I’m now using.

The Total Transformation workbook goes through each chapter and CD in a similar fashion – recap, training, special words from Mr. Lehman, and tests. It’s great – and it’s not overwhelming. He suggests you take it one CD per week, and work on one, two, ten, or all of the techniques suggested. Then, move on to the next DVD.

Next post – the Jump Start DVD.

We’ve been married for 20 years now, and we’re the first to admit it hasn’t always been easy. We started out our life together heavily involved in drugs and alcohol, and both of us had unsuccessful marriages (and the ensuing divorces) under our belts. We weren’t especially well equipped because of our pasts to be good spouses. We eloped to Reno and got married without telling anyone in our family until a month after, which didn’t go over well at all! We were starting a marriage with 2 strikes against us, and it showed because we almost split up before we were married for a year.

Fortunately, those days are far behind us, and we’ve both been clean and sober for nearly 20 years, and have managed to become a happily married couple – most of the time, that is. We still have our problems, but we work through them with the help of tools and techniques we’ve been taught by various counselors throughout the years. And we continue to go to counseling on an as-needed basis, whenever we feel we need a little “tune-up”. There’s nothing wrong with admitting that you need help figuring things out.

Counseling is not for everybody

While I totally recommend counseling for anyone that’s having marital problems, I also understand that’s just not the route that some people want to go, for a variety of reasons, such as:

• They don’t want to expose their lives and/or problems to a stranger.
• They can’t afford it.
• They don’t have the time.

The Us Factor

Because of this fact, I was excited to learn that the creators of The Total Transformation had developed a marriage program called The Us Factor. I thought, “this might be the answer for couples that were struggling” so I got a copy of it and we started to go through it together.

What we found was some very good training by a counselor named Dr. Joseph Melnick, a licensed psychologist. I heard many of the things I’d learned from my counselors, and a few new ideas to boot! And I’m only through the first 3 DVD’s. If you’d like, you can read my Us Factor Review at our marriage website, How To Fix Your Marriage.

If you’re in the category of needing a little (or a lot) of help with your marriage, and you just don’t want to go to counseling, maybe The Us Factor is for you. Like Total Transformation, it doesn’t cost anything to try it out for a month, so it might be worth your while!

Do you really know what your teens are doing online? If you have a computer and teens in your house, then you need to have internet filtering software installed. There are some that are described as Parental Controls for Christians and they market themselves as being developed to appeal to the Christian community. It’s just plain scary what is going on, possibly right under our noses.

MySpace, Facebook and YouTube are 3 examples of thousands of social networking sites available on the internet today. While these sites are cool and allow kids to talk and easily share things with each other, they can also be extremely dangerous. One of the goals on MySpace and Facebook is to have as many friends as possible, and because of this predators abound on these sites. It’s easy for someone to pass themselves off as someone they’re not, and to gain the confidence of your child. From there it’s simple to find out where they live and possibly “show up” at your house.

These social sites are just the latest example of exploitable areas on the web. There also still remains the threat of pornography, weapons sites, and any number of other threats.

So what can you do?

First, get a good parental control program. A free one that is recommended by James Dobson is K9 Web Protection. I haven’t used this one, but it must be good if Dr. Dobson recommends it. The product I use is called Safe Eyes, which I believe is the most advanced internet filtering software available. It was recommended to me by the youth pastor at my church.

Safe Eyes gives you a great amount of flexibility, and works very well. You can set up individual accounts for different kids, and block groups of sites based on category. You also have the ability to block individual sites. You can also block chat type of sites if you want.

In addition to this site-blocking capability, you can also limit the child to how much time per day that he can spend on the internet, and you can choose the hours that it’s available. We shut our kids off after 9 PM. One saying that we have is that nothing good happens after midnight. On a side note, that’s our curfew time for our teens, and probably will be forever. For more information about Safe Eyes click here.

Here are a few more tips I gained from an article by Elisabeth Wilkins, Editor of Empowering Parents website. You can view the entire article here.

Most importantly, begin conversation about internet safety as soon as you allow your kids on the internet. They need to know the dangers right away.

Keep the computer in a central space in your house. It’s important that none of this stuff – computers, cell phones, iphones – should be in their bedroom. Children don’t have self control, and they don’t understand the dire consequences – you have to take care of them!

Have your teen help you set up your Facebook account. They’ll probably roll their eyes, but it’s a good teaching opportunity for you to look into security settings with them, making sure the profile is private. Explain to them how if their profile is public, anyone can see it, including prospective employers. Many people haven’t gotten jobs because this is common practice today, checking the internet for information on possible employees.

Tell them to never post their address, phone numbers, or social security numbers. Also, explain the danger of sharing their passwords with anyone. There have been cases where a relationship has gone sour and people have gotten revenge through a Myspace or Facebook profile, by posing as the person with whom they have the grudge.

These are just a few points. Many more are discussed in the article, called Parents, Get a Clue: What Teens are Really Doing Online.

Do you care about your kid’s safety and innocence? Then don’t wait, take the steps to protect them today. Get some internet filtering software, and talk, talk, talk. It may be the most important thing you’ve ever done!

As you browse around this site, we hope you’ll find some effective parenting skills that will work for your family. As far as our family goes, we believe  The Total Transformation Program is the one tool that’s had the biggest impact on our household, but you need to find out for yourself. Click here to try it free for 30 days, and if you decide to keep it only then will you  have to pay for it.

Interesting things were happening with my 2-year old daughter

She didn’t like certain things touching her skin, or clothing tight on her skin. Wearing underwear would unnerve her. Food textures were bugging her. (She wouldn’t eat fruits and vegetables – still won’t). She didn’t like to be snuggled for long. She always was a strong-willed child so I let these things continue, figuring that they were just part of her strong independence.

By age 7, I knew this was deeper than I thought. I was telling my friend about her symptoms and she said she had been given a book by her caseworker for her adopted kiddo that sounds like what I was talking about. It was called The Out-of-Sync Child. I went through it and sure enough it felt like someone had followed my daughter around then wrote a book on their observations.

I went to my doctor and explained what I saw. I have the best pediatrician who trusted and validated my “mom” instincts. He referred me to an occupational therapist for testing.

The whole testing process was amazing

I couldn’t imagine how the way they were testing was going to reveal the diagnosis of SID. Not until they had her do a test were she had to move pegs on a board into a pattern shown on a paper. This involved crossing her right hand back and forth on the board, and across her body. She couldn’t do it. She would actually stop at her body’s midline and use her left hand to finish the movement. This, coupled with the results of the other tests, was confirmation that the right and left sides of her brain were not communicating well. Thus she was diagnosed with SID, or Sensory Integration Disorder. It’s also referred to as Sensory Processing Disorder, or SPD.

Walk backwards with something heavy!

The therapy was intriguing. Swinging, not spinning, brushing her skin. Doing brain exercises that including flexing her fingers together and then drinking a glass of water. These were especially effective right before doing her homework, on getting her brain engaged correctly. Carrying heavy things and walking backwards also helped her pull it together. A doctor who had the disorder himself came up with the therapy. Wow!

The downside was that there is more success with the therapy the earlier in life you catch it. After age 8, the success rate drops dramatically.

Success!

We have watched her grow into a 14-year old who can now more and more manage by using her coping skills (she would hate to know I wrote this, but she does now wear underwear!). I have also seen these symptoms manifest themselves in my youngest child and responded much more quickly in getting help. He’s a little different, he doesn’t like meat either, in addition to vegetables and fruit. It’s all about the textures, not them being picky eaters.

As you browse around this site, we hope you’ll find some effective parenting skills that will work for your family. As far as our family goes, we believe  The Total Transformation Program is the one tool that’s had the biggest impact on our household, but you need to find out for yourself. Click here to try it free for 30 days, and if you decide to keep it only then will you  have to pay for it.