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Parenting Fundamentals - Part 3: Teaching About Media

Welcome to Part 3 of this 3 Part blog series that highlights what I learned about parenting in my Marriage and Family Sudies degree. I'm hoping to give you the most condensed but impactful lessons from my studies, that's what this blog series attempts to do.

A common concern that comes up when I'm helping parents in my coaching practice is teen depression and anxiety. Many of the teens I coach ask for my help in those areas too, and the first area I ask questions about are the teen's media usage, whether a cell phone, tablet, or computer.

There is a high correlation between media use and teen depression and anxiety. A study published back in 2017 from San Diego State University psychologist Jean Twenge acknowledges the correlation, though is cautious to prove causation (Twenge, 2017). Even so, the study raised a big red flag to parents.

Between 2010 and 2015, Twenge's findings indicated the biggest increase was among girls who were six times more likely than boys to report...

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Parenting Fundamentals - Part 2: Self-Esteem and Resilience

Welcome to Part 2 of a 3 Part Series on Parenting. My hope in writing about these fundamentals is to help set you up for more self-trust and confidence and enjoy your motherhood journey more.

I've been intrigued by the concept of Motivation ever since I was a little girl with my piano practicing and later with my music teaching studio.

A personal story

I was told my whole life I am 'talented, gifted at music,' etc., and while it felt good to be told those things, it also built some anxiety inside of me if I didn't perform well.

I started competing in piano competitions in the fifth grade. At first, it was fun because I won all the time. It was easy. I was praised a lot by my teacher and my parents and my grandmother. I loved all the attention, and I loved those ribbons and special certificates. One of my piano judges wrote the words, "I can tell you mean business when you sit down to play the piano..." and I took those words to heart. I loved getting praise.

But somewhere in the...

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Parenting Fundamentals - Part 1: Effective Discipline

When I was a young mom, I was confused about discipline. I second-guessed myself a lot and was worried I was messing up my children for life if they were mad at me.

I took upon myself to learn what healthy marriages and motherhood looked like when I signed up for my Marriage and Family Studies degree as a young mother.

And maybe you're a little bit like me, you might feel guilty for not enjoying motherhood more sometimes.

It was so important to me to be a good mom!

But how? Where was the 'Good Mom Manual' that all the other moms were using?

This 3 Part blog series helps answer those questions. If I had to boil down what I learned about parenting in only three take-aways, and give you the most condensed but impactful lessons I've learned from my studies, that's what this blog series attempts to do.

I hope it helps you believe in yourself a little more, trust yourself a little more, and most of all, enjoy motherhood a lot more.

 

Effective Discipline

I know there is so much...

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Trusting Your Body When You Have a Chronic Illness - Interview with my Friends series - Shelby Hansen

I have so many friends and some loved ones who live with chronic conditions, Shelby knows a lot about this and has so much wisdom to share. Her perspective will be a gift to you if this is something you relate to or have a loved one who is going through it. And so when I invited her onto the podcast and she said yes, I knew you would love to meet her and I was so excited to share her with you. 

She’s doing some important work with others out there. And I think if you are looking for a coach who specifically can help you with managing chronic illness and still live vibrantly, then she’s your gal. I love how her message is to live vibrantly, you’ll learn more what she means by that. 

Shelby has such an amazing life with so many hardships. In the podcast she goes a little bit more in detail about it. Her insight about chronic illness and supporting loved ones with chronic conditions is something you don't want to miss. She had to have a kidney transplant at...

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#4 Artist Pep Talk - Jealousy and Creating Your Own Opportunities

I want to talk today about jealousy and creating your own opportunities. And many of us experience this, I know I’m not the only one, we see other creators and wish we were doing what they’re doing, and then realize - hey - you know Danielle, you can always go and create that thing for yourself in your own way. 

And every so often some of my creative friends, my musician friends will say to me things like, 

  • I wish I had a holiday album I could share every year. 
  • Or I wish I had done a music video when I released that one song
  • Or I wish I could be brave and do a podcast.

And I feel so much compassion for that feeling of wishing, because I SO get it. I’ve always tried to figure out that part of me, that part of human nature that wishes we could do what other people do, because it’s fascinating when we break it down, what it is that holds people back, or what it is that makes the difference between creating your own opportunities and those of...

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Life Coaching for Men

Growing up, your man may have never witnessed an adult who could regulate their emotions. I hear this more often than not from the men I’ve coached. Maybe they saw yelling, maybe the silent treatment, and maybe even complete avoidance.

What happens is we learn the way to deal with uncomfortable emotions is to well, not deal with them. 

Often, if this is the childhood experience the man in your life has had, he will view small situations as a crisis and complete chaos. He may have saw shame stop him from speaking up about the realities going on around him, and never feeling like he could trust that his emotions were safe.

He might have learned that what people thought and that the intellect was more important than how he felt.

If so, then He learned codependency, enabling, and overachieving, and overprotecting was love. 

There comes a time when he will want to try a different way of living for himself and the family he’s creating. But he won’t know...

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Artist Pep Talk #3 Finding Inspiration

Have you ever hit a season in life where you just feel… flatLike your bucket is empty. Your inspiration is non-existent. No matter how hard you try, you can’t seem to summon that flow of energy and passion like you used to? I’ve been there. And I want you to know — you’re not broken, used up, or “past your prime.” 

Your creative spark is simply suffocating beneath the weight of all your responsibilities.

 Because — let’s face it. Especially if you're multi-passionate like me, life can get overwhelming, fastBetween work, family, friends, health and just getting the basics done, it’s A LOT. We wake up. Survive. Sleep. Repeat. It never stops. Especially when you’re in the trenches with young children.  But deep in my heart, I know I’m a creator.  And I’ve had to learn how to honor this instead of dismissing it. I now know how to create. I’ve...

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When a Child is Taking Advantage of Your Kind Nature

Today, we’re going to talk about when a child, and by that, I mean an older child - a young adult - is taking advantage of your kind nature. If you have young children, this will still be relevant to you, because I love to think about parenting with the end in mind - which is to raise happy, resilient kids who thrive out in the world and who we have a fulfilling, balanced relationship of give and take together as they get older and as we get older. 

This topic is something that I’ve experienced as a sibling, as a sister, but not as a parent, and I want to be upfront about that because I’m speaking as a sister who’s seen this happen in the family, and I’m speaking as a coach who coaches parents on this dynamic, when a child is taking advantage of your good heart, your big loving heart, your kind nature. 

My story began when I was adopted by my aunt and uncle when I was a toddler, I don’t know if many of you know that? And I grew up with...

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Why I Love Future Focus and Why You Will Too

I’m so excited to share this topic on future focus, why I love it and why I think you will too. It came up for me this last weekend, I was able to spend a beautiful getaway with my husband at the very same place we spent our honeymoon thirty one years ago, the same spot on the beach on the Oregon Coast. We had time to talk and laugh, and reminisce, we enjoyed lots of  fresh seafood at our favorite restaurants, we saw whales just off the coast and that was exciting, we stopped at our favorite candy shoppe and picked out our favorite salt water taffy flavors, he loves peppermint, and I love orange cream and cinnamon, and we took time to reflect on the ups and downs we’ve been through. My husband asked me, he said, “what kind of thoughts do you have today when you think about us and our future versus how you thought about our future on our honeymoon?” And I was like, woah!! That’s such a great question.

So when we talk about Future Focus, this can be...

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Artist Pep Talk: Spiritual Electricity

 

I know for creative folks, sometimes our lives can feel a little flat, we have so many great ideas and big dreams, but it can be so difficult to actually make our dreams come true for ourselves. 

I don’t think it’s supposed to be easy to be creative. I think we are working with a lot of resistance and with this thing called ‘entropy’ in the world - have you heard of that word before? Entropy?

It’s important to understand what Entropy is and how to work with it.

What Is Entropy? Generally, entropy is defined as randomness or disorder of a system. This concept was introduced by a German physicist named Rudolf Clausius back in the year 1850.  

 

When we engage in creative work, we enter into a different, altered state from life as we know it. For me, I have to go through a little bit of a withdrawal. 

Julia Cameron in her book, ‘The Artist’s Way,’ describes this withdrawal state as a detachment or...

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