By Erika Fehrenbach Prell When you become a parent, there are a myriad of thoughts swirling in your head, ranging in rationality. An innocuous thought of which diapers or bottles to use spirals quickly into, “Oh no! I used BPA-free bottles with my second but not with my first...have I set him up for cancer??”. Or, was that just me? While many of these topics may require some due diligence, there is something coming that is even more important, has a tendency to sneak up on even the most prepared parent, and WILL impact your child immediately and long term. I am talking about how you handle having difficult conversations with your child. Let me be clear. There is a difference between awkward conversations that deal with the body changes of puberty or, ahem, what mom and dad were doing the other night and difficult conversations . I’m talking about hard topics that kids stumble into accidentally on the internet or hear on the news or that you want to prepare them for ahead of time like violence or sexual predators. I know, we want to keep our kids in a little bubble of innocence and safety. One of my most prized roles as a mother is to protect these little humans fiercely (followed closely by keeping them alive...lol...and hopefully, molding them into acceptable members of society). My instinct is to protect them from all these horrible things. The truth, however, is that by sheltering my kids from all the bad, I am actually setting them up to be the next victim. This hit home recently in our little, innocent town in Wisconsin. Our school’s superintendent was arrested and charged with several awful charges (out of respect to his family who had no idea, I am purposely being vague). It rocked us all on two levels; one, he fell into the you would never suspect category and, two, he was a teacher turned principal turned superintendent so way too close to our kids! My oldest son is in sixth grade and younger son is in second. Thanks to the internet, my oldest son knew as much as I did by the time he got home from school. During the school day, I consulted with my mom tribe and husband on how we would discuss with our two very different aged children. Did we want to talk about this horrible topic? Nope. Did we realize we HAD to? Yes. Why? We wanted to establish an open communication line with our kids for difficult topics, we wanted to be the source of the information and not media or friends, and this topic opened our eyes that we HAD to talk about the scary parts of the world to keep our kids safe. These conversations do not have to be as hard as you think if you have a strategy going into it. Keep this in mind, depending on the age of your child, will depend on your strategy. The conversation we had with our 8 year old was done separately from our almost 12 year old and sounded totally different. For this reason, the following tips are broken down by age. You are the ultimate expert in your child and should decide the best way to conduct these conversations. The important part is to HAVE them! Why Having Difficult Conversations is Crucial
SoulShine SOULution Tips: How to Have a Difficult (or Awkward) Conversation With Your Kids
There are times you come across such an awesome resource that you say to yourself, “Whoa, this is amazing and NEEDs to be shared!”. That was my reaction when I stumbled across these tips from www.commonsense.org (and, I realized I could not make them any better). I love that these take into consideration the development stage of each of these age groups. Go to the website for even more details on each tip! Tips for kids ages 2-6 from commonsense.org Development Cliff Notes:
Difficult Conversation Tips
Tips for ages 7-12 from commonsense.org Development Cliff Notes:
Difficult Conversation Tips:
Tips for Teens from commonsense.org Development Cliff Notes:
Difficult Conversation Tips:
A few final thoughts, parents! Awkward and difficult conversations do not have to be a big deal. These are a part of life and a responsibility that we, as parents, have to teach our children so they are not victims themselves, have compassion and empathy for those that are, and learn how to critically think and handle situations in the world. I hope this mindset reset and these tips help you navigate this part of parenting and turns “awkward” and “difficult” conversations into just conversations. You were made for hard things; you got this! Shine on!
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AuthorsErika Fehrenbach Prell is passionate about inspiring and educating, others on their path to complete wellness-mind,body, and soul. This desire led Erika to the helping profession of nursing, and she obtained her Master's Degree as a Nurse Practitioner in 2007. Erika specialized in cardiac surgery, largely influenced by her personal experience with heart disease. While she loved working with this population, her heart's desire has always been to impact lives on a larger scale and from a proactive, not reactive, place. The universe answered when her path crossed with Jackie and SoulShine was born. Erika finally feels she is walking in her purpose and is excited for this journey to unfold. Archives
January 2021
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