Internationally recognized author & educator for professionals, parents, and kids
Posts tagged LSCI
I Wish I Could Have a Do-Over! 5 Strategies for Parenting with a More Level Head
013 years
Not long ago, my daughter, her best friend and I had a full day’s worth of activity and adventure, enjoying carnival games at a local festival, eating bags of salty popcorn, running through icy cold fountains when the day’s heat became too intense and following it all up with a late afternoon movie. It was Girl Time at its best!
Which is why I was totally blown away when, after dropping off her friend, my daughter’s answer to my innocent inquiry of, “So, what should we do for dinner?” was met with a raging, “Nothing! Can we just go home already? I think we’ve bonded enough for one day.”
“Was that a car that just rear-ended me?” I thought momentarily. “Can words cause whiplash?” I wondered. My white knuckles clutched the steering wheel with primitive force and I’m pretty sure the woman in the lane next to me witnessed steam coming out of my ears.
“Seriously?” I started out calmly. Unfortunately, I only began that way. Quick as a flash, angry words of hurt and indignation rang forth from my mouth. I promised to never take my daughter anywhere… ever… again. I threatened to cancel our “bonding plans” for next weekend’s end-of-school-year trip. I lied and told her that I had had a miserable day, too. In short, I mirrored the emotions my daughter had just unleashed on me and fueled the out-of-the-blue conflict with ten additional gallons of gasoline. When my rant was over, I looked at her in the rearview mirror and I knew I had blown it.
For the rest of this not-so-Mom-of-the-Year-moment–including my thoughts on how I would approach this situation if I could have a Do-Over–please check out my full article in the HuffingtonPost:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/signe-whitson/anger-management_b_1564608.html?ref=parents
Please also check out the tab on LSCI Skills for Parents training, for more information on de-escalating conflicts with kids and improving parent-child relationships.
Turning Down Your Child’s Invitation to a Power Struggle
013 years
In the LSCI Skills for Parents trainings, we teach parents and caregivers skills for preventing power struggles and declining invitations to arguments. I like this honest account from bestselling author, Rosaline Wiseman–both for her showing how easily we all can get drawn into conflict and how the simplest of moves can de-escalate situations effectively.
http://momster.familycircle.com/blog/how-to-avoid-the-bait-when-your-kid-picks-a-fight-with-you
LSCI Helps Adults Understand Why Kids Act the Way They Do
27013 years
A youth worker from Cal Farley’s Boys Ranch in Texas recently wrote this about LSCI training:
“LSCI is a great tool to use to be able to gain insight into why a child acts the way he does. It allows me to get to the root of a problem and help him make a change instead of just putting a band-aid on the problem. It’s a great everyday tool for building relationships with kids.”
Thanks for the feedback and thanks to our great trainers at Cal Farley’s who help adults turn crises into learning opportunities for kids with self-defeating behaviors.
For LSCI training opportunities in your area or to check out our online training course, please visit the LSCI Training page on this site or visit www.lsci.org
LSCI Teaches Skills for De-escalating Student Crises
48713 years
In Life Space Crisis Intervention (LSCI) training, professionals who work with challenging students learn specific skills for understanding the dynamics of conflict and de-escalating student crises. What sets LSCI training apart from other in-service programs is its focus on the adult’s role in conflict and the opportunity professionals have to turn a crisis situation into a learning opportunity.
This video, featuring real-life footage from a high school in Boston, is a great example of how adults can sometimes escalate conflicts with students. LSCI teaches specific skills that help professionals understand the dynamics of escalating power struggles with students and control their responses to students so that all-too-common situations like this can be prevented.
For more information on LSCI training, please visit the LSCI link on this site or the LSCI Institute’s home page at www.lsci.org.
It’s My Parking Spot! Classic LSCI Symptom Estrangement Example
013 years
For those who have completed LSCI training and learned about how to help kids who have a pattern of justifying their aggressive or antisocial behavior, here is a hilarious example of a woman in desperate need of the Symptom Estrangement Reclaiming Intervention:
LSCI Institute Offers Training for Parents on How to Help Kids through Conflict
101113 years
For the past several months, I have been working with my colleagues at the Life Space Crisis Intervention (LSCI) Institute to develop a training series that helps parents understand and successfully manage conflict with their kids. Based on world-renowned LSCI principles of helping adults turn conflict situations into learning opportunities for kids, the curriculum is designed to teach parents skills for effectively tuning in to kids, listening, de-escalating conflict, and relationship-building. Parents learn about the six most common patterns of self-defeating behavior and gain skills for helping their kids overcome troubling patterns.
The LSCI Skills for Parents curriculum will be formally available in the Spring of 2012, but check out the great work that LSCI Master Trainer, Dr. JC Chambers, is already doing while piloting the course. His work is featured in the Madison Daily Leader:
http://madisonet.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=20468969&BRD=1302&PAG=461&dept_id=181987&rfi=6
For more information on the LSCI Skills for Parents training, please contact me at Signe@signewhitson.com or complete the Contact form with the details of your request.
When Parents Mirror Kids’ Behavior: The Conflict Cycle on NBC’s Parenthood
13 years
The Conflict Cycle™ is Life Space Crisis Intervention’s (LSCI) major paradigm for understanding the dynamics of escalating power struggles between adults and children. In our training courses for parents and professionals, we explain that in times of stress and conflict, kids can create in adults their feelings, and, if not trained, adults will mirror their behaviors. In the heat of the moment, when adults do what comes naturally–what thousands of years of evolution have prepared their bodies to do–they often only make matters worse. That is why understanding the LSCI Conflict Cycle is the first line of defense against fueling further conflict.
This clip from NBC’s Parenthood is a perfect example of how Kristina gets caught in a Conflict Cycle and inadvertently mirrors Max’s behavior, thus escalating their power struggle. Ultimately, both mother and son lose out. The look of defeat on her face at the end of the clip says it all.
For more information on the LSCI Conflict Cycle and training for parents and professionals, please visit the LSCI link above or visit www.lsci.org
The Most Aggressive Defense of Teaching You’ll Ever Hear…by Taylor Mali
13 years
Wish I could have come up with this for all of the times that people have asked me why I used my Ivy League education to become a social worker…
One Teacher’s Milestone Moment in the Classroom
87614 years
Usually, when I’m at the pool with my kids, my attention is focused on watching dives, adjusting goggles, and re-applying sunscreen. Last week, however, I had the great pleasure of talking to a teacher while we watched my 5-year old perform a series of Lemon Drops and Cannonballs into the water.
The conversation started because my little pool jumper is a total extrovert and has never met anyone who wasn’t a friend. She introduced herself to the adults around her, including to the teacher with whom I then began a conversation. In the course of talking about the joys of working with young kids, the veteran teacher shared with me many of the challenges she has faced over the years. One story, in particular, reminded me of the truism we always teach in Life Space Crisis Intervention training:
“The problems kids cause are not the causes of their problems.”
The story went something like this: (more…)
What Teachers & Counselors are Saying about Life Space Crisis Intervention Training
91814 years
Check out www.lsci.org to see video footage of “what Trainers are saying about LSCI.” Many thanks to the Pressley Ridge Trainers and Jimmy Dowd for helping us create this special online feature!