Be A Mentor at AASK

Do you remember the person who helped you search for your first apartment?

Who dropped you off for your first job interview?

Who was there to listen when you came home after a rough day at work?

One of the most critical needs in our community is for mentors to support foster teens age 17 and older. Upon celebrating their 18th birthday, foster teens “age out” of the system. The State provides each teen with monthly financial support for housing and food, but without a caring adult to guide and encourage them it can be very scary to venture into the adult world.

How does the program benefit teens?

As a Community Advisor, you can help make a difference in the life of a foster teen by serving as a role model, mentor and friend. You can provide them with emotional support and assistance in learning life skills as they transition from foster care to an independent life of their own. Community Advisors assist foster teens in learning positive decision-making, relationship building and becoming successful participants in their community.

Nationwide, foster youth without support are less likely to finish high school and are more likely to be homeless, unemployed, live in poverty, become involved in violence, drug and alcohol abuse, or be incarcerated.
How can you get involved?

Find out how you can make a difference in a foster teen’s future. Contact specialfriends@aask-az.org for program details and to download an application. You may also contact: Community Advisor Program Coordinator, Michael Weddle, at mweddle@aask-az.org or at telephone number 602.930.4451. Visit www.aask-az.org for more information.

Five Steps To Being A Mindful Parent

The term “mindful” has been the subject of much research in the past ten years. According to Jon Kabat-Zinn, a prominent researcher in mindfulness, “Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way; On purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally.”

Relative to your daily parenting, mindfulness refers to being present and alert in the moment with yourself first and then your child without distraction. Parenting mindfully means being present and non-judgmental in any given moment or experience. When one is present, alert and experiencing a moment fully, parenting attentively with love and compassion arrive with ease. Each moment flows to the next as you experience the thoughts, sensations and experiences of being in the moment with your child. Being mindful is living alertly in the now.

If one is going to establish a parenting process that takes just 30 mindful minutes a day to implement, it needs to be active, actionable and simple. No parent is going to adhere to a long arduous and confusing process. So the first step is to simplify parenting. Using mindfulness as the backdrop this is achievable.

Here are five simple steps to becoming mindful each day:

1. First thing in the morning, fresh out of bed, sit and meditate for five minutes, take a brisk walk or sit down with your planer and bring being mindful "front of mind."
2. Choose a specific person, activity, word or action to focus on.
3. Create a sentence to say to yourself that will help you to focus mindfully on this person, activity, word or action. As an example, for my daughters birthday, she wished for me to be a more back-stage helper rather than the director of the event. At eight years of age she had an image of how she wanted her party to go and she wished to be the director. So the day of her party, I sat for five minutes with my eyes closed, I centered my thought on the following affirmation "Allie is the director, I am the helper, let her guide the way."
4. When you live your mindful focus by observing your affirmation, sentence, or mantra, take one second to smile to yourself and think "I lived it!"
5. Release your brain to live the rest of your day with free and happy thoughts because you practiced and lived one mindful goal throughout your day.

Remember, one thought one moment at a time.

What is Stress by Entrepreneur Coach Peggy Porter

What Really is STRESS?

As women and Mom Entrepreneurs, stress is probably a word that we either say or hear daily. If we don't say or hear it then I guarantee most people feel it. It has become a fact of life.

The secret to handling stress, however, is in the management of it.

How a person manages stress and copes with change affects both the quality and length of life a person can expect to live. Hans Selye-the father of stress research and education, discovered in the laboratory that mood affects health. When you are happy, your body emits chemicals and hormones that combat disease and prolong life. When you are sad or depressed, your body releases chemicals and hormones that can trigger disease and prematurely end life.

For the typical person, half the source of stress is job related and half is connected to home and family.

If the workplace is stressful, it helps to have a safe haven at home; if there is stress at home, it is ideal to have smooth sailing at work. The person however who is fighting a double war-stress on the job AND at home-is a candidate for "breakdown", otherwise known as "burnout."

Here's one definition of stress:

The physical and emotional wear and tear resulting from real or imagined problems. When a threat to wellbeing is perceived, a small area of the brain known as the hypothalamus is activated. This stimulates a number of other physiological changes; increased release of hormones and chemicals into the bloodstream, increased heart rate, energy, respiration and blood flow to active muscles. The body goes into a state of "alert" - ready to take action, ready to combat the threat or run away. This is known as the Fight or Flight response. If you do fight or flee, chemicals and hormones are used up quickly by the body.

In the early ages of civilization when men and women were threatened by large predators, forest fires and an adverse climate the fight or flight response served them well. It was an excellent aid for survival; stressor -- physiological reaction -- fight or flee -- body returns to normal because they dealt with the stressor and then the stressor was gone until another one came along.

In the modern day, however, most of our threats are psychological instead of physical...often fighting is not appropriate and fleeing is not possible. Bodies still react just as our ancestors did so hormones and chemicals are released in response to the threat. Because the threats are more psychological than physical, we sit tight (unable to fight or flee as our ancestors did when dealing with a physical threat) and react to one stressor after another-usually leaving our body with no time to return to normal before the next stressor hits us. The level of chemicals and hormones increase and our internal organs experience wear and tear. Damage may result in conditions such as heart attack, stroke, ulcerative colitis, or other harmful diseases.

So as you can see, stress in today's society is much more serious and damaging than in the earlier ages.

Another challenge is that we accept stress as just a normal part of our lives without realizing the toll it is taking on not only on the length of our lives but the quality as well.

In order to be a successful business owner and balanced Mom, effectively recognizing and managing stress is key. Is stress affecting your life or business? If so, stay tuned for my next article where I will talk about the signs of stress and the one thing you MUST do to manage it more effectively. Visit www.peggyporter.com for more.

Time Management For Moms

In the past few weeks several moms and I have discussed the need to spend 15 simple minutes a day planning their strategies for home success.

Topics we have reviewed:

1. Manage your to do's: Write your to do's in your planner. Prioritize your to do's (ABC). Give a to do to someone else if it is not imperative that you do it.
2. Clean one room a day for 15 minutes and your home will sparkle.
3. Spend 15 mindful face to face uninterrupted minutes with your child, your relationship will blossom.

Now my wonderful colleague Heather Dominick www.energyrichcoach.com has introduced me to Paula Eder "The Time Finder." This is what I learned on her blog this morning - thetimefinder.com/

Finding Time You Didn’t Know You Had!

The secret to finding more time for yourself is by developing the skill that I call “Thinking 15.”

‘Thinking 15″ means looking at 15-minutes as the time-block that you build your day, and your daily plan, around. It means knowing that 15-minutes is plenty of time for many, many tasks in your life. You may not be able to complete a task in 15-minutes - but you can always make a start!

When you’re “Thinking 15″ you’ll find that you are making choices about time in a whole new way. What if you have 15-minutes between the dinner dishes and your coaching call? You won’t let that precious time go, thinking that there’s nothing on your plate that takes just 15-minutes.

Something is better than nothing.

Rather than letting that time go by, when you’re “Thinking 15” you might make a start on a task that you haven’t been getting to. Or how about jumping on the treadmill for a quick run, or lifting some weights? You could return a phone call or respond to some e-mails. Or you might choose to take the moment and sit quietly with yourself, as Connie Ragen Green and I suggested in yesterday’s post.

In all of these examples, the operative concepts are “Thinking 15” and recognizing that whether you consciously choose or not, you’re always making time choices!

As you go through your day, I guarantee that you will find “Thinking 15” to be a very useful tool for both finding and using time more effectively!

How many 15-minute time blocks can you reclaim and put to use today?

I'm looking at my day differently already. Thanks Paula!

The Family Coach Menu

Each day I am honored to receive many phone calls and emails from moms asking, "How can I improve my family life?" A good place to start is with your own personal priorities. What domains do you wish to improve? What are you currently finding most challenging? Look at The Family Coach menu, choose the three top areas in which you wish to work then email me on the CONTACT button on www.lynnekenney.com, I will help to guide you to resources that are best suited for you and your family.

THE FAMILY COACH
Coaching Menu

Better Family Living
 Create more family fun
 Develop closer family relationships
 Develop successful family leadership
 Develop successful family systems
 Develop successful strategies for disciplining our children
 Family meal planning
 Getting our children to do as we ask
 Goal setting for success
 Grocery shopping strategies
 Identify the foundation of our family
 Nutrition and health planning
 Simple cooking strategies

The Organized Home
 Daily action plan for healthy families
 Develop a system for family roles and responsibilities
 Develop a system for family tasks and chores
 Develop and implement study centers
 Time-management strategies (individual or family)
 Use schedules, posters, and picture boards for every day success

The Productive Family
 Homework success strategies
 Manage ADHD at home or at school
 Manage Anxiety/Anger/Avoidance
 MoveMent morsels: Health and exercise systems
 My family art center
 My family music center
 My family small manipulatives center
 Organizing our toys and tools
 Play Time strategies
 Setting up centers: Who, what, when, where and how
 Teaching readiness and responsibility
 You’re personalized “The Family Coach @ Home Curriculum”

What Does Coaching Mean To You?

What does coaching mean to you?

When you look back on your life experiences with your coaches, what did they do?
They helped you learn new skills.
They helped you improve your skills and abilities in order to go from ordinary to extraordinary.

The Family Coach is a method where a skilled person outside of your immediate circle, helps you to identify who you want to be and how you are going to get there. Coaching is about change through active questioning, data collection, decision making and implementation.

How The Family Coach works: The coaching process is an enjoyable and amazing journey in which you develop an effective collaboration between the family coach and yourself.

In creating skills for Better Family Living, the coaching work is about laying a clear foundation, identifying where you are, where you are going and how you are going to get there. You participate in an active process of goal setting and reexamination of your achievement towards your goals. You learn the skills to monitor progress toward your goals on a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual basis.

The Family Coach helps you plan for your future, organize your time, design your family life and realize your potential as a parent, mom entrepreneur and CEO of your family life. You can dive into Better Family Living Skills with The Family Coach Teleclass Series, email Lynne through the CONTACT button on the www.lynnekenney.com website if you wish to learn more.

Managing Anger and Anxiety II Teleclass

You are invited to the Managing Anger and Anxiety II Teleclass

Tuesday October 14, 2008 7:30-8:30 pm Pacific Time

I have created a teleclass to extend our learning from the recent NSP Workshop. Even if you were not free to attend, this teleclass will provide valuable content for you.

In this teleclass we will step back to the foundation of our homes. A topic few families ever have the opportunity to explore. We will review progress of your strategies to date and discuss Establishing The Foundation for your happy home.

We will review establishing your family mission statement, creating a values based family, and writing the rules for your happy home. You are free to invite friends if you wish. We all can learn to develop the foundation for our successful homes together.

For Registration Please Visit http://thefamilycoach.eventbrite.com/

The class will last 60 minutes. This teleconferencing opportunity costs $35.00. You dial the conference line and enter the PIN number. You pay for the long-distance charge, which varies based on your own phone sevice agreement. This is a live call similar to a conference call. You will be able to communicate with other class participants, ask questions and offer comments.

Please come to the teleclass armed with white paper, several markers and a pen. If you already have developed your The Family Coach Playbook, our notes will go there, if you have yet to develop your Playbook stay tuned... we will do it Tuesday via phone.

The conference line and PIN will be emailed to you upon registration.

Please secure payment through PAYPAL. I look forward to sharing this learning experience with you.

Very Best,

Lynne Kenney, PsyD

www.lynnekenney.com