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January 14, 2006

Depression - Finding The “Write” Solution!

Depression - Finding The “Write” Solution!
by Dr. Isaac Schumann

Most of us feel depressed or “down” at sometime in our lives but, fortunately, it`s usually short lived. Some people, however, are unable to shake off their feeling of depression and are diagnosed as “Clinically Depressed”. Many types of pills and drugs are prescribed but they often lead to addiction in addition to depression, thus creating a never ending downward spiral.

Thousands, and possibly millions, of patients are convinced they`ll never recover which only adds to their sense of low-self esteem. Today, people suffering from depression seek alternative remedies such as acupuncture and various therapies. Cognitive behavioral therapy is one of the most popular as it encourages people to view their problems from a different perspective. It is one of the most successful therapies but not always available on a continuos basis which is essential if the patient is to benefit.

People who struggle financially can find this particular therapy difficult to obtain on an ongoing basis as their appointments may be weeks apart. Wealthier people, of course, don`t encounter such problems as they have sufficient money for private treatment. Everybody would agree this is unjust but, regrettably, life is frequently unfair.

There are other methods of coping, such as self-help groups which some people find incredibly supportive. Friends and relatives can also provide a “shoulder to cry on” but very few are able to provide long term support because they are emotionally too close to the patient. The majority of friends and relatives find it hard to be objective. Some of them even go so far as to tell those suffering from depression “to snap out of it”. This is fatal as this is exactly what they want to do but are unable to do so.

One of the best ways of coping with depression is to enroll in a creative writing course. Not an obvious way of coping, it must be said, but one that can produce amazing results. People who enroll in these courses are not required to have any qualifications apart from, obviously, a desire to write.

The reason these courses are so successful lies in the fact that people who attend them have to think about matters other than their problems for a couple of hours. This concentrates the mind wonderfully and allows people to perceive things in a different way which is reminiscent of the principals of cognitive behavioral therapy.

The courses cover story writing, poetry, stage, screen and radio plays plus the outlines of writing a novel. Topics include characterization, plot, dialogue plus a host of other subjects. Each and every one can offer countless ways whereby people are able to release their innermost thoughts, desires and anxieties, so relieving considerable tension.

Poetry offers one of the best methods of expressing emotion which in itself is extremely cathartic. Listening to other people`s views is also particularly therapeutic as, again, this distances people who are depressed from dwelling on their troubles affording them a welcome respite. Creative writing courses really do expand the mind and leave it open to new experiences which are of tremendous benefit to anyone suffering from low self-esteem.

Writing, by its very nature, depends on self expression which often helps people to understand feelings which may have been suppressed for years. This can result in a completely new outlook on life itself. It is simply a question of being receptive to new ideas but the rewards can be huge.

In a nutshell, minds become focused on looking outwards, rather than inwards, when involved in the process of writing. In accomplishing such an achievement creative writing must count as one of the best treatments in helping people to overcome depression. Enroll on that course today! You`ll find it can “literally” change your life.

Dr. Isaac Schumann brings to you a life time of experience in the mental health field
http://www.depressionhelpguides.com

Article Source: http://articles411.com

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Task Management Tools – The Difference Between Average And Successful People

Task Management Tools – The Difference Between Average And Successful People
by Paton Jackson

Task management is the true challenge on the modern world we live in. Time is more precious than ever and the amount of tasks each of us has to cope with is almost endless. The only difference between successful and average people is their ability to manage their tasks effectively. This ability could be improved significantly by using task management software and other task management tools.

Try the following recommended tools to improve your task management abilities:

1. Paper planning systems – Those systems help you organize your life (and your tasks of course).
Think about starting each day with going through your daily task list of the incomplete activities, the prescheduled activities and meetings for the same day, the long range task and goals and only then prioritizing the tasks for the same day and starting to work.
The paper planning pages and systems help you organize your task appropriately. These are the most proven task management system. It had been used by most of the successful managers of the 20th century, and it is still the most popular planning and task management tool.

2. Planning software programs – task management software programs have been here for many years. The problem was that most people manage their tasks and emails on their email system e.g., Microsoft outlook.
The most effective task management software programs are the ones that have a direct interface with outlook or other email programs. This interface include powerful tools like goal planning tools, project management tools, task prioritizing tools and more all using only the outlook user interface.

3. PDAs – PDA stands for a personal digital assistant. A typical PDA can function as a cellular phone, fax sender, Web browser and personal organizer. Most of the modern managers use PDAs as Ipaq or Palm as their personal diary, meeting scheduler and task manager. PDAs are small, convenient and user friendly.

Don’t wait. Start managing your tasks more effectively today by using one of the above task management tools. Go and get them.

911 Corp. has made a research to find the best task management tools. Find out all about the results on Task management tools and more . All about time management on: http://www.911makemoretime.com

Article Source: http://articles411.com

January 9, 2006

Easy Article Writing Tips

Easy Article Writing Tips
by Nell Taliercio

Whether you are just starting out with your online business or you are seasoned pro, writing and distributing articles is one of the most effective and low-cost ways to drive lots of targeted traffic to your site. Writing articles and submitting them to the article directories will get you free traffic when people click on the link in your resource box. It is also a great way to improve search engine rankings, since you will have plenty of incoming links to your site. Let’s take a look at how you can get started writing articles. Here are a few tips to get you started.

Write a Top Ten List

An easy way to get started with an article is to come up with a Top Ten List. Find a topic related to your business and jot down ten reasons why someone should purchase your product or offer advice on a topic that’s related to your website. Examples would be top ten ways to get your baby to sleep through the night, top ten reasons to write articles, or top ten reasons to buy car insurance. Once you have your list of ten items, write a little paragraph about each, explaining the reason in a little more detail.

Next you add an introductory paragraph that pulls the reader into your list. For example an introduction to the baby sleeping through the night article could mention how hard it is to make it through the day and how sleep deprived you are until you get your baby to sleep through the night. Then close your article either by summing up what you just told them in your top ten lists or encouraging them to act on what you just told them about.

Congratulations, you just wrote an article. Of course you can easily shorten this to a top 5 list. Just write a little more about each of your points.

Record Your Article

Some people prefer recording themselves while they are talking about a particular topic and then transcribing and editing it into an article. If you have an easier time talking about a particular topic than writing about it, this may be a great option for you. Most MP3 players now come with a record option, or you can pick up a cheap tape-recorder. Pick a topic and just start talking as if you were explaining it to a friend. Just start babbling and the ideas will start to flow. Now listen to your tape. Write down and arrange the major points you mad in order. Add an intro and a closing and you have another article.

Hire a Ghost Writer

If you are having a hard time writing articles, or just don’t have the time to do it, you can still benefit from article marketing by hiring a ghostwriter. Ghost Writers will write unique articles for you that become your intellectual property. You can post them as your own work to your site, your blog, as well as the article directories. You can find a ghost writer on sites like elance. There are also some freelance writers with their own websites out there. You can usually buy articles anywhere from $5 – $65.

Write an Outline and Have Someone Else Turn it into an Article

Another option if you don’t want to do all the writing yourself is for you to write a basic outline of the article and the point you want to bring across. Jot down any ideas you have for the article, then ask a friend or hire someone to flesh it out for you into an article. You may be more comfortable with passing these articles off as your own, since the content of the article was your original idea. Someone else just put it into an article format for you.

There is no reason for you not to get started with article marketing one way or the other. Get a few articles out there and then sit back and watch the traffic come in. You’ll be so impressed by the results you can get even from a handful of article, you’ll be writing them and submitting them all the time.

For a FREE 5 day article marketing ecourse, in which you learn how to make more sales, get more traffic and increase your search engine rankings using articles click the following link: http://www.articlemarketingrocks.com/ecourse.html

Article Source: http://articles411.com

January 6, 2006

How To Choose The Best Directories For Your Article Writing Campaign

How To Choose The Best Directories For Your Article Writing Campaign
by Deanna Mascle

If you have spent any time at all researching internet marketing strategies then you know that writing articles can help position you as an expert in your field, gain valuable targeted traffic for your web site, drive leads to your products, grow your email list, and quickly multiple your site’s text links.

Once you are ready to dive into article marketing — and you have a few articles all lined up and ready to submit — you can quickly become overwhelmed by the sheer volume of article directories available. Sure you could simply use a search engine to locate article directories but a recent search netted me 17,800,000 results. That’s enough to make anyone give up before they even begin! Plus that is really not a very effective way to determine the quality of a directory and doing your own quality check can be extremely time-consuming.

Why should you care about the quality of the directory? Just think about it. On the internet you are very much judged (by search engines and visitors alike) by the company you keep. Another important reason to carefully select your article directories is that your time is finite. It is better to regularly submit to a core group of high-quality directories than to throw the same handful of articles at every directory site you can find.

Finding the best high-quality article directories that meet your specific needs and match your specific goals can greatly increase the power of your article marketing campaign. You need to become a savvy article marketer to maximize your article marketing campaign.

Great, but how do you find those high-quality directories?

When I first embarked on article marketing I went straight to people who had been article marketing for a while and asked them for their top recommendations. I posted the question in a couple forums that I regularly check. I quickly assembled a list of hundreds of sites. Now obviously this list is much more manageable than the 17+ million I got from Google but still rather large. First I culled through and found the sites that were mentioned by more than one person and that list became my starting point. I then gathered as much information as possible to determine if they were right for me. I will share my criteria and priorities but you need to work out your own.

Here are the 10 essential questions I ask when reviewing a site:

1. How old is the directory? Is it well established and ranked or is it new and growing? If not then I cross it off the list.

2. Can you easily identify who owns and/or operates the directory? Is there a way to contact that person?

3. How fast do they respond to your email contacts and/or article posts?

4. How many authors does the site have listed? A lot of authors and articles mean a well established site but there may be room on a growing site for more exposure.

5. How many articles does the site have listed? Again a big site won’t get knocked off my list for this but a small site that is growing steadily might be due for a good seo bump soon.

6. Think about the categories you are likely to need and see if they exist. Is there a place to submit all your articles? If this is a niche directory it may be very narrow but then might also be to your benefit in the long run — if at least some of your articles fit within the niche.

7. What special options does the site offer visitors and publishers? Do they provide RSS feeds, email alerts, forward to a friend function and other strategies to increase the distribution of your articles?

8. Are they responsible with the advertising clients they have on their site? ie: No popups, flashing, or offensive ads

9. Do they provide article reports to help you see which articles are getting viewed, rated, distributed or not?

10. How do the search engines view this site?

After visiting each directory and answering these questions it is easy to refine your list to a handful of top sites that you want to really concentrate your efforts upon. You can also maintain some a list of additional sites to submit to as time allows.

I also regularly re-evaluate my top article directory list. I check my backlinks and the directory stats to see how my articles are doing. Some sites move up and down my priority list (or even off the list entirely) when I investigate how they are performing for me.

Learn more about Creating Your Article Marketing Campaign by visiting http://AnswersAboutWriting.com or http://NowLearnMore.com . Sign up for our free Article Marketing tutorial to read the full article and many more helpful article marketing tips.

Article Source: http://articles411.com

December 29, 2005

The Best Weight Loss Program And Ultimate Self Help Book

The Best Weight Loss Program And Ultimate Self Help Book
For The New Year by Kelly Burris

Reprogramming the Overweight Mind 7 Steps to Taking Control of the Subconscious does not follow the usual weight loss and diet book formula. There is not even a diet in the book. Instead the primary focus is on the behavior of eating and over 20 years have been spent perfecting the clinically proven program contained within the book. Every other book on weight loss has taken the position of attacking the body to try and change the mind.

The health of your body is dependent on your mental health and taking control of the subconscious is the key to lasting permanent change of any behavior. The subconscious mind is like a car without an off switch and an unknown driver. If you decide not to drive because you do not know how, it is going to drive itself. To give you an idea of the power of the subconscious, you can speak at a rate of about two to three hundred words per minute. Your subconscious runs at a rate of about one thousand to twelve hundred words per minute which is about four times faster than you can speak. This is why you can talk on the phone and perform other tasks like typing on the computer or driving a car because the subconscious is already programmed to do the other tasks.

You can look at the conscious mind and the subconscious mind like a tug of war with a vat of mud in the middle for whom ever loses. The conscious mind is one person on one side against the subconscious, which are four people on the other side. If the conscious mind decides to move in a different direction like changing your diet, losing weight, increasing your fitness program or any other change in your behavior, it is usually a losing proposition because you are simply out numbered with information. The only way you can insure permanent behavior change is take control of the subconscious.

The Audio/Data CD included with the book is what makes this book the Best Weight Loss Program and Ultimate Self Help Book for the New Year? The audio portion of the CD is a guided meditation that is based on information collected in the first six steps of the program as opposed to using generic information. The Data portion of the CD includes all the documents necessary to perform a study that measures the dramatic improvement of the emotional state of the person using the program. The program process is based on the reality that all behavior is emotionally driven so if you understand how an emotional state comes about you can intervene and change the behavior. This is the foundation of the book and why it works for the full spectrum of behavior, not just weight loss, fitness motivation and eating disorders. All of this would not have much meaning if the book did not answer the most fundamental question first. What determines human (your) behavior? I have worked with people who have been in therapy for 20 years and can not answer this question. They can not answer the question because the therapist they are working with can not answer it. How can you help someone change a behavior if you do not know what brings a behavior about to begin with?

Many people have reported that just the first two chapters of the book have made a significant difference in their lives. Because of this response Kelly has released the first two chapters for distribution free of charge.

Regardless of weather your health goal is a change in diet for weight loss, an increase in your fitness program or to take control of an eating disorder such as anorexia or bulimia. In the end the question you need to ask yourself is…Am I completely happy with the mind running itself or do I need to take control of it? If your answer is I need to take control of it, then Burris MIND/FITNESS is the answer.

For weight loss, diet, health, fitness, & eating disorder information go to KellyBurris.com.

Article Source: http://articles411.com

Find More Great articles by Kelly at http://infoaboutweightloss.com

December 23, 2005

Making Yourself Memorable: Create A Stunning Powerpoint Presentation

Making Yourself Memorable: Create A Stunning Powerpoint Presentation
by Christina Greenway

Did you know that using a PowerPoint presentation can be one of the most effective ways to address a large group of people? With such a variety of learning styles, using a visual presentation allows you to reach a large group of people – particularly those who need to see it to believe it. What better way than to create a stunning PowerPoint presentation?

Have the data, but lacking that polished finish? A good way to start is to look at templates to get an idea of which style suits you and your presentation. By accessing numerous templates at http://Microsoft.com you be able to create stunning presentations. Looking at an individual slide or downloading an entire sample presentation can inspire you to be more creative with the content that you include in your own presentation. There are many charts and diagrams in different templates that can really spark your creativity and give you additional ideas to give your presentation a professional look. While looking through the samples, consider that if you are wowed by the slides, graphics, or charts, your audience probably will be too.

What works? There is no magic formula, but there are amazing presentations. With the ability to create almost anything imaginable, there is no limit to what can be included in your presentations. Vibrant colours, sleek graphics and stylish photographs all contribute to making a great presentation even better.

What does not work? Avoid the overuse of clip-art. Although there is some good quality clip-art out there, too much in a presentation can be distracting and give it an unpolished, unprofessional look. That is not to say that there isn’t a time and a place for a cleverly placed clip-art picture. Another thing to watch out for is wordiness – before adding a slide filled with text, consider adding the supplemental information in a handout.

Handouts are another great idea because you are providing your participants with additional information which adds value to your presentation. The added bonus of using handouts is that you are giving your participants additional information, which includes your contact information (a great instrument for making new connections and contacts).

Try to tie in visual cues that will help people remember and associate images with you or your company. The key is to make yourself, your presentation, and your information valuable and memorable.

Christina is the owner of Online Office Assistants, with specialties in PowerPoint presentations and many other areas. Working as a Virtual Assistant for over a year, Christina also has an extensive background in advertising, human resources, sales, and customer service. Visit Online Office Assistants website at http://www.officeassist.ca

Article Source: http://articles411.com

December 20, 2005

Focus Your Home Business Like A Laser To Explode Your Income!

Focus Your Home Business Like A Laser To Explode Your Income! by Funcareers.com

A common mistake for almost all new work at home / home business beginners is the trap of trying to be all things to all people. They will take any job, even if it not what they set out to do, simply because the job pays money.

It’s tough to focus, we know!

We know how tough it is to stick to just one thing in your new home business because here at FunCareers.com we “eat our own dog food”. Everyone works from home and knows the successes and difficulties you face and one of the things we have learned for ourselves is that you must focus on just *one* thing to be successful.

In the modern world, specialization is the key to success. If you were chosing a brain surgeon to operate on you I am sure you’d prefer one that only does brain surgery and nothing else! The same applies to your business.

If you do just one thing.

For example, if you are offering a lawn care service then specialize in that. It’s all too easy to offer tree trimming, fences, design and many other landscaping services as well. If you’re going to offer general landscaping and maintenance then do that. If you’re going to do “lawn care” then learn all about grasses and how to manage and care for lawns the best ways possible. Now when you offer lawn care you can target upscale markets and be an expert on creating and managing perfect green lawns, with fees to match.

Narrow your focus to make more money!

You may be surprised to learn that making your focus more narrow actually gets you more customers. By offering one targeted product or service you can charge higher fees and you attract the customers that are willing to pay for your expertise. This applies to the online world as well as the real world. I’m sure you’ve seen hundreds of those “mini-sites”, just one long sales page and nothing else. That’s an extreme example of focus - not even a site, just one page, one product, it sells or it doesn’t.

You can learn a thing or two from those pages for your real world business and create a laser like focus on the one thing you excel at, only targetting the customers that crave your product or service so you can increase your home business income.

http://www.FunCareers.com: Top home based businesses reviewed. Expert authors profile the best home based businesses so you can find a great home career fast and easy. Visit now!

Article Source: http://articles411.com

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December 18, 2005

Copying Content - Still Valuable, or A Thing of The Past?


Copying Content - Still Valuable, or A Thing of The Past?

By: Martin Lemieux

Within the virtual world of the internet, “content” is to “money” in real life. Content is our commodity, it is what people trade all around the world. But is “other people’s content” actually valuable?

There are many specialists out there that believe that content that has been copied is not valuable anymore and may actually penalize your website online for listing such content but I on the other hand beg to differ.

Ezine article directories world wide consistently list the same ol’ content as the other. They all pull into the same pool of authors who ultimately submit the same articles to each directory. My question is this, if copied content is not valuable anymore, why is it that these article directories are some of the most popular websites world wide?

See if you break down the authors article, you start to get clues as to why “copied content” can still be mistaken for original content.

Title & Author Stay The Same, But The Rest Is Not Just Gravy:

One constant is true for all articles submitted by authors: Their “title” and “author” are always the same but everything else tends to change in the process of submitting the article.

See, some article directories ask for a “description” to post online leading to the article. In many cases, I’ve seen authors simply make up their own description as they go which in turn gives the article a unique feel to it.

HTML Formatted Articles Changes The Dynamics Of The Article:

In other cases, some article directories allow for HTML to be posted with the article. When this is allowed, you will usually get a unique article created by the author and edited by the author. For those sites that allow HTML, there are others that don’t allow HTML which in turn depends on the article directory and its own “author guidelines” about a well formatted article. Some article directories allow images, while others do not.

Some article directories have “internal” HTML editors known as “WYSIWYG” editors. These act as an HTML editor which allows the author to personalize their article with bolding text, adding links, etc.

= = = =

With All Of These Different Scenarios, Is The Content Still Valuable?

ABSOLUTELY! Beyond and besides the fact that every article directory requires different methods of submitting your article, each article directory is also unique to each other thus providing different content around the article itself.

It’s well known that search engines do pick out and identify your “template” content, vs. your “internal” content but at the same time, your template content is unique and hopefully isn’t 100% copied somewhere else.

In Conclusion:

Although copied content is looked down on, every website out there has some form of copied content somewhere within their site. Whether it be within your menu system, or content. The fact is, you can ultimately change copied content into unique content by changing the dynamics or properties of the content itself.

About The Author:

Martin Lemieux is the owner of Smartads. We help business owners to increase their marketing efforts online and offline. Today’s Topic “Content & Copywriting”.

Ezine Article Directory (Content & Copywriting)
http://www.article99.com/internet-marketing/content-copywriting/

Writing Articles:
http://www.smartads.info/articles/wa/

Content & Copywriting RSS/XML Feed:
http://www.article99.com/rss-feeds/Content-and-Copywriting.xml

==

Reprint Rights: You may reprint this article on your website as long as the entire article remains the same, including the resource box.

Article Source: http://articles411.com

Kindest regards,

Laurie
The following url is to sign up for a special free Christmas Giveaway.

I am sifting through the hoards of stuff being promoted there and will be sending emails to this list of which ones I feel are worth your time and effort. There are some good offers being given away. Valuable mp3 info, and even a google sitemap software program. Just to name a few.

I will direct you to the exact # page on the freebie as I refer you to ones I have taken a look at.
http://articles411.com/special-offer.html

December 17, 2005

Top 5 Tips for Successful Article Writing
by Nathalie R. Lussier

You may have heard by now that writing articles and submitting them to different locations is a great way to increase the traffic to your web sites and in the end increase your income. But if the articles you write aren’t getting people’s attention and they are not clicking on your links in the resource box, then you need to do something about it! Here are the top 5 tips that will help you write the most successful articles.

Tip #1:
The most important thing you need to do when writing articles is to capture your reader’s attention. How else are they going to read to the bottom of your article to click on your link? How can you get people’s attention? It has been proven that people related better to stories or people they know. Adding a quote from a well known person near the beginning of your article to make people associate your knowledge with the well known person’s knowledge. Or alternatively you could retell a story that you once heard, it can be something that happened to you or a fable that you can make connections to your topic with.

Tip #2:
Of course what is a great article without a catchy title?! The reason I still put that you need an article that will capture and keep people’s attention is that this will decide how many people enjoy your article. You want to keep a high level of quality for all your articles, since that will bring in the most people to visit your web sites. But of course you will need a title to get people to take a look at your article. You will want to come up with a title that describes what your article topic is, but with something of a mystery to get people to click. People respond well to lists and “top 10’s” but they also like questions or implications of success.

Tip #3:
Pick a very hot topic. If you’re writing about nursing or babies, try to write an article about the latest fad in diapers or something that is related to the current world. Write articles that are seasonal or festive. Webmasters and ezine owners are always looking for an article that relates well to the current time of the year. When it’s Christmas time, relate your topic to Christmas and do the same for other holidays and seasons. If you’re not sure what else you could use, read the news, some weblogs or talk to your friends to find out the most current events.

Tip #4:
Check your grammar and spelling. This might seem obvious, but articles that have bad grammar or spelling are not going to help you much. These articles might even be rejected by certain article submission sites! So take the extra few seconds it takes to press the “Spellcheck button”. You’ll see it makes a big difference.

Tip #5:
Write from the heart or from personal experience. This is one tip that helps you write articles more easily which is then reflected in your articles. If you’re interested in the topic you’re writing about, you’re bound to write better articles. Maybe you found out that a certain keyword is very saught after, but you’re just not feeling motivated to write about it. Take a break and write about something that really thrills you, and think of the other topic at the same time. If you keep practicing this technique, soon you’ll think positive things about more topics and will be able to write about a wide range of topics without losing out on the personal touch you can add to each of your articles.

Nathalie Lussier maintains the All Around Success Article Directory where you can submit your articles and find great successfuly written articles too!

Submitted with Article Distributor.

Article Source: http://articles411.com

November 14, 2005

Change Your Child’s Behavior With Positive Reinforcement

Change Your Child’s Behavior With Positive Reinforcement
by Destry Maycock

Think about your interactions with your children today. How many things did you notice they did wrong? What did you do or say to them because of their wrong doings? Have they engaged in the same kind of behavior before?

What did you do or say the times before? Is it working? How many things did you notice your children did right today? If you did take the time to notice, what did you do or say to them? Did you praise or reward them in some way? If so, then read no further and keep up the good work. If you could use a little work on doing this, then read on.

Let’s face it. We parents often neglect to notice the positive things our children do. Rather, we tend to focus on our children’s negative behaviors, because they either annoy us or otherwise make our lives difficult. Have you ever heard the phrase, “that which gets noticed gets repeated?” If all we ever notice is the negative things our children do, then why would they do anything different? It is as if we program our children to believe “if I’m only noticed when I do something wrong, then so be it.”

It is just as important, if not more, to notice our children’s positive behaviors. Remember most behaviors are controlled by their consequences. Some may believe rewarding kids for positive behavior is bribery. We all receive rewards daily for doing things well, at work, at home, and at play. These rewards often motivate us to continue the behaviors for which they were received. Where parents use rewards ineffectively is when they give a positive consequence to stop an inappropriate behavior. For example, “I’ll give you a cookie if you stop whining.” This only encourages the inappropriate behavior. Where as rewarding kids for their positive behaviors is quite the opposite and much more productive.

Using positive reinforcement to strengthen a desired behavior is easy. Just watch and wait for the behavior to occur then reinforce it with praise, a pat on the back or a special privilege. It may go something like this, “David, I really appreciate how you came in the house when I asked and you even did it without a big hassle. You should feel good about being able to do that.” How about, “Wow Jamie, your bedroom looks awesome. You must have worked really hard on it. I bet you worked up a healthy appetite. Why don’t you decide what we have for lunch today.”

Focusing on your children’s positive behaviors could be the most productive parenting change you make if you don’t already do it. Chances are you have been trained like the rest of us to only call attention to the bad things your kids do. This phenomenon isn’t found solely in the parent/child relationship. It is also prevalent in spousal, sibling and employee/employer relationships. When was the last time your boss called you into his office and asked you to shut the door? Was it because he just wanted to tell you what a wonderful job you are doing and how valuable of an employee you are? If so, lucky you. More than likely, it was because he wanted to talk to you about something he thought you could do better or you were doing something wrong. People tend to take positive behavior for granted and punish negative behaviors.

Some parents find it helpful to make a note and put it where they can see it often. The note might read, “notice the positive” or “catch’em doing good.” You may also want to consider using a jar of consequences, a parenting tool that parents can use to help them focus on and reinforce the positive behaviors their children exhibit.

Catch your kids being good. It could have a profound affect on the atmosphere in your home. Whatever it takes I assure you it will be worth it.

Destry Maycock, MSW has had over eleven years experience working with children and families as a professional social worker. Destry has helped hundreds of parents solve a variety of parenting challenges and strengthen their relationships with their children. Destry enjoys developing tools that help parents with the difficult but rewarding duty of raising children. His most recent creations can be found at http://www.parentingstore.com

Article Source: http://articles411.com

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