Learning Leadership

08/01/12 • 29 min

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Busy Mom’s Survival Guide Podcast Episode 022.
Have you ever heard the expression, “He is a born leader?” While I do think there are people who are natural leaders, I also believe that leadership skills can be taught. I focus a lot on teaching my children to be leaders because I want them to have the strength to believe they can lead themselves and others to success.

During this podcast episode I talk about the intense experience we’ve sent Colter and Brett on to help them meet new people, have fun, and build their leadership skills. I also interview Emery who is very insightful on some of the leadership skills of the Jonas family members.

If you’d like to strengthen your children’s (or your own) leadership skills, there are four principles that are discussed:

Knowledge: To lead people, there needs to be a solid knowledge base about the subject matter. Help your children to become confident in their knowledge and it will be easier for them to lead.

Opportunity: We have to step back and allow our children the opportunity to lead. If we’re always stepping in, we do not allow them the chance to be leaders.

Example: Set an example for your children of how good leaders behave. Bad leaders “push”; good leaders “pull”. Point out examples of good leadership for them to mimic.

Confidence: While you can’t give your children confidence, you can help them to cultivate it by allowing them the opportunity to fail and giving them lots of opportunities to practice their leadership skills.

What about you? Are you a natural leader? Or is it something you had (or still need) to develop?

Thanks for listening! Tune in next week when I talk about privacy and how it affects our lives.

I have a short (5 question) podcast survey. If you haven’t already, I would really appreciate it if you would take 2 minutes to fill it out. Thank you! Click for Survey

You can subscribe to the Busy Mom’s Survival Guide Podcast:

If you’d like to strengthen your children’s (or your own) leadership skills, there are four principles that are discussed:

Knowledge: To lead people, there needs to be a solid knowledge base about the subject matter. Help your children to become confident in their knowledge and it will be easier for them to lead.

Opportunity: We have to step back and allow our children the opportunity to lead. If we’re always stepping in, we do not allow them the chance to be leaders.

Example: Set an example for your children of how good leaders behave. Bad leaders “push”; good leaders “pull”. Point out examples of good leadership for them to mimic.

What about you? Are you a natural leader? Or is it something you had (or still need) to develop?

Thanks for listening! Tune in next week when I talk about privacy and how it affects our lives.

I have a short (5 question) podcast survey. If you haven’t already, I would really appreciate it if you would take 2 minutes to fill it out. Thank you! Click for Survey

You can subscribe to the Busy Mom’s Survival Guide Podcast:

Previous Episode

Spending Time

Busy Mom’s Survival Guide Podcast Episode 021.
Our children desperately desire our attention. We can choose to give it to them proactively on our terms. Or we can wait until they misbehave and give them attention then in the form of discipline.

Children are smart. They realize that if they can’t get attention from Mom and Dad by being good, they can certainly get it by being bad. Parents need to be smarter. Parenting is a lot more fun if we can harness their desire for our attention and use it to effectively parent. By carving out time for our children we drastically reduce a lot of the misbehaviors that make us question why we ever became parents.

During this podcast episode I discuss how our family handles the following issues:

Preventive Parenting: I have found that proactively providing individual time with my children goes a long way toward minimizing discipline problems.

How Much Time is Required: My goal is to meet each child’s needs. There are times when different children (depending upon their age and circumstances) require more individual attention. I never set an amount of time that will work (e.g. 10 minutes twice a day). I’m flexible and pay attention to my children to know when somebody needs to spend extra individual time with me.

How to Fit One-On-One Time into Busy Schedules: I get creative. I do very few things alone, but often have one of the children as my “buddy” so I get to spend time working side by side with just them. It’s important, so I find a way to make it happen. There are certain of my children that definitely require more of my attention than others. I find a way to make it work.

Child Directed or Parent Directed Time: Depending on how busy the family is determines who gets to choose how individual time is spent. When the schedule is crazy, I choose. If things are fairly smooth, I let the child decide.

One-On-One Time or Buddy-Up: There are individual children that enjoy sharing their special time with me. When I can Buddy up this special time, it works great.

Quality vs Quantity: Children need both. You can not just have one without the other. While you must find a balance, that balance will constantly change as the needs of the family shifts.

Time with Spouse: Don’t neglect your spouse and make sure that he gets attention and one-on-one time with you as well.

Overall, spending one on one time with your children should be fun and not a stressful thing to add to your to-do list. Don’t feel like there is some magic number you need to achieve. Be aware that your children need your attention and have fun giving them as much of it as you can.

What about you? Are you able to spend enough one-on-one time with your children? Or do you need to spend more?

Thanks for listening! Tune in next week when I talk about how to teach your children to be leaders.

I have a short (5 question) podcast survey. If you haven’t already, I would really appreciate it if you would take 2 minutes to fill it out. Thank you! Click for Survey

You can subscribe to the Busy Mom’s Survival Guide Podcast:

Next Episode

How Important Is Privacy

Busy Mom’s Survival Guide Podcast Episode 023.
Several months ago, Brett got her own room. Since then we’ve been talking a lot about the subject of privacy because I don’t want her to over-value privacy at the expense of relationships. After all, if she gets married some day, she’s going to have to give up the very privacy she has finally achieved.

When I look at my life, I’ve come to realize that I live my life with very little privacy. I’m always surrounded by my family. There are regularly people in my house. I blog about the things that daily happen to us. And people are always watching me when I go out with the family. In fact, when Jim and I went to New York (just the two of us) a few months ago, we both commented on how strange it was that nobody was watching us. We realized how much attention we drew just by the size of our family.

And I’m ok with that. I think living my life with transparency is better than heavily guarding my privacy. It makes me want to be a better person knowing that people are watching. I want to be a better wife and mom because people are watching me and that carries over to the times when people aren’t watching me.

During this podcast episode, I’m joined by my friend Prayse Dangler, a fairly new wife and mom. We discuss the concept of privacy and how it relates to our personal lives and our children’s lives. I also share a very personal experience about a struggle that I kept private and the lessons I learned from that. This episode really isn’t designed to “teach” anything, but just to spark some thought.

I’d love to hear from people what you think about this topic and how the issue of privacy plays out in your life.

Thanks for listening! Tune in next week to hear about what my “typical” day looks like.

I have a short (5 question) podcast survey. If you haven’t already, I would really appreciate it if you would take 2 minutes to fill it out. Thank you! Click for Survey

You can subscribe to the Busy Mom’s Survival Guide Podcast: