Us and Kids: Parenting and marriage coaching with therapist, Jan Talen

So, it's Thanksgiving week! A week to give thanks for all the good things that we have in our life. Perhaps, if you're lucky, you get to go Black Friday shopping, or Cyber Monday shopping!

But, for some of us, this year has been anything but thankful. It has hard challenges, death, loneliness, loss of income, fear of the unknown, and a new sense of things we cannot control and the unsettling emotions that come with it.  Let's talk about both of these today:  Grief and the Gratefulness blended together. 

On today’s show, we’re going to talk about happy hour. Now you might think “Happy Hour?  I have to leave the house for that and I haven’t done that in months!”  My question is: “Could there be a happy hour at your house? How's the happy hour at your house? Or, is there no happy hour? How about a happy minute? Or is it just to make it through the day???”

But, the question becomes, what is happy? We know that usually it is listed as an emotion. But emotions are fleeting, finicky, and temperamental. Meaning, we cannot always guarantee that what makes us happy one moment will necessarily make us happy in the next.  Learn more about happy and how to keep a happy moment, maybe even hour in your house!

On our show today, refridgerators are the topic of conversation!  We know that cleaning them is usually not much fun - too much to move, touch and decide about!  

And much our life, when we look through what we have, want and need to throw away, and clean up the messes that have been lurking all around, we all feel better!  

So, enjoy these thoughts about refridge cleaning - and about ourselves-cleaning!   

On today’s show, we are talking about something that each one of us at some point in our life or another thinks “That wasn’t the wisest thing I could have done.” So we are going to talk about wisdom. What are the qualities in it and how do we continue to grow it?

We will break down wisdom as an adult and how to develop wisdom in your kiddo. What aspects of wisdom do you think you have? Listen in to learn how to grow more of it yourself...and how to help instill wisdom in your kiddos too by grabbing the printable too!

On today’s show, we are talking about salt and emotions, and what does one have to do with the other? So let’s just think for a minute about salt. It’s been around for ever and ever, and so have emotions. It has a variety of uses, some are wonderful and some of them are rather icky - and that’s true for emotions as well.

There are a million uses for salt and some might say there are a million and one uses for emotions. And some of us would say there are a million and one emotions too yet. Salt and emotions - the perfect pair. Sprinkle these around your heart and mind.

On today’s show, we are talking about how to parent healthy children - emotionally healthy children. This is not so much about the food that we feed them, although we know what we feed them impacts their moods and behaviours. And, it’s not about your marriage relationship, although we know that the healthier the marriage in general, the healthier the kiddos.

There are emotional stages that a child goes through - well into adulthood too, that we can impact and as we do, our kiddos develop the skills that impact their character development and the way their personality plays out.

Losing a little one before you have time to hug, hold, play and watch grow is one of the hardest things that a parent (or your friend) may ever have to do.  

Listen in as I share insights from my friend and expert in this area of loss, Nancy Kingma.  She has worked with grieving parents for over 40 years in many capacities and shares her knowledge with us through a conversation that I recorded (and revisit) with you today.  It will help you.  It will help you help your friends.  

Share this episode with those you know that are working (maybe even years later) to try to make sense of this kind of disinfranchised sadness.  You will be glad you did.  

On today’s show, we are going to talk one more time about emotions - in comparison to our muscles. We’ve been talking a lot about emotions - and EQ - that emotional intelligence. You’ve probably noticed that we have a variety of muscles and rely on them everyday.

We also want you to have a good variety of emotions that you use everyday. So, make a short list of the emotions that you experience each day for a week and see what you notice. Be sure to use the printable or the internet to see what other emotions are out there and what other emotions you would like to have available to you.

On today’s show, we have my friend and fellow marriage professional Mark VanDellen, who is going to talk to us about the six things we need for getting our marriage started well and keeping it running smoothly.

Mark works a lot with pre-marriages and new marriages and helping them get off on the right foot. He shares with us the key indicators that he looks for and identifies when looking at the path for future marriages.

On today’s show, we have my good friend and fellow marriage professional Mark VanDellen joining us. He knows all about emotional intelligence and we are going to talk all about how to become more emotionally smart.

This impacts our marriages and parenting in such wonderful ways when we use it well. Join Mark and myself for a great interview, conversation about emotional intelligence and how it interacts with both our marriages and our kiddos.