My friend Karen is quite an interesting person: she is full of all kinds of unconventional ideas and approaches to life. This also puts her in unusual circumstances and often at odds with her family and friends. Not that she is mean or hostile or anything even close to that; in fact, she is very kind and generous.

It just seemed to me that she didn’t really have a way to express herself without fear of retaliation or criticism. So, one day I suggested that she start a blog as a help in dealing with stress. Well, that sounded so complicated and techy that she thanked me and did nothing. Then one day I got an email from her and there it was: her very own blog.

She said it was her personal place to say whatever she wanted, and nobody could get in her way or dis-empower her or make her feel bad in any way. It turns out that she is really using her blog in a great way to help people and as a side benefit, she makes decent money. It is a perfect fit.

There is a great free ebook called that shows how everyone is an expert at something, and Karen just proves this point. She found a niche and is flourishing. If you want the ebook, just leave a request in the comment box.

One thing that has made a huge difference for Karen is that the blog posting software is so easy to use and so effective. You don’t need to know much at all (though some basic skills help. Unlike me, I couldn’t even copy and paste in the beginning! It’s true.) It is called Blogi360 and they have figured out some way to put this software on steroids without doing anything questionable or what is known as “black hat”.

Plus, when you get stuck, there are plenty of people who can help you, and they have a fairly-quick-to-respond help desk. Then there are 3 webinars per month to address questions and give ideas to people. I think it’s pretty cool, and they keep moving ahead of the herd.

You can still get the first month for only $1 to try it out. Not a bad deal! Another thing, after May 1 the price will increase. If you subscribe before that time you get the upgrade free and your price is locked in forever! So, if you’ve ever wondered about blog posting software, take some time to look at Blogi360. You can make it look and feel however you want, your imagination is the limit (well, almost!)

Gratitude is so extremely helpful in dealing with stress that it ought to be the first item on anyone’s list of things to master. It seems to be much easier for some people than others, our natures are just so different. Yet anyone can master this habit and learn to manage stress much better as a result.

Remember Eeyore, the Winnie the Pooh character? He was always complaining and seeing things in the worst possible light. On the contrary, being around somebody who is truly grateful is like a splash of sunshine right in the midst of a “miserable” day. We’ve all been around Eeyore types and maybe we all have a bit of him in us!

Try this the next time you are tempted to fall into the trap of complaining…

The next time you feel the weight of depression descending upon you, try this simple, but very effective remedy. Get alone and begin speaking out loud to yourself or God or nobody in particular. It’s important to say it out loud, not just think it.

Begin with simple things: “I’m thankful for my eyesight… for shoes… for the air that I breathe… for my mother, my father… for my job… for my difficult child… and so on.

This may seem odd at first, and you might even feel a little crazy, but do it anyway. After a little while things come into perspective. Maybe your problems aren’t as bad as they seemed, once you have a different vantage point.

You should expand this to include people and circumstances that are particularly difficult. Once you become truly thankful for them, you actually experience a new power to manage what was so heavy before.

When you can appreciate the lessons life is teaching you through the difficulties, it is easy to be thankful. Otherwise you simply would never have been able to learn the lessons of patience, kindness, diligence, following through on commitments, and so on. The ebook, Stress Secrets contains many practical things you can do to learn skills such as this. You will discover secrets that very few people ever make use of. You can find it here.

This might seem like play-acting, but it really is not. Deep down you will feel strength and peace because there really is so much to be thankful for. Over time, this can become a habit that dramatically changes the way you deal with stress. As parents, we need the strength to guide our families in a good direction, which is not always to easy! The better we become at managing family stress, the more we can pass on to our children by example.

To tell you the truth, sometimes I wonder what some parents are thinking! Fathers especially, can be so clueless when it comes to dealing with family stress. I say this as a father and because of the experiences I’ve had with my own children, but also the children of many other parents.

We used to live in a nice looking suburb in Connecticut. From the outside, it looked like a pleasant enough place: above average style housing, lots of shops on Main St., actually a rather clean place. It turns out that it was much, much different than it appeared. It was the most child-unfriendly place I have ever seen. Really, there was almost nothing whatsoever for teenagers to do in this town. This is also where I first encountered parents who were simply “not there.”

Very often children would come to visit us and maybe spend the night. But some of them just didn’t seem to want to leave the next day. I’d finally ask a bit more and more than once, their parents were away on vacation! Nobody even mentioned it, they just sort of dumped them. How could this ever happen?

For some reason, I seemed to also be about the only dad who ever gave kids rides. I didn’t know any better at first, but after a while I got tired of driving other people’s kids home all the time. Of course, there were also many great parents who could easily put me to shame, but after moving to a new community with different values I could see the contrast.

Dads! Our children need us! They need our attention, our interest, our guidance and patience, our firmness and strength. It takes time to listen, time to be involved, but it takes much, much more time to neglect them and later on pick up the pieces! We fathered them, now we need to care for them. We had our time to pursue our own interests, and later on will have time once again.

The times I spent with my children, especially when they were small, laid a foundation that will remain their entire lives. When they get older and think Dad is “out of it”, we just need to be there and be a rock for them. They might be ever so rebellious or angry, but later on they come out of it and the foundation is revealed.

Mothers need lots of help in dealing with family stress, they need a partner, a strong man who can shoulder burdens without buckling under out of indifference or cowardice. Just think if we could have no regrets in the end!

If you read the post about my son swimming and fishing in the river in front of our house, you might recall that he had been “hooked” on his Xbox for hours on end. Recently I came across a photo of him, no shirt on, filet knife in hand, kneeling over his huge bass fish while he was cleaning it.

I remember being rather annoyed that he had fish scales, some blood and guts and newspapers strewn over the deck. He had to clean up after himself and put everything away. Then, we even got to enjoy the batter fried fish!

This was infinitely better than mindlessly pushing the buttons on his controller in an imagined basketball game. Sure, video games can be fun and entertaining, but when do you reach the point of “too much?”

It doesn’t have to be a big production either. A good friend of mine wanted to take her two kids fishing, but she made it so complicated and expensive that it wasn’t any fun at all. Whether it’s fishing, swimming, hiking, going to a museum, playing basketball or playing music, remember to have a good time!

A great way to connect with kids is by making things together. You don’t even have to get dirty! Build Your Child’s Creativity with LEGO Toys

Stress and Family Health is a group of professionals and parents who are dedicated to helping modern families manage stress. It actually was born out of a recommendation from a family counselor who wanted to help his clients.

Raising children must be the most difficult task on earth. One minute you are feeling overjoyed and the next you can be in the pits of despair! From childhood to adulthood, they need you and your wisdom.

Of course, nobody has all the answers, and so that is the purpose of this website. With the collective experience of these parents/professionals, we hope you can truly find some answers.

Randy is a master mold maker by profession, which qualifies him for a Doctorate of Stress. Anyone who has worked for years with tolerances of .0002 inch under the ever-shortening deadlines of global manufacturing has learned the art of managing stress. What is a mold maker?

He also has eight very lively and unique children who have taught him more than he ever wanted to know!

This website has been made in collaboration with Laura Simon, MSW,MEd, who has provided much needed professional guidance and input. Laura is a professional educator and case worker for social services in Vermont. She help found the first women’s shelter in Burlington, VT and is active in social causes.

In case you are wondering about how this blog is created, it is made using Blogi360, which is the coolest thing around!

What do hampsters have to do with your thoughts and dealing with stress? Not much, except that a lot of the time we are a lot like hamsters in a cage, running around in circles with the same old thoughts going around and around. We all want the best for our family, but sometimes we just get stuck.

My friend the alternative therapist who sometimes using a bit of cognac in her therapy, once gave me some great advice: “You need to get some new thoughts in your head! If you don’t expose yourself to great thinkers, how will you ever begin to think great thoughts?” She was right.

Believe it or not, I actually followed her advice and the next day bought a great book at the local bookstore. It exposed me to so many new ideas I could hardly believe it. It was an economics book, something I never would’ve even thought about before.

After that, I realized that I needed to do the same for my teenaged children, ages 17,15,13, and 12. I tried connecting them to new and different experiences, with mixed success. However, one of them really benefited and soon had new friends and new interests. She began participating in activities that were very different for her, or my family in general.  This exposure opened her eyes to see the world in a new light. She began dressing better, listened to a much greater variety of music, went to all kinds of places that she didn’t even know existed before. It was a lot like she was waking up from a dull slumber.
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The main idea is to use the village to raise a child. None of us can do it alone. We need community and friends and family. If we isolate ourselves, we just remain bound by the same limits and ideas indefinitely, gathering our input from what is often a lower common denominator, such as TV, or people like ourselves.

Don’t be afraid to jump off the hamster treadmill! The stress in your family will almost certainly lessen as a result. In our bodies it is new blood that brings healing and nourishment, the same in a person or family. Make the effort to do new things, meet new people, invite people over, try new school programs, go new places, you will be pleasantly surprised.
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Last October my dad, who just turned 80 said he wanted to get together with his boys before he left this world. So, the next thing I knew, I was on my way to Croatia! Talk about cures for stress- I had no idea it was so nice there! Peaceful, quiet, clean, seemingly safe, and fantastic beaches. It is a great way to deal with family stress.

You see, my brother sort of ended up there after leaving around 1968 due to a certain US program in Southeast Asia. He has lived in Europe ever since. Well, now he and his wife have built a 4 story villa, right on the beach. During the summer they rent out 3 of the floors to the flood of northern European tourists and make almost enough to live on for the rest of the year!

You can be sure I will be back, soon! If you are interested in a villa in Croatia,or renting a room or entire flat, let me know! He fills up quickly!

How about something really fun to do with children? I think every child likes getting their hands in things and feeling stuff. Plus, what if you got to eat what you made? This is a great way to relieve family stress as well.

My daughter used to have a friend that came over a lot and we discovered one of the best things to do with children was baking! Duh! Everyone knows that, but when I asked around not one single parent had done it! Seems that nobody has time or even interest in making things from scratch.

I was amazed when this friend told me that she had never cooked anything, much less baked anything. She was about 13 or 14 at the time. I don’t remember why we got into it, probably because I wanted some Swedish Limpa bread like I used to eat in Sweden.

She just loved it! She used to come over just to bake! We made rolls, breads, and even some kind of an Irish fruit cake that was fantastic. We once donated our Irish cake to a bake sale, except that batch didn’t have any baking soda, so it turned out like a stone. Oops!

It is a great way to connect with them and make a bond. There must be a thousand recipes out there, the thing is to do it! Make a mess! Burn a few things, make some duds! My first brownies were so bad we had to throw the pan out because we couldn’t get them out!

My all time favorite baking book is the one from the great bakery near my house, here in Norwich, Vermont: King Arthur Flour. They have all kinds of cools stuff, even a baking school! They have a great white bread called something like “white bread 101″ in their cookbook. You even get to use those old dehydrated potato flakes in the back of the pantry!

Here is the King Arthur Flour cookbook we use all the time. It not only has every recipe you can imagine, but explains why this and why not that. I actually like just reading parts of it! That’s the trouble when you find almost everything interesting..
Your teen may not immediately jump into it, but they will sure want the benefits. It’s a good hook to get them interested next time.

Video games and children are such a part of our culture that we maybe don’t think about it enough. It dawned on me doubly recently.

First, we put our TV into hibernation every year after football season is over. The main reason we get cable at all is to watch the games. So, I just call up the company and put it into retirement until the next season. Last year, when it came back on, one of my boys shouted out: “Yahoo! We got TV again!” Then, his sister said:” When didn’t we have it?” She had never even noticed.

Second, I left the house one Saturday about 8 in the morning and my son, (the same one as above) was playing his Xbox. When I came home about 2 pm he was still in the same spot, playing the same game. I got busy and later came back in and he was still doing exactly the same thing! It probably totaled 8 or 9 hours. Man, I felt guilty.

So, we made a policy and set some limits by talking about it together. The consequence was that the Xbox would be taken away for one week if he “transgressed.” Sure enough, I had to remove it for a week. What did he do instead? The same kind of things boys have done for the last 6,000 years! He went fishing and swimming in the river!

I later realized just how many of his friends do exactly the same thing, week after week. No wonder they have so little gumption and curiosity about the world and all the amazing things they can be doing. Video games just rob them of their spunk and motivation. It is so much easier to play basketball on the Xbox than go outside and run around and get sweaty.

If you find yourself fitting the description of a parent who uses TV and video games as an electronic babysitter, STOP ALLOWING yourself to be fooled! It just is robbery to let them spent too much time in a hypnotic state. There must be a hundred other things that they can do that are beneficial.

The trouble is, the electronic sitter is so convenient and easy. It takes work to give up our time and effort to get them involved. But, in the end, it is well worth the work! Probably our most favorite thing we have done together is Legos. It’s great for everyone, even younger teens. Save up to 50%. See what’s on sale!

Another really cool thing to use is called fischertechnik. They are a lot like Legos, but much more sophisticated. We used to order them from a small importer in Washington state because they are made in Germany. We spent many, many days making all kinds of robotic things.

When I was a little guy, and even when I was a bigger guy, it never entered my mind to lay around and do as little as possible. If my parents asked or told me to do something, I did it. I might have grumbled a little, but I always did it.

I can’t believe it, I see parents pleading with their kids, as if the parents have no right to demand obedience! I have now found myself doing the same thing, for a few moments anyway. Wake up! What has ever happended? I think the pendulum has swung so far in the way of “equal rights” that the children run things in some households!

My son told me, when I told him to pick up his room, that none of his friends ever do anything around the house to help. Maybe they all have maids, or maybe he’s telling a tall tale to get out of his job, or maybe he’s right. I think he is mostly right!

Hey, doesn’t anyone think children should help anymore? Why are we pussyfooting around and being so wishy-washy?

Crucial Characteristics of Lasting Love