About Paul Elmore
Hi. I'm Paul.
I'm a counselor in Portland, OR, specializing in Sexual Abuse Recovery and Sexual Addiction. You can find out more about my education and experience here.
Parenting
Skip The Teachable Moment
The other day my son made a pretty big mistake. It was the type of mistake that hurt him a lot. Not physically, but personally. What was even more difficult was the fact that I had told him that if he chose to do what he wanted to do it would turn out badly. Being 11, he decided he wanted to learn that for himself and try it anyways.
And now he is hurt.
Because it is important to me that my son learn valuable life lessons, I usually try to capitalize on as many of these moments as I can. When the emotions are high and consequences are at their peak, that’s some of the best times to learn.
But, sometimes, it is much more important to let the lesson slip by and simply care for the heart of my son. To hold him. To let him know that I still love him in tangible and physical ways. To reinforce the emotional connection with my children instead of the intellectual connection.
We are much more than our rational minds. We are complex, complete people who need to be connected to others. NEED to be connected to others. Without it, our lives become painfully thin.
Photo credit Leslie Duss
Podcast Episode 13—Listening To Your Gut
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Wouldn’t it be nice if we had an early warning system that alerted us BEFORE we made mistakes? I believe that we do have something like that, we’ve just learned to ignore it. Our feelings and intuition are great tools that can be used to keep us safe. When we have that uncomfortable feeling or that nagging doubt it is our conscience trying to warn us.
My Daughter learned this lesson recently as she was asked out by a boy from her school. Enjoy the latest Podcast.
You can hear more episodes or subscribe to this podcast via iTunes.
My Top 5 Parenting Books
It seems that I’ve been talking about parenting lately with many of my clients and giving them recommendations on good books to read. So, naturally, it seems like a good idea to share with you what those books are. Here are my Top Five Parenting Books.
How To Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk—Adele Faber and Elaine Mazish
Yes, this book is plenty old being published in the 80′s but it is still gold. What I appreciate so much is the emphasis on trying to understand how your kids process information so that we, as parents, can adjust ourselves and reduce our kids frustration level.
Siblings Without Rivalry—Adele Faber and Elaine Mazish
Another older book with really bad cartoons but excellent info. If you have multiple kids and you’re tired of watching the fight and bicker then its time to read this book.
Parenting With Love and Logic—Foster Cline and Jim Faye
This book is probably one of the essentials for parenting. They emphasize letting kids learn through consequences instead of parents having to force their children into obedience. Once you understand the philosophy and see it at work, you’ll never want to go back to power struggles or passive parenting. For those with teens, they also have Parenting Teens With Love and Logic.
Trauma-proofing Your Kids—Peter Levine and Maggie Kline
Not really a parenting technique book but more of a “How to” book on helping your children move through the difficult and scary parts of being a kid. It shows you how a child perceives troubling situations and what parents can do to provide valuable comfort and care so that your kids won’t carry on the emotional damage. The second half of the book provides case-specific scenarios like helping kids deal with divorce, medical trauma, death of someone close, or abuse issues.
Parenting From The Inside Out—Daniel Siegel and Mary Hartzell
All of our parenting comes from our stories. The better we understand that story, the better parents we can be. The strongest piece of this book is the information on attachment, both as children and as adults. It also addresses the importance of being present, both physically and emotionally, and how to start developing “Mindsight”. (When I start teaching a parenting series, this is what I’ll be teaching. Its that good.)
Children Are Responsible For Everything
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Starting at the age of about 4 we enter into a phase where we believe that we are responsible for everything that happens around us. It is called ego-centrism. Being ego-centric is our way of understanding our world and it is a perfectly normal phase of development.
But what happens when something bad happens to us during that stage? Naturally, we believe it is our fault and are somehow responsible. Its the little girl who won’t eat her peas at dinner one night because they are yucky. The next night her parents tell her that they are planning on getting a divorce. In an attempt to make her world safer and more secure, she promises her parents that she will eat all her peas and that will make them not get a divorce.
We grow into adults carrying some of that responsibility for the painful things that happened to us. Part of the growing up process is learning what truly is our responsibility and what we need to let go of and see more accurately.
Click on the play arrow below to listen to a 6 minute explanation of this principle.
Two Important Things About Kids
How To Talk “The Talk”
Talking To Your Kids About Sex
Talking to kids about sex is not easy for a lot of parents. They feel embarrassed, dirty and/or “sinful” when discussing such things. Other parents may be lacking specific information or be confused on just how much to talk about. This class will help you address the following issues:
- The importance of safe sexual conversations.
- How to neutralize the embarrassment around “dirty words”.
- When should I have “THE TALK” with my child.
- What does a basic “Sex Talk” look like.
- Practical and safe ways to talk to your kids about pornography.
- How parents can deal with their own painful sexual experiences.
- Question-and-Answer time to address any specific issues and give practical hands-on advice to parents.
- Because of the nature of the topics covered, the class is best suited for adult attendance only.
Scheduled Classes
Currently, there are no classes scheduled. If you would like to host this class at your church or group, please contact Paul at 503-863-4074 for more information.
Sexploration
Help Your Teen Experience Healthy Sexuality
We live in a culture that puts more and more pressure on our teens to be highly sexual. At the same time, teens are experiencing internal pressures from their own awakening sexuality. As parents, how do we help guide and and direct all of this sexual energy?
SEXploration is a class that will help parents understand the importance of becoming proactive in their teens sexual development and explore the world of sexuality together. The class will show parents and teens how to embrace their sexuality while still maintaining their morals and value systems.
Format
Presented to teens and parents at the same time, SEXploration is designed to foster communication and interaction between both generations. Several practical projects are suggested to make the information as relevant as possible. For those that attend, its guaranteed to generate lots of questions and conversations.
Scheduled Classes
Currently, there are no classes scheduled. If you would like to host this class at your church or group, please contact Paul at 503-863-4074 for more information.
The Screwdriver
I bought my son a screwdriver today. His very own—doesn’t need to ask to borrow my tools—do with as he pleases—screwdriver. Within the first hour, he had disassembled a broken Nintendo DS, the computer mouse, 3 toys and a calculator.
What he obtained is much more than a screwdriver. He gained an avenue to pursue his curiosity. He learned that the smallest thing can make a computer mouse not work the way its designed to work. He learned that you have to pay attention when you take things apart if you want to put them back together. He learned how to problem solve when a small screw striped out. He learned that he has freedom and power to make decisions with his own things.
Didn’t know a screwdriver could teach so much.
Video—Kids As Entrepreneurs
Purposeful parents see opportunity in everything. This lecture from shows how to raise your kids to think like an entrepreneur and become independent and successful.
Motivating Kids
Lately, I’ve been reading (actually audio booking) John Lehrer’s book How We Decide. It is a thought provoking work on the importance of emotions in our decision making skill sets. In the book, he’s been discussing the importance of learning from our mistakes and how failure is necessary to teach us important lessons. He calls it “the building blocks of knowledge.”
One of the things I wish I had done differently with my own children is embrace the trials and errors each one of them made. As children they simply tried things out to see what happened. Usually, this ended up costing me either time, money, or paint. I wish that I held onto the temporal, inconsequential things a little more loosely and embraced the joy of watching my children learn. Those trial and errors they made could have been building self confidence, resilience, and knowledge. They could have learned that they are capable of learning well instead of worrying about having to do everything perfectly.
What will it cost you to let your own children learn by trial and error? How capable are you of encouraging your children instead of scolding them?
(Spoiler Alert) Lost Fathers
For the past several weeks or so I have been trying to catch up on the TV show Lost. I saw the first two seasons and then lost touch with the series and now I have been trying to catch up so I can be culturally relevant and watch the 8 hour series finale sometime later this month.
If you watch hours and hours of Lost in one sitting you start to see that the show is basically about the impact a father has on their children and how those grown children try to work out their hurt. Here’s the list.
- Jack—Father is a controlling drunk.
- Hurley—Father left him at the age of 10 and them comes back into his life after he wins $150 million.
- Kate—Father left the family and then her step-father abused her mother and tried to molest her.
- Sawyer—Father kills his mother and himself in front of Sawyer.
- John—Father is a con man who tries to kill him after manipulating and stealing from him.
- Sayid—Overbearing father on his brother.
- Ben—Father blames him for his mother’s death, is a drunk and abusive. Ben eventually kills him.
- Ben (as a father)—steals a woman’s baby and raises it as his own through lying, stealing, and murder.
- Michael—Doesn’t know how to be a father to Walt so tries to control and protect him.
- Penny—Father is controlling trying to steer Desmond away from her. Eventually breaks all relationship with him.
- Charley—Father is absent
- Clair—Father is Jack’s father who lives in America and has no relationship with his daughter.
- Sun—Father is a Korean thug who runs his company by beating and killing
- Jin—Jin is ashamed of his father
- Miles—His father was absent for his entire life because he stayed on the island
- Faraday—His father is also the father of Penny, controlling, manipulative, and absent.
- Charlotte—Parents divorce but say they still love each other.
- Boone—His father marries a controlling and manipulative woman creating a mess of a step-family.
What impact has your father had on your story?
