Be A Family At Your Best

Are you a busy parent of tweens or teens, feeling as though your kid's are changing right in front of your eyes and you're not exactly sure how to handle them? Do you long for the "simple parenting school solution", quick tips for how to survive the teen years, techniques that actually work, or new perspectives about parenting? You know you love your family, you have strong family values and a desire to raise rock solid kids. You're well educated, an ex-professional stay-at-home-parent, or a working parent and you want to enjoy these years to the fullest and live with joy, fulfillment, balance and peace of mind instead of a lot of fear and self doubt.

You have searched for ideas and have dipped into reading various parenting books from time-to-time, but time is something you have little of and finding time to read about "how to parent" is one of your challenges. Parenting books lay on your nightstand collecting dust next to a neat one pager that a friend gave you which boils parenting down into a top 50 list of parenting shoulds. Even when you do read the books, it never seems to be that simple to implement the ideas. Besides, your family is unique and there are so many things to consider. What you really need is a customized approach that meets your needs, a sounding board and a parenting advocate or mentor.

I think we can all agree that there's never going to be a "parenting school solution" or just one way of "being" a successful parent. As Miley Syrus' song "The Climb" plays in my car (and round and round in my head) I realize that this song isn't just about an adolescent's journey of growth ... it's also about what it's like to be a parent! What happens when we start seeing this parenting thing as "a climb" instead of a destination?

So, if you're like the person I describe above, than I've got good news for you! Families At Their Best (www.FamiliesAtTheirBest.com) is a new organization that is in the beginning stages of forming. It's all about a commitment to inspire and grow best families! It's a place you can go to get ideas, inspiration, quick tips, support and networking about your most important job -- parenting! The definition of FamiliesAtTheirBest is sure to evolve as this organization takes hold and brings more and more members into the fold. Stay tuned and we will all learn from each other! We are families fueling other families to learn and grow ourselves to be families at our own personal best.

I hope you'll sign up for the ride! We need all the help we can get! We can have fun with this, be playful, challenge each other, figure it out and share it so that we all benefit from our learning and our mistakes. It's not about being a perfect family. It's about focusing on developing the skills and internal characteristics of a family such as being respectful of each other, having fun, asking for forgiveness, trusting each other, letting go, building solid relationships, agreeing to disagree, etc. So many possibilities!!! The mountain that we're climbing is about becoming our personal best as a family. It's unique to your family and you get to decide and discover what your best family looks like and feels like. Keep the faith! It will happen! You are on your way! Sign up by sending your email and name to rayannecoy@mac.com. This is just getting started so jump on board and let's fuel each other.