All children need attention. If there is no positive attention to be had, they will seek negative attention. avoid this slippery slope by following these ten tips.

1.  See Your Child’s Acting Out as a Need for Attention: See Billie’s misbehavior as a cry for attention. Let go of any judgment you might have about Billie ‘needing attention’. Think of it as him asking for a glass of water. Your child is not wrong for being thirsty; he should not be made wrong for wanting attention.

Never criticize Billie for acting out. All you need to know is that he is in desperate need for his feelings to be cared about and to be shown that he is loved. Let Billie know that, although you are not happy with what he’s doing, you want to know what’s going on with him. Tell him you love him; give him a hug and say, “Want me to take you to the park?” If you’re in a time crunch, say “I love you! Wanna go to the park later and talk?”

2. Children are Mirrors: Think back on a time when you wanted attention and did not get it. Take out your journal and write: “Why does it bother me that Billie wants so much attention?” And then ask: “When did I want love and attention and felt angry because I didn’t get it?” Sometimes parents feel like it’s not fair that their child gets the attention they never got. If you can’t think of a time, let it percolate for a few hours – it’ll come to you. Then call your EFT tapping buddy and heal the painful memory.

3. A Parenting Pep Talk: When a baby cries, you don’t get angry with it: You pick it up. You hold it, offer it a bottle, see if it needs changing. You try everything you can think of until it stops crying. Children and adults are just bigger babies, also needing affection, praise, and quality time with you.

4. How To Know When It’s Enough: When a child is satiated, he or she will begin making a craft or start playing fetch with the dog. Because they got what they needed. Don’t worry about ‘spoiling’ your child with too much attention: They will let you know if it’s too much.

5. Stop Gossip in Its Tracks: If you hear, “Don’t mind Dolly, she’s just looking for attention,” say, “Oh! Thank you for letting me know! Gotta go – I got some major huggin’ to do!” And then go and do something fun with your precious child. Aunt Minnie will get the message.

6. See It as a Healthy, Human Need: Have you ever asked your spouse or boyfriend or girlfriend for a hug? How dare you need some extra attention! Just kidding. If a child is showing you through their behavior and mood that they are needing attention, gosh darn it, give it to them. Generously and with panache!

7. Appreciate and Acknowledge. Every child needs to be appreciated and acknowledged – for creative contributions, acts of kindness, doing their homework, making you laugh, hugging their siblings, showing up for dinner. Make it a priority to spend quality time with your child, praising them, helping them with their homework, reading to them, telling them jokes and funny stories. Show them they are cherished and important to you.

8. Seek Out the Real Reason for the Acting Out: Your child is never ‘being selfish’ or doing something ‘for attention’. Ask them what’s going on with them. If they can’t tell you, figure out something they enjoy to do with them. Be patient, and they will eventually tell you.

9. Circumvent the Acting Out: You will be amazed at how infrequently your child acts out when you shower them with praise, acknowledgment, affection, and individualized attention. It only takes a moment to acknowledge your child at dinner for something they have done that was awesome!

10. Children Bounce Back Quickly: Children bounce back quickly when they’re given what they need. When you see your child happy and drawing you a picture because you gave them the love and nurturing they needed, you’ll know you did the right thing.

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Is this you? Go on a diet, lose weight. Go off the diet, gain the weight back. Feel like a failure for not having the willpower to stay on a diet. Decide you are destined for a life of battling your weight.

I could never stay on a diet for more than a day. I always felt miserable and desperate to go back to eating whatever I wanted. I was obsessed with being thin, but I could rarely get there and was never able to stay there. It was a constant battle for me. I even went to Overeaters Anonymous for a brief 35 years. I remember my teens and twenties in increments of weight and pants size. I hovered somewhere between 115 and 175.

I finally realized that if I was going to be thin, it wasn’t going to be from no stinkin’ diet: It was going to be when 100% of me wanted to be thin. I am now 125 at 5’3″, and I never weigh myself, because it doesn’t matter. Here is my gift to you:

1. Love Your Body Just As It Is: Start by loving your body – the miraculous vehicle that houses your spirit and takes you from point A to point B on this great earthly adventure and for purposes of growing your soul – just as it is. It’s no one’s business what size you are, and all bodies are perfect and beautiful exactly the way they are. You can feel beautiful at whatever size you are and simultaneously have a goal for sometime in the future.

2. Understand Schizophrenic Weight Conundrum: Your body instinctively knows what your ideal weight is for health and for protection. And it’s not necessarily the same number. The answer to the “I want to be thin I can’t lose weight” conundrum is getting to the root of the conflict going on inside you.

3. My Schizophrenic Weight Conundrum: My father made it clear to me that he did not want me loving anyone other than him. He criticized all my boyfriends and best girlfriends up one side and down the other. When I was 21, he became enraged after I spent the night with another man.

When I was 16, my father started telling me way TMI about his sexual prowess and all the women he was “sexually attracted to” and why – what 16-year-old wants to hear that? Add to that his lectures on how men are only attracted to ‘slender’ women (translation: I am only attracted to slender women; get slender for me).

I needed to be heavy so Daddy wouldn’t be attracted to me, and I needed to be thin so Daddy would approve of me. Plus, being thin meant, according to Daddy, being attractive to men, and I knew that would upset him horribly.

In addition, I was sexually assaulted, during which the man told me I was a “tease with my tight little ass in my tight little jeans.” I gained 50 pounds in a month after that.

4. Think Back on the Hidden Messages: When something happens to traumatize you when you are thin because you are thin, or when things happen to convince you that you are safer with extra weight on your body, the part of you with the more pressing need wins.

5. The Formula for Healing: Get a journal. Write down why you want to be thin and also what that scares you about being thin. Write about all the times you were hurt in a relationship and/or inappropriately brought into someone’s sexual energy field. Describe how it felt each time it happened. Write angry letters and then rip them up. Make a list of all the emotions that have been churning around causing you to be conflicted in the area of weight, food, and love. Get with an EFT Practitioner or tapping partner and tap on those feelings, saying what triggers you to feel those feelings and when you first remember feeling them, and do some inner child visualization re-do’s. Forgive yourself for not knowing how to fend off hurtful behavior by parents or others, and understand that you have done your best to take care of you.

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