Balanced Life Skills Martial Arts

One of the most important skills that a leader needs is one of communication.  Communication is made up of two parts both of which are very important, but the first one is vital to the second.  That first skill is listening.  The focus and attitude for listening can really make the difference in a leader that is respected by others or not.  

How do we teach our children about listening.  There are several ways of showing that we are listening to others including, looking at them in the eyes, nodding from time to time, being able to repeat what they say back to them, keeping our bodies still and not fidgeting, and not being distracted by electronics, noises, others, or even worst – our own thoughts.

When I was talking to our students about this subject, I told some of them that sometimes I find my eye wandering to see who is next in line to speak to me.  Have you ever done that?  Well I have and I am working on practicing keeping my eyes, attention and thoughts on the person and the message they are delivering to me. 

Being a good communicator also includes being able to speak well.  For many of our students it may start with speaking loud enough for others to hear them.  Now when we get the volume up we have to think about the attitude of the voice and person.  Which of the following 3 types of leaders are they;  passive, aggressive, or assertive?

A passive leader is one that seldom does the work and finds it difficult to make decisions.  They may even agree with everyone but not want to be responsible for making a call or decision.  The aggressive leader is full of opinions, generally their own, and are more than happy to push them on everyone around them.  They seldom are good listeners. 

Then there is the assertive leader.  This person is a good listener, willing to hear out all opinions and ideas before drawing a conclusion and making an advised decision.  This assertive leader would ask others to help them in a kind way and would always be willing to say thank you.  They would recognize to others the work of his group and be willing to share the rewards.  This is the kind of leader most of us would like to work for, this is the kind of leader we all want to be. 

Have you ever noticed that sometimes it takes a natural disaster to move people to open their hearts to give to others.  We saw this great outpouring in the hurricane that destroyed New Orleans, the Tsunami that struck in Indonesia, a fire that strikes a neighbors home, a disease that hurts a child.  But when we take the time to be aware of the needs of others, even when there is not a tragedy involved, and give of our things, talents or time, we not only make the world a better place, but we also are helping ourselves.

Philanthropy is about making the  world a better place.  I have noticed that when I speak to children about this idea of giving to others without expecting anything in return that they are a bit quiet at first.  It is like they are absorbing it and trying to grasp the concept.  Then they many times want to act on it.  Just this week I have heard of our students setting up a lemonade stand to raise money for a cause.  Others have been talking about things that they could create – and give all the money to a cause. 

As parents the example we set in giving, using our talents and time to the advantage of others, will have a long term impact on our children.  What can you do to make a difference with an individual, in your community, or in the world?  Every good act – Every act of kindness is charity.


I know of no parent that has not said to one of their children, “ Don’t give me an attitude!”.  We all know that we are talking about a bad attitude – one that is negative and disrespectful.  Yet most of us if we were truthful with ourselves would have to admit that from time to time we too have that “bad attitude”.   Interestingly in a recent article in the journal; Expert Review of Neurotherapeutics (April, 2009) that it is true that there are some people who are just more positive than others, but that only 50% of happiness is determined genetically.  Where do you think the rest of ability to be positive and happy came from?  Yes it was ourselves.

There are three things that only we have control over that have an affect on our attitude, whether we are 5 years old or 85.  They are how we feel, think and act.  I am sure you have seen this before.  If someone is thinking and feeling things in an optimistic way, they also act in a positive way.  If they think and feel more pessimistically, then they act in a negative way no matter how hard they try to cover it up and “act” positive.  

The way we see the world, how we feel it is treating us, the way we think and act influences in a great way our Attitude.  It affects our relations with others including our closest friends, to how we respond to events in our lives and even the very mundane day to day life.  

So what is attitude and can we choose the attitude we want to have?  What influence do we have on our children when it comes to their attitude?  Can we help them to approach their day in a more positive way?  As parents we influence how our children see the world, so what are strategies do you use to have a positive attitude?

On our Be Safe Annapolis Website we have listed some summer sun safety tips for families with children from babies to teens.  Be careful in the sun this summer.

Be Safe Annapolis

In a long distance race, everyone gets tired. The winner is the runner who figures out where to put the tired, figures out how to store it away until after the race is over. Sure, he’s tired. Everyone is. That’s not the point. The point is to run.

– Seth Godin

We all have our own races.  Today we tested students for some advanced belts and each of them had to learn how to put the “tired” away for later.  How we run the race and our determination to finish strong can be learned and practiced.  Our students are learning and practicing.



Depending on the age of the child, understanding the feelings of others may be difficult, if only due to developmental reasons.  A five year old has one emotional ability and a 12 year old another.  One thing though that does happen is that when they are angry no matter there age or training – they will be blinded to someone else’s feelings. 

Developing this empathy will help them to understand that all of us have feelings and just as we react to how others treat us, we too can react to how others feel.  Some children though who have had painful lives, may defend themselves by shutting down their sensitivity to others.  Or they may use intimidation and fear as a part of their defense.

Teaching empathy is a two fold.  First every child needs to understand feelings and they need adults around them whom they can trust.  With our younger children, increasing their “feelings vocabulary”, is very important to them identifying both their own and others feelings.

If we find older children are having difficulty with understanding the feelings of others, encourage them to write down stories in a journal.  If they have a problem get them to write or or talk about what happened – from the other persons point a view.

Finally as a parent or teacher, describing our own experiences and the emotions that we feel can be very helpful.  They can identify that you have faced difficult situations or may still be dealing with them, and they will learn to empathize.  

Each month we define and discuss a word of character development with all of our students.  This month the word is Sportsmanship.  It will be defined this way.

Young students: Sportsmanship means “I am fair and kind whether I win or lose.”

Older students: Sportsmanship means:  Respecting the rules and the spirit of competition.

If you would like to see how we will deal with this subject with our students please follow our discussions here during the month of May.



There are ten characteristics that create how one views the world and handles adversity.  If we can see that, it will help us to understand how a child or even ourself is thinking, which in turn helps us to find ways of dealing with our anger.  Over the next few weeks I will talk about all ten of them and let’s see if we can identify ways of managing this in our own house.

The first way we will discuss is the child that seems to create their own situations that lead to angry outbursts.  Many times they are unaware that the actions they are taking will provoke angry reactions.  For instance they may take a toy away from another child and not give it back, or they may pick on someone to the point of annoyance and get a reaction.  On the other had they may go about it more passively.  Let’s say that a child has been called out on his behavior and then decides in his mind that he can do no right and so decides to go silent and not interact.  This could cause a bad reaction and create and battle with they think they are avoiding trouble.

Anger can many times be building up over a long period of time, weeks or months, never forgetting and then using this to justify their actions.  So how can we overcome these self-fulfilling prophesies? 

 1.  Do not put a label on your child of any kind.  Take every instance and situation as a stand alone situation. I know how difficult this is, because we will find it hard not to connect all the other things that they have done together, which really only raises our own frustration.  Labeling a child though puts us in situation where we will find ourselves ‘looking for the anger’  and we know that when we are looking for something that we will find it.

 
 2. Expect the best of each child in each circumstance.  What we expect is what we will get, if our expectation is made in the proper manner.  If we expect our child to speak kindly to us and we model that for them, they will get it eventually and meet our expectation.  If we go into every interaction expecting an argument we will get that too.

 3.  Be fair.  It is amazing as hard as we might try not to do this, every parent has their favorite child. If you want to believe it or not it shows and though you may not see it or believe it, all of us must work on treating every one of our children or students the same.  In fact it is important for us to be fair for another reason. All of our children and students are watching how we deal with the child that is giving us the most trouble at the time and determining in their own mind how they will be dealt with at the time that they do something that is not in the parents favor.  This one fact will have an affect on them too. 

 4.  Hold no grudges.  If we are not willing to forget the past it will be difficult to break the cycle and does not allow them to have the room to change.  When we hold on to the past it will be harder for us to let them know that we believe in them and their ability to do better at managing their actions.

 5.  Let them know they can change.  If we focus on positive we will get better results.   If we use negative comments, insults, or demeaning phrases like, “I don’t know why I bother.”, it reinforces bad behavior.  When we are positive it lets them know that we believe in them and sets a positive direction for your relationship. 

Following these steps and setting an example for our children who create their own messes will let them see how you keep working on things that you may be struggling with and that you understand them.  Empathize with your child and see the positive results.

Now while the explosion, large or small is the event that gets most of the attention, it is what happens after that really has the larger impact on parents, children and anyone that was affected.  It is the time that we can confront the original problem and any new ones that may have come up from the ‘explosion’.  We have talked many times in our discussions that trying to have a teaching moment when emotions are high just does not work.  We must have a time when emotions on both sides of the equation are lower and everyone is calm.

Recognizing that even small problems can teach big lessons that can be looked back on when larger issues occur.  Here is an example of what we are talking about.  Lets say we have a 5 year old who is playing with their blocks.  As they try to build this large tower it falls over and our  year old is getting very frustrated (the buildup).  Eventually the blocks topple (the spark).  When this happened our 5 year old kicks the blocks and lets out a scream (the explosion).  Soon though he back to playing with the blocks (the aftermath).

As a parent I may be looking at this and be willing to let him continue to play since it ended as quickly as it started, no one else was involved, and we were use to seeing this kind of minor outburst on their part.  But in fact this sort of acting out may be the perfect teachable moment.  Teaching anger management on small scale problems may be easier and serve as a foundation for teaching on larger problems as you have success with the smaller ones.

In this stage of the aftermath our goal is to solve the problem and more importantly give our child the tools they need to solve the problems.
Here are 5 steps to coming to resolution with a problem similar to what we described above.  After praising the efforts made to build the tower recognize that he has some strong feeling, but then:
    1. Relabel feeling from anger to ‘frustration’ or whatever the feeling may be.  In our example the child was feeling frustrated that the blocks would not stay in the position he was hoping for.  Frustration is not anger, but a 5 year old may not have that emotion identified yet and certainly may not have the word for it.  In lieu of asking why he is feeling angry, make a statement – “That’s frustrating when the blocks fall down .”
    2. How to solve the problem;  Yes it is difficult but lets try together to build the blocks.  Allow them to fall down and then model what you would like to see. “Whoops they fell down.  Maybe we should try another way.” 
    3.  About your feelings;  If he kicks your blocks you may say that it makes you sad when he kicks the blocks since you do not want to see the blocks broken. 
    4. The rule;  You then tell him the rule “if you kick the blocks they will be put away.” 
    5. The consequence of course is the blocks would be put away.
Then come back to a positive mood by saying how much fun it is to play with him. 

In our teaching moments we would like to stay calm and bracket our correction with praise.  We have a simple formula in our school that we try very hard to stick to, PCP.  Praise, Correct, Praise.  Try this at home and see how it works for you. 

The next time I am going to discuss the 5 needs of every human no matter their age and you will see how this will help you in teaching your children anger management.



The explosion we are all too familiar with.  We have felt it, we have seen it and sometimes it is us who has exploded.  This is the time when the voices are raised, the insults and name calling begin.  It can escalate or even begin with physical violence too.  Hitting, pushing, kicking, breaking things that belong or do not belong to the person exploding.  It might be done in private or it may be publicly, sometimes on purpose, just to embarrass another person or parent.  I might add here too that somtimes anger can be played out in ways that the perpertrator believes will hurt the other person.  A student doesn’t do his homework to get back at a teacher, ignoring a parent, hiding the keys to make a parent late.  In general at this stage the angry party may just want to be a pain and cause pain to another person.

As a parent we may have tried to see it coming during the build up and we may have tried to defuse the spark, but still the explosion happened and our job either as a parent or as the person the anger is directed at is to stay as calm as we can and contain the damage, keeping both our child and ourselves controlled so that no one gets hurt.  If our temper rises and we lose control that may be exactly what the child is looking to get done, as they know then that they are in control of the situation.  So what can we do?

I had planned to give solutions to the stages at a later writing, but I feel like we need to address this now to some degree.  It is the same advice that we gave our students earlier.

Breathe slowly and deeply.  Avoid shouting and stay focused.  Do not engage in the debate.  Remember who and what you represent.
Do not negotiate with threats. The child may just be looking for a way to manipulate you and control the family.  Do not give in.  We can be willing to discuss the matter, but do so only when both parties are calm enough to do so.  There can be no real teaching when emotions are high.

Allow natural consequences play out.  Lets say the shouting matches and the anger is arguments over homework.  It may be best at some point just to allow the consequences of not doing homework play out with the teacher.  Let them get the bad grade, and the teachers words with them, instead of trying to protect them from bad results.  I remember my own kids who would wait till the last moment to tell me they had a project to do and that they needed materials for it, till the night before.  After talking about this several times and the behavior not changing we simply told them that they had to tell us about their projects earlier so we could get materials when it was good for all of us.   Of course it happened again and we stuck to our word and the project did not get done.  The result was a bad grade.  The bigger results were that never again did we get a late notice about projects. 

There are additional ways of dealing with this stage and things to be careful of that we will discuss at another time.  But I do feel it is important to mention at this time though that we must be careful not to allow the child or anyone to play us against another person of authority.  So we want to be sure that both parents are on the same page and the child is not playing mom against dad.  This is called an argument trap and we will discuss the other type of argument traps later.