Balanced Life Skills Martial Arts

Teaching character and life skills to students

Our children are met with so many confusing messages for them and keeping secrets is one of them.  We want our children to know how to keep a secret, how to be loyal to a friend who has entrusted them with a personal thought or feeling.  At the same time as adults we know that they can be asked to keep things secret that they really need to talk to an adult about.  It may be about one of their friends who is considering doing something that is not safe, fair or even lawful.  Even more so, some adults may tell a child not to tell anyone about something that we know they should report to us, so we can keep them safe.  Here are some questions we can teach our children to use to decide if they should keep the secret or if they should tell their mom and dad, teacher or principle, or some other trusted adult.

If the child is under the age of 5 we will give them two questions:

1. How does it feel? If it makes you feel happy – this is a secret you can and should keep. (like a surprise birthday party)  If it makes you uncomfortable, if you get a funny feeling inside your stomach and you don’t think it is a good idea or is right – then you must tell an adult.  If you are not sure it is always OK to tell an adult.

2. Will it hurt someone? Explain to your child that if the secret they have been asked to keep may hurt someone or someone may get hurt if they do what they say they are going to do, then they need to tell an adult.

If your child is 5 or 6 years old teach them questions one and two and then add this question to their decision making process.

3.  Will I be proud of the choice I made? This is a great question for anyone to consider in making any decision.  How will I feel if someone gets hurt?  If I don’t tell, will I be proud of myself?

If your child is 7 or older teach them all of the above questions and then add this question to their decision making process.

4.  Am I reporting to get help or to get someone in trouble? No child wants to get labeled as untrustworthy or not loyal to keeping a secret.  They also do not want to be called a tattle-tale.  So they need to consider why they are telling.  Do they see that if they don’t tell, someone might get hurt or that something is being done that is wrong?  They must feel comfortable in asking for help and being able to tell the difference in – just trying to get someone in trouble or getting help in solving a bad situation.

Parents: Children should never keep secrets about touching.  If you are interested in how to talk to your children about ‘good touch / bad touch’ , Balanced Life Skills would be happy to present a workshop for parents on this subject.  I know this seems hard to do.  But we will break it down for you to make it easier.  Just contact us for more information.

Teaching character and life skills to students

Today we asked in regard to loyalty – What if some one was being mean to another student?  What would you do?  Virtually all students said they would ask them to stop, take the target away from the mean person or tell a teacher.  Unfortunately research shows that not to be true.  Most children will internalize the event and be very concerned about being the next target.
Loyalty to your friend is difficult during a time like this.  If we talk to our children about loyalty, and role play with them what they could do, or be comfortable doing they will be more likely to be able to muster the courage to stand up for their friend.
The most important thing they can do though is to stand with or stick with their friend – not abandoning them when others are being mean.  Just saying to their friend, I am still your friend, I believe in you, lets go sit over here and eat with these friends will help the target not feel so ostracized.

Teaching character and life skills to students

Today we asked an interesting question to our students about loyalty in the classroom and their schools.  What if you saw someone writing in a library book or on the walls in your school?  What would you do?  The comments went from telling them to stop it, asking them to stop and then be more firm about it, to telling the teacher.  The courage it takes to speak up for what is the right thing to do can only be taught from their own personal sense of right and wrong.  How and why they stand up is just as important.  So we discussed the difference of tattling and reporting to the teacher.  One student stated that tattling is with the hope to get the other student in trouble, while reporting is doing what is right.

Loyalty to our school and community would encourage us to keep the library books clean and available to everyone else.   Showing respect for our environment, both the green one and our surroundings, encourages us to be loyal to the value of keeping things neat and clean for everyone.   So we would tell an authority if we need to about any crossing of that line.

What communities do each of us belong to that we can show loyalty and how do we show loyalty?  Discussing this with our children will give them the courage to stand up for and be loyal to all of their communities that support them.  I believe it is our communities that help to strengthen us and our children into being better citizens.

Teaching character and life skills to students

We first learn about loyalty from our family.  Our family is the closest relationships we will ever have, and so we can understand that if there is a breakdown in the relationships, a break of loyalty, that we can be affected for a very long time – not knowing who we can trust.  Our children will learn in the family what it means to always be there for someone and how to stick up for someone who needs a friend by the way they are treated in the family.

Each member of the family, by keeping their promises, by not sharing others secrets or personal thoughts is both teaching and learning about loyalty.  But loyalty needs to go both ways though.  While it is the responsibility of parents to be loyal to their children, children must also demonstrate loyalty to the family and each member of the family.

They learn this by making and keeping promises and tying those promises back into the idea of loyalty.  If a child promises to help their family out by keeping their room clean or picking up their toys in the family room – they need to keep those promises as an act of loyalty.  When promises are kept we have the opportunity to praise our children for showing loyalty.  As they understand this better they will also learn to stand up for their brothers and sisters if they are the target of mean words or worse.

Teaching character and life skills to students

Loyalty is another one of those qualities that we hope that we see in our children, loyal to their family, friends, and teammates – but at the same time loyal to morals, values and ethics that they have been taught by us as parents and teachers.  This can be tough for adults and children though.   What if our friend is making what we believe are bad choices, is it OK to speak up or is that tattling?  What if the culture in our school seems to be allowing bullying?  How can we speak up to our teachers and classmates and still be loyal to them?

Loyalty infers that we will be responsible and dependable.  Loyalty asks us to be trustworthy and faithful.  If there is a situation where bullying is overlooked we would be showing responsibility if we spoke up and said, “In our school we should treat each other with respect!”   We would not do this in a complaining manner.  If we see a problem we can acknowledge the issue, but in being true to our values we will also want to offer ideas for a solution.  It may not be the final answer, but we could start a conversation with all parties involved – students, teachers and parents – to improve the culture of the school.  Now we are being loyal to our friends and our school while standing up for the values that we believe in.

This photo and comment is from a  friend of mine that I believe says a great deal about what we eat and allow our children to eat.

What does this picture tell you? My doctor has had this “processed food” on her counter ever since 2010 and 2011 respectively. I asked her why she had it out, she stated “to show people what they are putting into their bodies”. This is man-made “processed food”, not real food. Over time real food will decay, grow mold and produce a decomposing odor. This “processed food” has not done any of that, matter of fact it has kept it’s original size, shape and texture. Your body has to work harder to breakdown and digest this stuff over real food. Since I’ve seen this, I have not had any fast food.

Will you promote good health and stop eating fast food, processed food or anything that is not good for your health?

Teaching character and life skills to students

Want to eat more healthy?  Try some of these suggestions of things to eliminate from your diet or at least severely reduce to almost never eating.

1. Soda – yes that includes “diet” soda too.  Too much sugar and chemicals.  Artificial sweeteners are chemicals too that still fakes your body into releasing insulin and store fat.

2. Bread / gluten – your digestive system does not process these foods in an efficient  manner, they easily pile on the calories without much nutritional value. (slow down on the pasta, white rice etc..)

3. Sugar – It is addictive and the more you eat the more you want.

4. Alcohol – ill effects on your liver, sugar content is high, and beer high in gluten.  Then there is the toxic nature of alcohol in general.

5. Dairy – Unless you are under the age of 2 your body does not have the tools to process the lactose.

6. Meat – Reduce or eliminate will help your digestive system.

Bottom line:  The way most Americans eat is 60% processed foods, 30% meat,  5% potatoes/rice and 5% vegetables.  Think about going a different route.  How about 60-70% vegetables, 20-30% meat and 10% fats (nuts, seeds avocados etc..)  Or even better reduce meat to 0% and focus on water based / plant based foods.

We have noted previously that our body is 70% water and so we need to eat foods that replace that  water naturally.  Want to be more healthy, lose weight and have much more energy – EAT HEALTHY.

Pancreatic cancer affects roughly 1 in 65 men and women.  Luciano Pavaraotti, Patrick Swayze, Chief Justice Ruth Ginsburg, and Steve Jobs all lost their life from pancreatic cancer.  In the last week it was reported by the “respected” Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, as saying that eating 1.8 ounces of processed meat every day — the equivalent to one sausage or two rashers of bacon — increases the risk by 19 percent, and the risk goes up if a person eats more.

In regard to the risks for pancreatic cancer smoking is one of the worst, increasing the chance of this deadly disease by 74 percent.  But even eating 100g a day of processed meat ( a small burger) increases the risk by 38% while 150g a day raises it by 57 percent.

Looking at what we eat is important for our health.  We have just completed the holiday season when many of us do not eat in our normal fashion.  But now is a good time to revisit our eating habits and make adjustments to better our health, short term and long term.

Teaching character and life skills to students

This post is especially for our children, helping them to respect the differences that they can see when meeting someone new, but as an adult we can examine how we act or react when we meet someone new too.  It is said that when meeting someone new we draw a conclusion about that person within 10 seconds of meeting them, whether they are equal to, greater than or less than ourselves.

Having said that we have all heard the expression, “Don’t judge a book by its cover.”  Teaching our children not to look at someones clothes, how they look or act and decide if we are going to like them or not.  Some people are going to be taller or shorter, darker skin or lighter skin, blue eyes or brown eyes, dress in one way or a different way.  They may be in a wheelchair or able to walk, have a happy disposition or there may be reasons that they are not as happy.  We do not know them without getting to know who they are, what they like, and how they will behave when they are with friends.   It is only after we have spent some time with them and see how they will treat us and what we have in common as well as what we can learn from them – before we know if we like them or not.

Rejecting someone as a friend because of the way they look- is not showing acceptance and may leave us with fewer friends.

Teaching character and life skills to students

One of the hardest things to accept for many is themselves.  Have you ever noticed how hard we can be on ourselves?  We come down on ourselves for not being good enough, strong enough, organized enough or something.  Usually we are comparing ourselves to others who excel in an activity that we would like to improve on. Is it really fair to talk to ourselves that way?

Lets start with questions to ourselves like:

What is something that I like about myself?

What is unique about me?

What is one thing I am really good at?

What is one thing I enjoy doing?

Learning to accept and appreciate who we are, what our strengths are, and what we enjoy doing allows us to accept that others are very good at other activities that are not our strong points.  When we see others as ‘strong’ in some areas, we will be more willing to accept them for those areas of strength.

It is important as we work on creating a culture of peace in our homes and community to accept ourselves and others for our strengths knowing that both of us are OK.