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Gift Wrapping is this evening

Today we are making last minute preparations for the gift wrapping of gifts for the foster children of Anne Arundel County this evening. Ms. Adrian has separated the gift cards into categories, gotten the list of children put into order, and is ready to put that part of the program together. The students of Indian Creek School are ready to come and gift wrap the toys and clothes for the younger children.

To make it a bit more festive, we have cookies and hot chocolate for all the families wrapping this evening. It is going to be a wonderful evening and we have a lot of families and individuals to thank for the time, effort and money contributed to making the holiday the best it can be for the foster children of Anne Arundel County.

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New website for Balanced Life Skills

This is the start of a new website and way for all who are interested in making a difference in the world by starting with themselves to share what they are doing. When you sign up to be a part of Balanced Life Skills, you will be able to create your own page and keep track of all of your projects and training.

If you are a student – be sure to join the group where your curriculum is located. If you are looking for the Word of the Month worksheets – go under categories and you will see Word of the Month Definitions. On that first post for the new word will be the worksheets for each group.

I hope you enjoy this new site and if you see any way for us to improve it, send me a message on the site and we will consider if we can accomplish it on the site.

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Patience: with each other

Recently I was at a meeting with a variety of individuals with the goal of working on the bullying that takes place in schools today.  Many of the individuals there are motivated and real “rainmakers” when it comes to projects.  We would call them leaders.

At one point a new person walked in that did not fit the appearance of the rest of the group, and I noticed that many of the others simply did not recognize the person coming in and one of the leaders of the group – rolled their eyes.  I am thinking to myself,  Here we are talking about bullying and the leader of the group is in fact practicing a form of bullying.  It was but 3 weeks later that this person announced that they did not want to continue to be a part of this project.

Having patience when others are different than us is a key part of leadership.   Continue reading “Patience: with each other”

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Friendship: Definition

Each month we define and discuss a word of character development with all of our students.

This month the word is Friendship and will be defined this way.

Young students: Friendship means: We care and share with each other!

Older students: Friendship mean:  A relationship we choose based on mutual interest, fun, respect, and trust.

Here are the worksheets for our students:

5/6 Friendship Project 7 – 12 Friendship project Teen Friendship Project

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 December .



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Patience: waiting for the right time

Being patient is not easy.  In fact for many of us, when we want something we want it right away and waiting does not see to be an option.  But as we get older we soon understand that is not the way things work in reality and waiting for the right time to do something, say something or expect things to happen is an important thing to learn.

There is a Chinese proverb that says, “One moment of patience may ward off a great disaster.  One moment of impatience may ruin a whole life.”  Judging the right time to say or do something in your life can have an impact.  From a child’s point of view playing loud music in a house when others are trying to sleep is not a wise thing to do.  From an adults point of view, waiting to speak to someone you are in a relationship with till the right time, is important if we expect to be heard the way we wish to be heard.

However we should never mistaken putting things off that require action as patience.  Teaching our children the difference will help them to have a more successful life dealing with friends, employers and personal relationships.

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A call for help this Christmas

Each year for the past four years we at Balanced Life Skills have had the honor to assist the foster children in Anne Arundel County.  We have done that by providing a space for gift wrapping and our students have shown up in force to wrap the gifts, completing the job in about an hour.  That is really impressive when you think that we wrapped about 3-400 gifts in one hour.

This year though things have changed.  The group that sponsored this project will not be doing so this year.  On hearing about this Balanced Life Skills has linked up with Indian Creek School to provide a Christmas for the 160 or so foster children in the county.  Indian Creek is going to provide all the toys for the younger children and Balanced Life Skills is working on providing some gift cards for the 13 – 20 year olds.

Along with that both group of students will meet at BLS studio to wrap the gifts and deliver them to DHS offices on December 8th and on December 12 we have arranged for a party for the foster children and families at the Boys and Girls Club right here in Annapolis.

Here is what we need help on though.  We need help with providing the Gift Cards.  It has been suggested that gift cards to movies, restaurants, and department / clothing stores would be the best for the teens.  If you would like to help us please call as soon as possible.  We have 110 teens to take of this year, and without your help they may go without a real Christmas.  You may either choose a name to provide for or just provide some gift cards and we will match them up to a child.

We would like to see if anyone could help approach stores to see if they would provide any of these.  Otherwise Key School is selling gift cards this year and we could help them out and the foster children too.  Thank you for considering doing this act of kindness for these children.