As a parent or teacher, it can often be hard having confidence in what you are doing, especially in times when everything you see and hear is telling/showing you that you are wrong. It takes conviction, discipline, compromise, and most of all it takes love. It takes love to tell your child “no” in a loving manner. It takes love to be the “bad parent/teacher” by not giving into every demand. It takes love to turn around and smile at your child when we say these things instead of saying it as if the two of you are equals in life and are arguing on equal ground.
The word of the month is confidence. As I was looking through the student journals, I always take interest at reading little things the students write down. I ran across someone whose knowledge book was “O, the places you’ll go” by Dr. Seuss. I remembered reading this book. In fact I remember reading a lot of books when I was younger. Now I never read them alone because I strongly disliked reading, or anything else really that required me to focus that long on something. But I read. I read because my mom read to me. She would make me sound out words, never scolding me for incorrectly saying the wrong word or crying when I get tired of reading.
Let me tell you who my mom is, but first a little about me. To say I was difficult Continue reading ““O, the places you’ll go!””
Return from Alabama community service
I have returned from the trip to Alabama and it has taken me a couple of days to get back to the journal. It was a very good trip that I enjoyed the company of teammates and students. Our most fortunate thing was that despite there being torrential rain with thunder, lightning and high winds every night, we had sunshine and good weather when it was time to work. In fact I never had to get the rain gear out.
I was able to work on 3 of the 5 projects that took place and put a little time in the kitchen too, to help Patti Oji with meal preparation. The project I spent the most time on was the house addition built for the older blind gentleman. in just 3 days we built on top of the already prepared foundation, the walls and all siding, roof, electric, plumbing complete and ready for the drywall.
The only disappointment was we never met the man we were doing the work for. Some of the crew met his son and he was very appreciative of the contribution we were making. I will have the photos up very soon.
Parenting for personal excellence
Being a parent is the hardest job in the world. Not just because there is no manual but mainly because our emotions are involved and we are so committed to out child or children. In line with our series on building confidence we have seen and learned how so many children today are ashamed when they cannot achieve perfection. One nine year old boy I read of recently said, “If I try something and it doesn’t work out, sometimes I don’t even finish it or try again, because I worry that I won’t get it right ever.”
What a shame that is that his concern is not about him doing his best and persevering, but there is something else out there that has him worried. What can we do as parents?
- First teach them that we all have different strengths and weaknesses. We cannot all be great artist, or the quarterback, or musician. There are multiple intelligences in the world and we as individuals need to take step two.
- Second encourage them to seek personal excellence over perfection. It’s all right for them to be imperfect. We are all works in progress and everyone of us is continuing to work on improving in some area of our life. Sometimes it is good to share with them our own mistakes and the lessons we are learning from them. That will show them that we are not afraid of mistakes and that we are willing to confront them and correct them.
- Third we need to show them that we are happy with them when they do the best they can do. That means that not just the perfect picture, spelling test or math quiz goes on the refrigerator. It is a good idea to show case work that is less than perfect, especially if they put a great deal of effort into doing it. One ten year old girls said, “I hate it when mom puts my spelling test on the wall when I get a hundred and she throws away the others, even when I just get one crummy thing wrong.”
Doing these things will allow our children to form their own personal standards of excellence, instead of feeling as though they must conform to the standards set by others.
Confidence & body language
Our body language conveys the message of our thoughts and it can be read by almost everyone. We know how it works. Chin up, shoulders back, chest out, brisk walk, strong voice – all convey the confident attitude.
On the other side of the coin chin down, shoulders slumped, slow walk, dragging your feet, weak voice all convey an lack of confidence. The interesting thing here is that our physiology has an effect on our emotions and confidence. If we carry our body in the manner that demonstrates no confidence we will have less.
But you say I don’t feel confident. Then try this. Put your body in a confident position, smile and visualize yourself doing the task you are not so confident about. Then as you approach the task keep that smile, hold that body position, and allow your friends and parents to encourage you. You will be surprised at the results.
Achieving confidence
We are not always going to feel confident. We are not always going to be sure that we can reach the goals we have set for ourselves and then when we have a set back we need to recheck our attitude again to be sure we are not talking to ourselves in that grumpy voice, saying something like – You can’t do this.
It may be a test, meeting new people, a new sport, or something that we have failed at before that challenges our confidence. It is at that time that we may need to talk to a friend or adult just to be sure we are thinking in the correct manner. It is highly unlikely that a friend or adult is going to tell us, “just give up – you can’t do that.” Just like we would be thee for them they will be there for us. Our job is not to give up and to look for ways to adjust and achieve our goals.
Alabama, UBBT, Mr. Joe
This morning I am about 24 hours away from leaving for Alabama to spend 5 days with like minded martial artist in a setting that many would ask, “What does that have to do with martial arts?”
It is a learning experience for me. It is an opportunity for me to take the lessons I have learned on the mat like perseverance and put them into application in the real world. In this setting I can see the lessons my instructor is teaching in action. Taking all of the organizational, motivational and deep thinking skills and putting them into practice.
It is a time to demonstrate acts of kindness and peace and to honor those before us who have done the same. Martial arts may be about self defense, but in fact it is kindness, empathy, tolerance and celebration of differences that create peace. If the ideal meaning of health is energy – the ideal meaning of peace is happiness.
This trip is also a lesson in teaching leadership. Leadership is demonstrated by doing not just by sitting in a classroom and learning techniques of making people listen to you. The lessons I would like for all of our students to learn is about leadership. Thinking for oneself and doing something about what we see needs to be done.
See my journey in the UBBT at MY JOURNEY