Joe Van Deuren |

October 3, 2014

Strange car self defense

“What would you do if a car pulled up in front of your house and they asked you to help them find their puppy?” This was the first in our series of What would you do if…

When teaching children we must be careful not to frighten them about life and people – but we must have a level of awareness that keeps them vigilant. Then again, that is true of all of us. Giving regular and fun attention to the subjects is key to learning and being able to use what we learn. Here is one of the exercises we did in our class on the Strange Car!

October 3, 2014

Life Skills: Respect – The Definition

Each month we will discuss a life skill with all of our students. This month the word is Respect. This word will be defined in the following ways for our students.

Young students: Respect means: “I treat you and me like we matter!”

Older students: Respect means: The ability to see and celebrate the value in ourselves and others (and behave accordingly).

Each age group has a worksheet that parents can use to continue the discussion at home with their children, and one for adults to allow them to think more deeply about the skill and how it applies to them. Would you like to receive the worksheet? Stop by our studio at 133 Gibralter Avenue in Annapolis, MD and tell us the age of your child. We will give you a worksheet and invite you to watch Mr. Joe discuss the word with the students in class. You can also follow our discussions here on this website.

If you would like to become a member of Balanced Life Skills, come TRY CLASSES FOR FREE. We are not your typical after school activity, in fact we are an education center, working with our students on physical skills along with empowering families with compassion, awareness and respect – creating a culture of peace – through the arts. We believe in every child and build their self – confidence. Balanced Life Skills takes part in community service and encourages each student to do the same.

October 2, 2014

The opposite of bragging damages confidence too

We may not be the person who is bragging, but we may be affected by the behavior of others. Bragging is really an attempt to put the other person down. Just as dangerous to our confidence though is, if we were to diminish our own self. If we were to look at another person’s skills or abilities and put ourselves down – thinking or saying “I’m no good because…”.

No matter who we are or what skill we are most proud of, if we open our horizon enough, we will find others who are just as good or many times better than ourselves. That is not a reason though to diminish our own efforts, skills or abilities. Accepting who we are, being happy for others who also excel, and taking the challenge to improve ourselves in whatever way we would like to improve is a balanced way of being here in this world.

We get in trouble with ourselves when we ‘have to be better than’ anyone or everyone around us. We get in trouble with ourselves when we look at other humans or families as a competition. Our life does not need to be a competition – if it is we will eventually die “without enough”. You have heard it said that no one gets on their deathbed and wishes they had spent more time at work, or with a bigger car or house. Most of the time people wish they had more time with family and friends, enjoying the relationships or participating in an activity that they loved.

Life is not a competition for bigger things or even bigger accomplishments. Life, at least in my point of view is about improving ourselves and those around us to the best of our ability. Life and leadership is about being aware of and asking others how we can help them. Life and love is not about getting – it is about giving.

Our confidence is driven by our commitment to our values, knowing that we are living by them, finding and practicing the things we are good at – a commitment to our mission, and being our own best person. Live your life with confidence, be aware of the areas you might improve in, do the work of compassion and you will respected by others and yourself.

October 1, 2014

Reduce stress & reduce anger

When someone in a close relationship with you seems to explode about something that you did not feel was that big of a deal, you may want to ask yourself, what else is going on for them. It most probably is not about you personally. Likely they are feeling stressed about something else going on in their life. In fact, stress is one of the most common triggers for anyone losing their feeling of peace and experiencing angry feelings and behaviors.

Think about a time when anyone of us has felt stress financially, and the affect it has on our spouse or partners. Think of a teen who is struggling in school and how they react to those close to them. Think of a young person who has lost a close family member in death, and the stress results in quick reactions to anything that is hurting them.

Some stress comes from the outside, like described above and some come from the inside of us, the things that we worry about. All of them result though in our brain responding with a “fight, flight, or freeze” defense. While those defenses may have been great in the days of cavemen, they typically do not serve us well in modern society. Learning to deal with stress will help us from letting things get out of hand resulting in angry aggression.

Here is one tip in reducing the stress. SHIFT YOUR FOCUS

Ask yourself some of these questions,

In the grand scheme of things how important is this issue?
In 3 months will this still be as big of an issue as it seems now? How about in 3 years?
What is great about this situation?

Knowing what your priorities in life can be helpful in letting the small stuff go. Knowing what our core values are and what our personal mission and family mission comprise of will help us to focus on the big issues. Keeping our focus on what is really important allows us to over look comments and other events that could get us caught up in the moment, and focused on the small things.

Shift your focus is one step in reducing stress. Reducing stress is one step to anger management.

September 30, 2014

Bully prevention: First step for – What if my child is the bully?

One of the hardest phone calls or face to face conversations a parent can have is the one from a teacher or a friend that accuses a child of being the aggressor (bully). Just for the record, it is never a good idea for a parent of the targeted child to try to have that conversation with the parent of the aggressor. One reason is that as soon as it begins, in the majority of cases, the defenses go up, the denials begin and the disbelief sets in. Once those things happen, it is not likely that anything will happen besides hurt feelings at best.

At times though as a parent we recognize that our child is aggressive and may even have certain friends that have decided not to establish play dates for a while. We may have recognized that they seem to pick another child out – even a sibling – and you may see the fear in the targets actions. What should you do?

There is actually a lot that you can do, but the first step is take a deep breath. You are not a bad parent and social skills come at different rates. Some children take a little longer to develop appropriate behaviors. With careful consideration though, your child can develop the social and friendship skills required to overcome any past actions.

Here is just one of many steps we can take as a parent. No matter the age, have honest and serious conversations with your child. If they are very young 6 and under the conversations will be about friendship. If they are 7 and above help them to understand just what bullying is and that it is not OK. Many children may not fully understand that what they are doing is bullying.

They have watched different sources of media that displays behavior that are aggressive. They most likely have even seen us as their parents displaying aggressive, bullying behaviors and have learned that this is the way you react to situations. They may be the target of bullying by others in the classroom or at home. So many times we see children who are the target of sibling bullying or abuse – who become the aggressor (bully) at school or in other areas of their life.

If the child is older we may even be able to discuss with them that those who repeatedly are aggressive towards others grow up to having increased depression, anger and conflict with other adults including being far more likely to be convicted of crimes on one or more occasions.

Having this firm conversation with them is one of the first steps. Included in the first steps though is not just this conversation – but must also include our love and caring for them to get them back on track. Remember it is the behavior that we dislike – not the child. As you talk and listen to them, listen for what needs they have that are not being filled and how they might be suffering also. When a child or anyone demonstrates anger or aggression, generally we are reacting to our own fear of being hurt or not getting something that we desire or need.

Finding the answer to that question is part of helping our child grow into a peaceful person, both with themselves and others.

Mr. Joe Van Deuren is a recognized bully prevention expert that offers classes and private help for students, parents, teachers and schools who would like to create a culture of peace in their family, school or community.

September 29, 2014

How to show confidence without talking about ourselves

If telling everyone how great we are, or putting others down does not show confidence how can we show confidence? How do we make ourselves feel confident without making someone else feel worse?

We show our confidence by our body language, standing tall, looking at the other person in the eyes, speaking with a clear voice, expressing our needs in a clear manner with a tone that tells others that we believe in our statements.

We show our confidence by our stepping up with courage when a situation needs to be made right. We are not afraid of what others might think. We have morals, values and ethics that we are willing to stand for.

From another point of view we show confidence by our willingness to ‘build others up’. A confident person is not afraid to give sincere compliments to others or to express appreciation for what they have done or what they do. Helping others feel good about themselves, and helping others feel good about another person, demonstrates a lack of fear, that someone may appear “better than” ourselves.

I especially like this point. One of the things we teach at Balanced Life Skills is that the strongest leaders are ones who are willing to submit themselves to others by asking, “How can I help you?”. Our willingness to help others improve themselves, to prove themselves, and to feel good about themselves is a demonstration of our own self-confidence.