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Life Skills: Loyalty in the Family

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.

 

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100 Day Challenge

I have started a 100 Day Challenge.  This challenge is to get me focused on some very bold and innovative projects as well as making improvements in my own training.  If you would like to follow what I do over the next 100 days here is the link to Mr. Joe’s 100 Day Challenge.


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Life Skills: Loyalty – How To Be Loyal To Our Values

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.

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Life Skills: Loyalty – The Definition

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

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

Young students: Loyalty means: “I am true to my friends, family and school”

Older students: Loyalty means: Faithful and committed to a person, place, group or cause.

Here are the worksheets for our students:

Loyalty Worksheet Tiger Tots

Loyalty Worksheet 5 /6

Loyalty Worksheet 7-12

Loyalty Worksheet Teens / Adults

If you would like to see how we will talk about this subject with our students please follow our discussions here during the month of February or come in and TRY A CLASS.

 

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Fast Food: Should We or Our Children EVER Eat This?

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?

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Eating Healthy in the New Year

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.