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Life Skills: Acceptance – Starting With Ourselves

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.

 

 

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Bully Prevention Requires Proactive Intervention

There have been a number of events that have taken place in my life or very close to me that has had me stop and think about being proactive. Many times the solutions to problems and the antidote to issues are prescribed after a bad event, but those very solutions and antidotes are very effective to never having the problem in the first place. Let me show a couple of examples.

If you go to the doctor and find that you are pre-diabetic or have diabetes, what do they do? They may put you on medications, but they will for sure instruct you on changing your diet and getting more exercise. So why do we wait till something happens, disaster is ready to strike and then start making changes, when we know that a healthy diet and good exercise routine can result in good health, with lowered risk of these kinds of diseases?

Recently someone close to me that suffers from depression, anxiety and bi-polar disorder after getting the chemicals balanced out was encouraged to take the time to learn and practice meditation. In fact at the hospital, the encouragement was talking to someone (social therapist), physical activity, and learning peace with meditation. These are all recommendations that are good for all of us. Why do we wait to practice some alone and quiet time, simply sitting with ourselves, and allowing our minds to rest – till we are stressed out or even worst have a complete breakdown? Should we not practice good mental health on a daily basis?

I have really started thinking about this in light of the work I am doing on bully prevention. To be honest it is hard to find individuals interested in the work that needs to be done – unless of course they are being bullied or their child is being picked on or worst yet someone is thinking of harming themselves. Then the subject is quite important to them.

Please do not wait till your child is being harmed in some manner, or until you find out that they are being hurt, before you take proactive steps to help them. Do not wait till they are in a fight and you admit that there are anger management issues that should have been dealt with a long time ago. Friendships, relationships and the way we deal with one another is not something that we wait till a bad destructive event. Do not wait to learn about verbal self defense, anger management, relational aggression, or the boy code – until there is an emergency situation in your life.

If you want to help me put the information together, find ways to help others and create a curriculum for all of us to study please contact me and I will tell you where I am at this time and we can discuss solutions to creating a culture of peace in our schools and community.

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Life Skills: Acceptance – Expanding Our Life Experience

Teaching character and life skills to students

Have you ever noticed that it is usually the differences between one person, group, or country with another that are viewed as wrong, shortcomings or not acceptable – that create some of the biggest challenges and aggressive behavior?  It can make things very difficult to move forward, to have an understanding, and to achieving goals in a team like manner.  If I look at someone and immediately reject them and their experiences because they do not fit our idea of being like us, we may be rejecting an opportunity to expand our own knowledge and experience.

If we have a hard time being accepting we may miss out on meeting and getting to know new people, trying new things or even learning about new things.  Being able to look past the appearances may allow us to explore the individuality of someone new.  Have you ever had a conversation with someone that normally you would not be conversing with, only to find out how interesting they are, or that the two of you have some very common interests?

Everyone of us has a story.  In my experience I have found that we are more the same than we might expect.  Being able to accept someone for who they are, what they might look like and where they are in their life is one of the keys to expanding our own experiences in life.

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Life Skills: Acceptance – How Parents Can Start Teaching Acceptance to Our Children

Teaching character and life skills to students

Long before we are able to accept others for who they are, we must learn to accept ourselves for who we are.  It was interesting how when our students were asked about one thing that they liked about themselves, they came up with the things they like to do.  Then a few of them talked about how they liked being a kind person, or someone who made friends easily.

Liking ourselves begins with knowing what we enjoy doing, our favorite (whatever) and then being willing to stick with that even if it is different than what others like to do.  As parents we sometimes have in our mind what we would like to see our children like and how we would like to see them be.   However if our child likes to build things they may not be the next greatest soccer player, no matter how much we would like to see that happen.  As a parent our acceptance of that and celebration of them is important to their growth in self-esteem, confidence and resistance to bullying that may take place.

Never underestimate the power of our words.  In one of our classes after not getting a great response to what do you like about yourself, I proceeded to look at each student and tell them what I found unique and special about each of them.  Later in the evening I asked one of the students what they had said about themselves and she could not remember.  But quickly said, “But I remember what you said.”  Affirming our appreciation for what is different and unique and special about our children will help them to accept themselves and from there we can build on accepting others.

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Life Skills: “Acceptance” the Definition

Teaching character and life skills to students

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

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

Young students: Acceptance means: “It’s OK to be different”

Older students: Acceptance means: Respect for the differences between oneself, others and the way people do things.

Here are the worksheets for our students:

Acceptance Worksheet Tiger Tots

Acceptance Worksheet 5-6

Acceptance Worksheet 7-12

Acceptance 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 November or come in and TRY A CLASS.