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Life Skills: Diligence Even With Distractions

Teaching character and life skills to students

Have you ever noticed how when you are trying to practice doing your work with diligence that things get in the way and we get distracted from our work or task?  We use the command to “FOCUS” to our children and for many of us we say it to ourselves too.

There are so many distractions that can get in the path of working with diligence, some of them from the outside and others from within.  For our children, noise, other children playing, or making funny faces is hard to resist looking at – taking our attention away from our work. We want to look at what is happening and laugh too.

What can you do if distractions are happening when you are trying to finish your work?  The 3 step plan we talked to our students about was:

  1. Ask them to stop in a kind way
  2. Ask the teacher or adult for help
  3. Ask the teacher or adult to move us

If your child is having a hard time with keeping their mind on the task at hand, practice these strategies to give them the courage to use them in their classroom.

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Examining the Effects on The Bully

Besides hurting others, bullies damage themselves, short term and long term each time they hurt others. The effects last long into adulthood and include some shocking findings. This is Day 9 in our series examining the effect of bullying behavior on the bully.

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31 Days of Bully Prevention Videos Day 8: How do different age groups bully?

For 31 days we are looking at the subject of bullying and bullying prevention. Today we are looking at the differences in age groups, including how we may see warning signs in preschool children. Identifying these signs gives us the opportunity to work on social skills and empathy at a young age.

Join Bully Prevention Partners if you are interested in creating a culture of peace in our schools and community.

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Life Skills: The Results of Diligence and Mindfulness

Teaching character and life skills to students

We are defining diligence as doing our work carefully, with concerted and consistent effort.  As I have been talking to our students about that this week, I cannot help but think about how this ties in with the concept of being mindful.  When we are mindful, whatever the task is at hand – that is what we are giving our attention.   So if we are cleaning up after dinner – then we are only thinking about that and not what is next on our agenda of tasks.

This can be difficult at first.  All of us though have had the experience of quickly completing a task only to need to go back and revisit how it was completed.  Teaching our children to slow down and not rush just to be able to move on to “what we really want to do” is an important part of helping them overcome stress as they take on more responsibilities.

Finally diligence is not about being or getting everything done perfectly before we move on.  It is only about truly doing our best on the task we are working on.  When we do our best, we can feel good about the results and see where we need to improve and not be disappointed by “silly mistakes” due to rushing the project.

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Bully Prevention Messages: Day 6

Today we look at an overview of the three parties involved in bullying. In the next few days we will look at each party in detail along with what the effects of bullying can have on everyone involved. Statistics show that by the time a child gets to middle school they have all seen, heard of, been the target of bullying or been the bully. The effects of this is important for all of us to be aware of.