What your teen is really worried about

Recently I asked a group of teen students about what they thought they would like to learn to protect themselves from the most. It was not an attack on the streets or hallways at school. They did not talk of being abducted or physically hurt. They did not speak of international issues such as war or attacks on the homeland. The things that they wanted the most protection from or learn how to deal with:

put-downs, cliques at school, teasing, insults, words, exclusion

Bullying behaviors are the biggest things on these students minds. There were other subjects that came up too, like anger, education, close mindedness, jealousy, cutting, emotional abuse, not being heard, health issues… but far away it was the social / emotional issues that were the of the highest concern.

Teens are concerned with finding their place in society and especially among their peers. Being able to do so and feeling safe is key to how they operate in society as adults. The adults in their life have a responsibility to set the example for them, to guide them through the waters of the social world and to find that secure place.

The six skills that every child needs to start learning at a young age and how to teach those skills will be part of our discussion on September 27 at 10 AM. The subject title is “The Truth About Bullying” You are invited to this FREE class to be followed in the weeks to come dealing with What to do if your child is being bullied and more. Register today or just show up – but be sure to get this information for your family.

September 19, 2014

Core Arts Standards and Life Skills

Our approach to teaching lets children be the artists. Student’s time in the classroom is spent expressing themselves and learning how to make strong artistic choices. Learning to make strong artistic choices will teach them how to make healthy choices for themselves and socially significant choices that will make the world a better place.

The National Core Arts Standards include a series of anchors for arts education. When you teach to these anchors, you are also teaching valuable life skills. When you see a child trying on costumes or reading lines over and over again in different voices, take a harder look, when you see them make a decision that has meaning and context your child has taken a step towards being the kind of person that will change the world.

Creating	Self-awareness Teamwork Innovative decision-making
Performing, Presenting, Producing	Confidence eloquence resource management (time and finances)
Responding	Critical Thought Valuation
Connecting	Understanding social issues ability to understand experiences outside of their own using problem-solving skills to come up with innovative solutions

September 19, 2014

Self Defense: What would you do….

What would you do if:

Teaching children self defense

This can be a difficult subject to talk to your kids about without scaring them into thinking that every stranger is out to get them. On the other side, studies have shown that many, in fact the majority of children, even though their parents have talked about this will put themselves into a dangerous situation when faced with this situation.

Here is what you want your children to know:

It is OK to say NO to an adult
Adults should go to other adults for help, not children.
Never go towards or near a car when it is someone you do not know
Always turn and run back into your house and tell an adult right away

The child may fear that they have done something wrong. They may have been further out in the yard than you generally allow them to be. Reassure them during their training that they are not in trouble if they tell you their story.

To give your children the best chance to know what to do and the courage to do it remember this quote:

“Tell me and I forget, Teach me and I may remember, Involve me and I learn.”

The most important part of this kind of training is role playing it is involving them in the training. Have the child pretend with you different scenarios, role play different questions with them.

“would you like to see my puppy?”

“can you help me find my puppy?”

“do you want a piece of candy?”

“can you help me carry these packages to the door?”

Depending on the age, limit the amount of time on each session you are teaching your children. It is better to schedule a self defense day with the family on a regular basis. Some days it may cover this subject or many others like the ones we talk about at Balanced Life Skills. Consistent short trainings are far more effective than a one hour class that you take one time.

We are here to help you keep your family safe.

September 18, 2014

Building Confidence in Children in 5 Easy Steps

There are so many negative messages around and directed at young people, especially from those surrounding them, like the media they see and read, and the messages they hear from adults and friends. How can we as the adults in their life help them develop a positive, confident attitude while teaching them how to do the same for themselves?

Focus on the good things that they are doing, identifying their unique strengths and expressing your appreciation for those strengths. It is easier for both us as adults and them as students to quickly see the faults or the things we would do differently. Seeing the good will help our children to do the same with themselves and others. This is not about over praising them, rather an acknowledgment of their unique qualities.

Focus on learning and thinking critically as well as creatively. Encouraging our children to learn to think and learn with open minds makes a powerful difference in their life and how they feel about school and learning, building their confidence in themselves.

Take care of the physical health. Encouraging our children to be active, by being active ourselves, eating in a healthy manner, all lends itself to feeling positive and confident.

Having a mission and setting goals, both as a family and as an individual gives us something to look forward to and work towards. As you meet your challenges and work through them your confidence increases. Working this together as a family helps our children to feel good about themselves.

Give back to others. Helping others not only helps us have gratitude for what we have, but it also gives us a great feeling, knowing that we were able to assist someone else. Confidence comes from seeing the accomplishments of our services to others.

The messages we send our children every day has an effect on the feelings they have for themselves. Are they proud of who they are, the way they learn, their physical health and what they are doing to maintain it, do they know where they are going and why, and are they showing gratitude for all they have and give to others? Doing these things makes every child and adult feel positive about themselves.

September 17, 2014

Fear is the root cause of anger

I start this with a strong statement – Fear is the root cause of anger.

No matter who we are we all feel our anger triggered, sometimes by individuals, by groups, or the conduct of others. Generally though if we have an expectation or goal and it is not filled or completed in some manner, we may begin to have angry feelings come up for us. It is very easy for us to blame the customer service person, our spouse, our child, the teacher, the organization for “making us feel this way”.

Our reaction to those triggers may come out as anger and may be displayed in a number of ways, from something as simple as a feeling of resentment, bitterness or frustration to the other end of the spectrum of hatred, hostility or rebellion. The anger may be shown in a physical, verbal, or emotional way with attacks on others physically or verbally or emotionally.

But why the attack for something that may seem later to not be that important? I would suggest that it is due to fear. Our brain is trying to protect us from something that we believe or feel is going to hurt us. So while anger is probably meant to be a good thing, some parts of our brain are not realizing that we live in a different society beyond the caveman age and the “enemy” can be dealt in different ways than the explosion of anger and fighting or running way.

In our modern society the fear we have or the danger we see, is not from wild animals or other physical enemy attacks. But the reaction to the fears we have are the same as in caveman days – we are going to attack back and sometimes we get way to aggressive about that attack and we get into trouble.

Where is that fear from? There are two main groups that fear falls into, that everything else that happens to us can be tied too. Those groups are:

Fear of failure

Fear of not being enough

Every reaction to an attack on us or even perceived attack is based on protecting ourselves from our fear of failure or our fear of not being enough. Let me give you some examples.

Think about the parent who is yelling at their child because of misbehaving in a public place

FEAR of failure as a parent or not a good enough parent

Think about a person who has lost a loved one and becomes angry lashing out at others.

FEAR of “did I do enough”

Think of a young person who was just ‘dumped’ by a friend

FEAR of not being a good enough friend to be kept and what will others think (embarrassment)

Think of a person who has lost their job and has become short and aggressive at home with family members

FEAR of failure as a provider, what will happen to my family?

Learning to recognize the fear that is lurking beneath the anger, then communicating what is happening inside of you is an important part of anger management. If you only show the anger, and that is all that everyone sees, they will likely respond to the anger, not realizing that there are other feelings going on for you.

To learn to do this is a process and many times needs the help of others. More on that later.

September 16, 2014

Imbalance of Power Leads To Bullying In These 5 Ways

One of the signs that an aggressive act is bullying and not just bad behavior is if there is an imbalance of power – the aggressive party has either the perception or reality of being ‘greater than’ in some manner. This sense of power can come in many forms.

Power can be demonstrated economically. In an adult relationships if one person makes and controls all of the money, that may be an imbalance of power. In and of itself that is not a problem, unless they use the threat of that power to control the other person.
Power might be demonstrated physically. If one person is larger, stronger, more aggressive – this imbalance might be shown if the weaker person is afraid of them. They might be afraid of being hit or pushed around.
Power might be demonstrated mentally. There are many ways this may work out, but many times we will see one person who perceives themselves as smarter or more capable and will be very pushy about getting things done their way. This is true in kids or adults.
Power might be demonstrated emotionally. Many times manipulation of feelings and actions will be done, based on one persons perception of themselves or the other person.
Power might be demonstrated even online. If one person is showing up anonymously and is saying mean things about another – they have an illegitment power over the target.

While this list is not exhaustive – it is easy to see how one child might be able to bully another, or a spouse may bully their partner or even their child. Even teachers can sometimes use their ‘power’ in a way that is damaging to a child or fellow teacher.

When we have power in some manner, empathy for others will help us to be thoughtful and careful about how we use it or even how it is perceived. Check out more information on bullying at the class on September 27 @ 10 AM at Balanced Life Skills.

You are invited to come to the first of a series on “The Truth About Bullying”