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Life Skills: Optimism – The Powers You Need to Be Optimistic

Being optimistic is more than just a great way of thinking, if you can. Optimism is a part of being a leader of others and is a way of thinking that is good for our children to learn. When our children can be optimistic, looking at the bright side, they learn to look at their goals in a new way. We know as parents that if we go into a project or learning situation and do not believe that we are able to accomplish it,or believe that we are a failure – we are most likely to have that result.

The powers that we can teach our children they need to feel hopeful about reaching their goals is first willpower. Will Power is about continuing to work at their goal until they reach it. We can teach Will Power by encouragement of their efforts along with not just giving them everything that they want. Allow them to have goals that they have to work for over a period of time. The second power they will need is “WAY-Power”. This the power that even when things get in the way, you know you will find a way to reach your goal. As parents we know that life is tough and that not all things come easy. Allowing our children to have obstacles and to learn to overcome them will be a great help in developing WAY-Power.

If you have those two powers, Will-Power and Way-Power, you have optimism.

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Life Skills: Respect – How To Respect Teachers

We all have people we respect.  When we ask students about who they respect, they come up with names of famous athletes and other famous individuals for all kinds of reasons.  Many of them will say their teachers or one special teacher.  They appreciate their teacher for a number of reasons including, “they are nice”, “they help me”,   “they let us have…”.   But showing respect for the teacher can be more difficult for them to understand.

Talking to our children about how to respect teachers is important for parents to do, and not just from the point of view of “not getting in trouble”.  Showing respect for them can be done by listening in class, not calling out, by waiting to be called on to answer, following the rules of the classroom, completing assignments, asking for help.

All teachers appreciate students who have good manners in school and who work well with them, but they especially appreciate when a student takes the time to say thank you.  For some of us we wait till we are older and then go back and say thank you, but everyday is an opportunity for our children to learn the value of a sincere thank you for what our teachers do for our children everyday.  I encourage all parents and children to take the time to think about and then thank a teacher for the value they add to our lives.  They make a big difference in our lives and saying thank you is important for them and us.

Each year Balanced Life Skills recognizes the teachers in our community by inviting them to visit our school and their students.  Continue reading “Life Skills: Respect – How To Respect Teachers”

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Life Skills: Respect For Teachers

Learning From and Showing Respect For Our Teachers

In our lives we will have quite a few teachers.  They will come to us as older, younger and our age.  They will come as good, bad and indifferent influences.  Even with that in mind, everyone of them will influence our life experiences.  Some of them will be in front of a classroom, while others we will read their teachings or experiences.  Some of them will be in the flesh, others will be in the media or the internet.  Some will be there when we least expected them and others will show up, shall we say unwanted (though needed).

Some of them will have virtually no impact on us.  We will get through their classes or be taught a skill by them and after our test we will be done with them.  Others we will be reminded of from time to time when their subject comes up in our lives.  Still others will be on our shoulder constantly reminding us of something that was important to them and more probably, important to both of us.  We may not have even known it was important to us until they made us aware.

When we are young and still in school we can show respect for our teachers by Continue reading “Life Skills: Respect For Teachers”

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Life Skills: Teaching Respect – What If We Treated The Earth The Way We Treat Our Friends?

What would the world look like if nobody showed respect for each other in the community?  Respect is “being treated in a way that demonstrates empathy for how we might feel in the same situation”.  I recently heard a quote that paraphrased said, it was easier to condemn another than it is to understand them.  Empathy and respect are so interrelated in our day to day life and also in the way we treat the environment.  Are we trying to understand our place here on this planet in relation to fellow humans and our home the Earth?

In our community we demonstrate empathy with a smile to those around us. Don’t all of us appreciate a kind word and a smile from another?  We clean up our trash or mess so that others can enjoy the area at a park.  Do we not appreciate an area we are about to use being clean and neat?   We speak kindly to those that are serving our needs at a restaurant, doctors office, grocery store.  Would we not appreciate the patience of others while we are serving their needs?  What would it look like if no one smiled at each other, if they left a mess for others to deal with, if they were noisy at the library or while we were working, if they bumped into us as we walked down the street and then gruffly dismissed us?   Our world would certainly not be a pleasant place to be.

Now the question is, What will our earth look like if we do not reduce what we are taking from it, reduce the amount of “messes” we leave for it?  What will our environment be like if we do not show respect for our home Earth?  Will there be beautiful and usable beaches and forests, mountains and animals for our children in the future? Continue reading “Life Skills: Teaching Respect – What If We Treated The Earth The Way We Treat Our Friends?”

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Life Skills: 5 Lessons in Teaching Children Respect of Their Body and Mind

We must use the word RESPECT when we are teaching our children anything that is important for them to learn to do on a regular basis.  Respect for their body and mind can start at a very early age as we begin to teach them their own life.  We show respect for our bodies first and foremost by what we put into it.

Lesson #1: We show respect for our body by knowing about the nourishment we put in our bodies.  What kind of food are we delivering to our body?  Should it not be fruits and vegetables, water, maybe some milk or juice, some forms of protein.  We can help them to understand how to use the local farmers and the benefit of doing so.

Lesson #2: Getting a good nights sleep also shows respect for our bodies.  Children who are 5 and 6 years old need up to 12 hours a sleep per day.  Children 7 – 12 years old need 11 hours per day and 12 – 18 year olds need 9 hours per day.  Getting the correct amount of sleep shows respect for our bodies. Continue reading “Life Skills: 5 Lessons in Teaching Children Respect of Their Body and Mind”