Life Skills: Integrity is being true to yourself

When it comes to integrity the most important thing you can do for yourself is to be yourself — 100% yourself.  If you are a young person should you change your favorite color, food or activity – just because someone else has a different favorite color, food or activity?  Of course not.  You have to be you!

Sometimes though we may feel timid or afraid to be ourselves as we try to fit in with the group that we are with.  All of us like the idea of being accepted by others, but doing so at the cost of not being who we are can make us feel bad about ourselves.  When we are true to ourselves we are showing integrity, and we have confidence in who and what we are.

Changing who we are to fit in with others may not allow us to enjoy the things that we are really good at and we may not be as happy with our choices in the long term.  I often think about children who choose to go into an activity or a teen that applies to certain colleges, because that is what is expected of them and not because it is what they enjoy doing.

When we are true to ourselves, our friendships and relationships will be very honest.  Eleanor Roosevelt said, “People grow through experience if they meet life honestly and courageously.”   This is how character is built.  Having the courage to be 100% authentic is how you build great character in yourself and great relationships with others.

Confessions From a Child Development Expert: (My Not So Perfect Children)

Dr. Robyn Silverman is Balanced Life Skills child development expert who provides us with guidance on building character in children of all ages.  Up to a couple of years ago her and her husband had no children of their own, so as a father of 4 myself, I knew that when they had their own children — well it just brings a new perspective.  I really enjoyed her musings in this article she wrote today.  I hope you enjoy it also.

Confessions from a Child Development Expert

All parents appreciate having that third voice that supports all that we do as parents.  Balanced Life Skills offers not just the physical part of the martial arts, but also character and confidence development to all of our students.  We invite you to try our classes and to follow what we are doing here on our website.

What Stresses Our Children Out?

What is stress?  It is this feeling that you have when there are all kinds of challenges and things happening to you at the same time.  It may come from different things that you are up against and if will affect both your mind and your body.

The things that stress teens out the most are school work, parents, friends’ problems, romantic relationships.  On top of that, for teens, drugs in the neighborhood was a high stressor and for younger kids they name siblings as a stressor.

It is interesting how girls and boys try to cope with stress.  Boys more often use avoidance and distraction while girls tend to look for support and will try to actively reduce their stress.  Girls are more likely to find their stress coming from relationships and boys from authority figures.

Both sets of individuals use avoidance to some degree while more and more are seeing their stressed displayed with anger and aggression. Finding healthy ways of dealing with stress is very important to the health, both physical and mental for our young adults.  While a certain amount of short term stress can be good, the long term –  day in and day out feelings of stress, worry and anxiety are not healthy in any way.

What are your top 5 stressors?

Child Safety Drowning Rescue

Balanced Life Skills Emergency Response to Drowning Children Can Learn

Each year according to the CDC 750 children will lose their life to drowning. It is important that children and adults be aware of what they should be looking for and know what they can do to assist.

Tacos in Wudang

The rare Wudang Taco little resembles it's Southwestern cousin, except in spirit

As I am settling back into the rhythm of life in Wudangshan, I thought I would write down one of my biggest impressions from my winter at home.

There’s truly no place like home. As much fun and excitement as maneuvering intercultural waters can be, the smallest tasks become significant undertakings. Example: yesterday I made tacos for my brother, Gao, who likes my cooking and missed it while I was gone. At home, I could complete a taco dinner, from conceiving the idea to plates hitting the table, in a few hours. There are grocery stores, organized in a way I understand. Ingredients are fairly consistently available, and I can ask questions comfortably and trust that the context in which I mean them will be understood.The conveniences of modern kitchens are not to be underrated.

Here, I shop at an outdoor market 20 minutes walk from our school. Crowded stalls separate my shopping into dry goods, fresh vegetables, and meat, tripling the amount of haggling to be done while I  dodge the piles of rotting refuse that the shopkeepers throw into the center aisle. Yesterday, I had to search high and low at three different markets to find cilantro, which normally would be easily available at any of the shops (I eventually found a rather wilted handful that worked well enough, though I think it was the last cilantro in all of Wudang). The meat is sold hanging on a hook in an outdoor stall. Logically, the seller does not take it out in the heat of the day, so if I want to buy meat I have to schedule my shopping for early morning or late afternoon. When I went to buy the bread I use to substitute for a tortilla, the vendor tried to tell me I couldn’t have the ones I wanted. I started to walk away, and his wife grabbed me and tried to direct my attention to some other, very nice, un-tortilla like bread. I said no thank you, and started to walk away again, and they thrust the tortilla bread at me, at which point I realized the price had gone up while I was away by 50%. Then I got home and realized why they had not wanted to sell it to me in the first place — stale, very stale. Then I had to use the kitchen. I tried to use one wok, and realized the wood fire beneath it from earlier had already died. I then switched to a coal brick burner, which cooked the food very nicely although I was choking on the coal fumes the whole while. Not bad tacos though, if I do say 🙂

I suspect that a Chinese person would feel as perplexed trying to prepare familiar foods in my local supermarket as I feel trying to cook here in China. It reminds me that no matter how widely I travel, no place will ever put me so at ease as the good old U.S.A.

Child Safety: How to Stop a Nose Bleed

Teaching our children that they can help themselves and others in an emergency situation builds their knowledge and confidence. Stopping a nose bleed or other bleeding is one area of safety that every child should learn about.