children | - Part 7

May 26, 2011

Life Skills: Optimism – When We Make a Mistake

Using optimism when we have made a mistake can be a difficult step as we work at developing this attitude. When we make a mistake we have some choices to make. Are we going to be embarrassed and try to hide the fact that a mistake was made? Are we going to try to get out of it by blaming another person? Are we going to deny it, being afraid that we may lose the respect or the friendship of another person?

We know that when we blame someone else that they may get in trouble for something that they did not do, and it is likely that the truth will be found out anyway. When we make a mistake the right thing to do is to admit it and be optimistic. Optimistic that everything will be OK. We have told the truth, we are taking responsibility for our actions, we have apologized and now we are looking for ways to make things right. If we have taken those steps we have every reason to believe (to be optimistic) that we will find a resolution to the mistake.

Sometimes our mistakes are on a personal level where we have said or done something that hurt the feelings of another person. Whatever the reason is that this has occurred, taking responsibility and apologizing is the right thing to do. Staying calm acknowledging the pain of the other person and your own pain, apologize if you have done something wrong, and let them know that you are willing to do what it takes to make things right. Again, when we are optimistic, we believe that by being accountable, we can make things right again.

May 19, 2011

Life Skills: Optimism – 3 Ways to Learn Optimism

Learning how to think and talk to ourselves is a key factor in teaching our children optimism. If we can develop the habit of looking at the good things that have happened to us, or the new things that we have learned, we have knowledge that we can reflect on when the going gets tough. Recently I posted a TED talk on smiling. Learning to think about the good things that happen to us and taking a moment to be thankful and smile will help us and our family to be optimistic.

This is like a muscle though in that if we want that ability in the difficult times, we must practice it and work it in the good times. The practice and habit of being thankful for what we have, focusing on the good both in ourselves and others, will create a good mood for ourselves. When we smile at another person it has an affect on them and on us. Our mood will pick up and we can naturally be more optimistic.

If it seems that we are in a cycle of being in a bad mood, depressed, or negative about many things, how can we break that cycle? I would suggest that we think about things in our life where we succeeded in a situation that seemed impossible. Use that as a starting point where we can see we have had success and can be sure of our ability to duplicate that success. Look for the silver – lining. If we make a mistake, what can we learn from it and where can we apply our new knowledge? What are some other possible outcomes? What is the good that we can be focused on? My third suggestion is to adopt the attitude of gratitude. Pause and be mindful of the ‘little things’ that we may have taken for granted in the past. Being thankful and taking the moment to express that gratitude either to another or to ourselves, will build on itself into not just gratitude but also optimism.

May 16, 2011

Graduation from college and improv, 20 lessons learned

Joe Van Deuren

On Monday May 16 at 11 AM, I will be in Boston to see our youngest son, Sean, graduate from Emerson College. Anyone who has children can imagine or know what it feels like to have put 4 children through college successfully.

Sean who had a slow start in school, needing speech therapy and an extra year in Kindergarten, went on to be the student chosen to give his 5th grade graduation speech, to high school being a part of the improv team, take part in plays and give monologue performance at the Kennedy Center, go to college and be on the #1 improv team at Emerson That’s Pathetic as a freshman, traveling around giving performances, and finally having a group of his short stories published with a book signing and reading in his junior year at Emerson.

Can you tell I am proud of him? But the real reason I am writing this comes from an article sent to me, unsolicited, about the Life Lessons that can be learned from being on an improv team.

20 Lesson You Can Learn From Improv

I hope you enjoy the article and when your son or daughter says they want to try it out – allow them to do so. it will be a great experience. By the way, after 8 years of improv, Sean told me last night that he is not interested in continuing that part of his life, but what great lessons he learned being a part of those two teams.

May 6, 2011

Are Pre-School Children Being Bullied?

The simple answer is YES! Having said that though, some of the teasing that takes place with pre-school children is not bullying in the classic sense and definition. It may be young ones just trying on their social skills and not yet having them honed yet. The definition of bullying is the intentional use of power over another person to manipulate or hurt the target physically or emotionally over a period of time. Therefore it is something that is taking place on more than one ocassion.

preschool bully — pre-school bullies hurt parents and children

Increasingly though we are seeing and hearing reports of pre-school children repeatedly picking on, teasing and physically hurting other children in their class or on the playground. In an effort to understand what is happening to our children and then to offer suggestions to resolve these issues with parents and teachers I am interested in hearing the stories from you about what has happened to your child or to someone you have seen. What have you done to resolve the issues? How have teachers and administrators reacted when you have discussed the questions about bullying? For the teachers, how do you deal with this conduct when you see it in your classes or playground?

What is your story? Were you bullied as a small child? Is your son or daughter being teased on a regular basis or being bullied in another way? Tell your story here as we work on changing the culture in our communities.

Continue to check back as we work on this subject of helping our children build the character and courage to be their best.

April 28, 2011

What’s Really Causing the Childhood Obesity Epidemic?

Physical Health

A study by Yale University has just come out and it claims that people and especially children can become addicted to fast food and “comfort foods”. Of course this would lead possibly to a reason for the obesity epidemic that is sweeping the nation. If this is in fact the case, that would call for us to re-think how we are approaching the obesity issue. Should we be looking at it as an addiction issue or continue with the techniques we are using presently.

If though it is an addiction issue is it strictly a physical issue or do we need to be looking at the emotional issues that many times contributes to taking part in addictive activities. Could it be that the stress that so many of our children feel is a contributing factor, or is it due to low grade depression? I of course do not know the answer to those questions. I do know however that stress is a bigger part of the lives of our children than most of us parents are able to comprehend. Much of the reason for that is that we have a tendency to compare the child’s causes of stress to our own and – well there seems to be no comparison. But in fact our children do have high levels of stress in their lives, socially, academically and many worry over pleasing their parents.

What can children do about this? As parents we have a responsibility to help them have tools to combat stress, which means we must have tools to do the same. Where do we start? I would suggest starting with some quiet time to take some deep breaths and calm ourselves. Follow that with some physical movement to relax all of our body parts, and then ask ourselves “What is the most important thing I can do right now that will have the biggest impact on my life, job, family? Then take care of that one thing.

For more information on childhood obesity look at this presentation on What’s really causing the childhood obesity epidemic? – What Kids Say by Dr. Pretlow.

To learn how martial arts and Balanced Life Skills can help you relieve stress come in to our studio and try out some classes.

April 24, 2011

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”