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Focus: this is our moment

All of us has had someone tell us that we need to focus.  It may have even been ourselves that we had a little self talk “Focus, Focus, Focus”.  So what is focus other than looking and listening with intensity.  This is what we teach our young children and for all of us it is really blocking out all of the distractions that keep us from focusing.

How do we direct our mind so that we can focus on our work, assignment or other things?  We must remember that the only thing that we have is this moment.  If we are washing the dishes then we need to be washing the dishes.  If we are talking to our child, then we need to be totally there with them.  This is the only moment that we have.  

All of the moments we had – are in the past and we cannot get them back.  There are no future moments that we are guaranteed – so NOW is all we have.  Still all of us have things that will be a distraction to us, so practicing being in this moment will take time.  

This week in our classes we will be talking about what distracts us and how we can keep ourselves focused.

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Anger management: #5 we need empathy

Depending on the age of the child, understanding the feelings of others may be difficult, if only due to developmental reasons.  A five year old has one emotional ability and a 12 year old another.  One thing though that does happen is that when they are angry no matter there age or training – they will be blinded to someone else’s feelings. 

Developing this empathy will help them to understand that all of us have feelings and just as we react to how others treat us, we too can react to how others feel.  Some children though who have had painful lives, may defend themselves by shutting down their sensitivity to others.  Or they may use intimidation and fear as a part of their defense.

Teaching empathy is a two fold.  First every child needs to understand feelings and they need adults around them whom they can trust.  With our younger children, increasing their “feelings vocabulary”, is very important to them identifying both their own and others feelings.

If we find older children are having difficulty with understanding the feelings of others, encourage them to write down stories in a journal.  If they have a problem get them to write or or talk about what happened – from the other persons point a view.

Finally as a parent or teacher, describing our own experiences and the emotions that we feel can be very helpful.  They can identify that you have faced difficult situations or may still be dealing with them, and they will learn to empathize.  

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Focus discussion: changing our results

The concept that we are focusing on this month is “Focus”.  Interesting is the fact that many of us focus on the things that we fear or the things that we do not want to happen.  I will give you an example that is very easy to relate to.  Have you ever driven down the road and had something on the side of the road grab your attention.  As you looked at it you were so intrigued that when you did look up you found that the car had moved toward that side of the road.   In fact many professional driving instructors will tell you that if you lose control of your car on the road – DO NOT look at the tree you want to avoid – you will surely hit it if you do.

Now there is an interesting place to begin.  If you focus on the things that you do want and the goals we want to reach it is just that much easier to reach them.  I know that is very hard to do.  One reason it is so hard is because of the amount of information we are bombarded with on a daily basis.  I recently read that we receive over 3000 marketing messages a day that we need to process. Did you know that is as many as our grandparents received in a whole year.  No wonder it is hard to do.  So how will we do this and just as important how will we teach our children to focus.  

Over the next month we will work on that here at Balanced Life Skills.  If you want to learn about this you will want to follow this blog.  In addition FOCUS is one of the concepts that we work on in our school every class.  Reinforce what you see us do in class at home and you will see improvement in your child’s focus.

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Focus: Definition

Each month we define and discuss a word of character development with all of our students.  This month the word is Focus.  It will be defined this way.

Young students: Focus means “I look and listen to one thing at a time.”

Older students: Focus means:  Using laser-like concentration even when there are distractions.

If you would like to see how we will deal with this subject with our students please follow our discussions here during the month of June.

 



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Sportmanship and Empathy

As I discussed sportsmanship with our classes one thing came up that I found very interesting.  Sportsmanship is very much like empathy.  When we look at what we do through the eyes of others, when we put ourselves in their shoes we know immediately if what we are doing demonstrates sportsmanship. 

I know that when I think about who I like to compete with it is those that don’t complain if they lose or gloat when they win.  They don’t yell at me if I make a mistake, and they don’t make fun of me.  They won’t push me and always try to make things fair.  Now if they are the things that make me feel good about playing with someone, then I want to be sure to do the same for them.  (that is empathy)

This is a great time to teach our children about empathy using sports or games.  They can see and feel it and that experience will have the greatest impact on them. 


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Project: Ladybugs, all good?

So they are cute and we have been told “don’t harm the lady bugs”  but are all lady bugs good?  One of our students and his family investigated the lady bug and found some things you must know for your garden this year.  Here is a link to their report.   Ladybugs  Hope you enjoy this.  What a great job!