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Unconditional Love: A Story of What Family Is All About / #socialfabric #parenting

Not all loves are equal. Not all heart-felt expressions of love hold the same depth. One love can be likened to that of a friendship, while another is that found in a marriage, and yet there is one love that surpasses these two and that is the unconditional love God has for his children, the love a doting parent has on their kids, or even that of one laying down their life for another. This last kind, places the object of its affection in a light which no fault or lapse of circumstance can diminish. It is a mindful, resolute position that vibrates lovingkindness, wisdom and understanding. Last year, I had the privilege of working with a young Jewish family who had adopted indigenous Guatemalan children. The children have been steeped in Judaism, speak only English and are completely American. Approaching middle school years, the boy is smart and insightful, sensitive and a Minecraft aficionado. The sister is an outgoing, critical thinker who enjoys to write. Through the cours...

The Kids Are Watching / #BruceLee #commonsense #idols #junkfood #vaccines #safetybeforeprofit #USA #America #parenting

Would you eat junk food everyday and expect to have a healthy and fit body? Would you introduce heavy metals into your brain and expect to walk away unscathed? Would you listen to ’professionals’ and ‘established’ voices who told you to disregard your own common sense and listen to them tell you that eating junk food and inserting heavy metals into your brain is totally safe and sound? We feed junk into our hearts and minds by listening to musicians play catchy beats with soul-degrading lyrics. We say  ‘yes, please’ with a smile as our doctors tell us that nano-sized heavy metals will not affect our brains and they do not cause brain damage or what is blandly called, autism. The late-Bruce Lee defied incredible odds and was successful in facilitating a shift in the global culture by consistently harvesting a healthy and positive original attitude, a mindset which influenced his life actions. Because of his resoluteness tenacity, Mr. Lee trumped the ‘half-...

Coding Ourselves Into Our Children / An Exercise in Honoring Our Past #family #community #storytelling

Family stories fill us, guide us and lead us into the paths of our lives. They code understanding into us and leave imprints of wisdom from times past. Do you relate the stories of your family to your children? Do you know your families past? Are you writing it down? Recently, I worked with a student whom is interviewing on film the great-grandmother who is 100 years old. Along with the mother, I facilitated the initial guidance of brainstorming, planning and sequencing on how to begin to go about it. On my way out of the home I mentioned the obvious to Mom...that the film for her child's school project would not just be for school, but serve as a record for years to come. Who knows if her child will have a family one day and then will have this record to share with the family. Knowing where we come from and honoring our past is vital to how we step into each present moment as we create our future. I believe that this is a truth worth heeding and it serves not just individual f...

The Beginning of US / #resolve #goforth #leaders #softskills #empathy #grit #parents #family

The beginning of us starts inside, deep inside. The resolve to 'go forth' must be stronger than the tendency to leave it all to rot. My father was by no means a perfect man.. who is? Yet from an early age, he taught my sisters and I the value of resolve. He would say over and over again to us, "you were born to lead, you were born to lead." This, of course, ruined us. It made us tougher than tough in all the right places, as if we were invincible to failing because no matter what, we were primed to just keep getting back up. That is the growth mindset as it is called these days. Back then, Dad called it perseverance, toughness and 'firing out.' When I played football, Dad was on the lines always giving me his eye which I would catch for extra resolve. As I got older and moved through the divisions I got tougher and tougher until I thought of myself as 'all steel.' When I was at the line of scrimmage, my father told me to act meaner than a junkyar...

Using the #GrowthMindset as a Family Value / #youth #positivedisruption #community

As we grow up and push towards our goals, whatever they may be, it is easy to get hyper-focused on attaining them. In a family home, bills have to be paid, children's expenses have to be accounted for, and cars need to be maintained.  All this takes energy and consistent effort. For most of us, this entails working hard week in and week out. Everything costs money, except unconditional love these days. In pushing harder to keep ourselves afloat it is not hard for important priorities to take a back seat. The father that has to travel far for work loses out on family time. Children grow day by day and begin to form there understanding of what it is to live a life and how to go about doing so. The parents, for better or for worse, are the models on how to do this. The kids take example and follow suit. Generation after generation patterns are established and entrenched. The legacy of parents comes alive in the youth to a great extent and life repeats itself. However, pattern...

Initial #ExecutiveFunction Skill Parent-Inspection Metrics Sheet

                                                                   Initial Executive Function Skills   Parent-Inspection Metrics Sheet                                                                                     A Standard pathway to reinforce Planning Ahead                              w/ Time Management Tools & Strategies by @CoachBill007      Metric #1  If a 'to do list' with the EF parameters is expected today, then let's see it! the list must have all EF parameter...

Extinguishing the Defiance from the Defiant Child Tonight

What do you do with a child who is passively defiant, perhaps obnoxious at times, and increasingly dismissive of parental authority? Normally, the idea is to do something to change them, modify their behavior, or just kinda deal with each week as it comes. In some instances, with the supervision, guidance and direction of a doctor, like a psychiatrist, a child's parents may see their young child now be able to sit still longer, be more focused, and appear to show a very observable increase in another executive function skill, the ability to sustain attention. A pharmaceutical medication can be a 'bridge'  to help the child maybe focus on enhancing their ability to better self-manage themselves in a more goal-directed manner. n essence, be 'more' focused. This helps the child to be able to sustain their attention for a longer duration on a sequence of tasks. Rather quickly, the child (or adult for that matter) eventually understands quite intuitively that the 'so...

Taking Charge of your Families Daily Hormone Flux

When you come to think about it, humans are either in a state of hormonal equilibrium, or are in pursuit/desirous of it. If you don't feel ok, the basic ingrained desire is to want to feel ok.   How we get there with the best interest of our families is the subject of this article.             An inordinate amount of distractions, jobs, tasks and futile pursuits which can fill our day. Through the  course of this day. If we were to get a "read-out"  of our daily hormonal flux we would be astounded by the up and down roller-coaster/stock market graphing of it. Given this hormonal flux, what is one big hormonal trap for kids and adults, and what are some concrete actions that are practical, engaging, and easy to integrate into one's life, and/or family life? To start with, spending an inordinate, unbalanced amount of time on technological gadgets manifests anxiety, stress, uneasiness and studies are showing it is physically bad...