I have found on You Tube a series of inspirational short videos that I plan to share with you, one at a time.
When it comes to teaching children, schools have moved away from life skills, spirituality, home economics etc… the things that made us well rounded individuals.
Now school’s main focus is academics, to a point that arts and sports are no longer a priority, and teaching to read and math have taken priority over play with children as young as 4. I heard lately that we are the only nation (North America) that does not teach our children to meditate and live mindfully. It is quite a shame.
So now these teachings become the sole responsibility of the small family unit. We no longer have a village to raise a child, so it all depends on us, the parents. It all starts with US…. to heal our children, to teach our children, we FIRST need to live by the principles we want to pass down to them. We need to teach by example, not by lecturing here and there.
So, use these videos and watch them with your kids and start a discussion and make it a goal each day to live by these principles. You will see a shift in your family dynamics, but first, you will see a shift in you. It is a lot easier to teach something when we experience it rather than intellectually comprehend it. Our energy changes and it is contagious and our children change by osmosis. It is truly magical. Children are master imitators. Take advantage of it.
The first in the series is about gratitude. Here are a few quotes I have picked up from it…. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did. The pictures are stunning, you’ll see. Reminds us how amazing nature is and how much beauty surrounds us that we take for granted.
Life is about making choices and choosing what is important
Too many choices creates anxiety
Focus on what’s important, too often we take for granted the little things in life
Focus on what you do have, leaves little room for dwelling on what you don’t have
This fuels joy in your life and this turns it into gratitude
Look at the little things that surround you, the beauty
If you find your path you will never lose your way
Watch this alone, or with your children, and try to live by this principle. It will bring more joy and less anxiety or worry in your life, or despair.
Image courtesy of David Castillo Dominici at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
I found this great webinar that might be helpful if you are struggling with depression. Let me share the information below which I have cut and pasted directly from the website:
Uncovering Happiness: Overcoming Depression with Mindfulness, Compassion and Play
A CE Webinar with Dr. Elisha Goldstein – When most of us think of the word “anti-depressant,” we think of a pill, but Elisha Goldstein, Ph.D. shows us how science is now discovering that that’s not the only natural anti-depressants we have. As we intentionally practice tapping into these natural anti-depressants, we begin to form an anti-depressant brain and uncover a more enduring sense of resiliency and well-being. This treatment model has been inspired by some of the most current research on neuroscience and depression as well as mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT), created by Zindel Segal; Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), created by Jon Kabat-Zinn; Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), created by Steven Hayes; and research by Brene Brown and others.
In this Webinar, you’ll learn how to nurture the brain’s natural antidepressants, provide clients relief from symptoms of depression, improve emotional resilience and give guidance on how people can protect themselves from depression. Conference participants will gain the following skills, drawn from uncovering happiness – aka Mindful Compassion Cognitive Therapy (MCCT):
Utilize mindfulness to lay a foundation for the antidepressant brain.
Discuss how self-compassion can be used as an antidepressant technique.
Apply meaning, compassion and purpose to develop a deeper understanding of resiliency and well-being.
Recognize how making happiness a habit can reclaim play in your life and how play can be mastered to bring about natural antidepressants.
Learning Objectives:
Describe what mindfulness is and how it helps interrupt the depressive loop
List three practical, formal ways to integrate mindfulness-based theory and practice when working with clients
List three current neuroscientific studies showing the relationship between mindfulness and depression
List and practice key self-compassion practices to use for self-care and to practice with clients in creating healing and forgiveness around pain
Describe the anti-depressant effects of compassion, play and learning
Image courtesy of David Castillo Dominici at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Although a certain amount of conflict between spouses is to be expected, there are ways to fight and argue in front of your kids that are acceptable but there are ways that simply foster fear and anxiety.
If you don’t know how to fight fair it is best to spare your children. Also, please don’t expose them to adult issues. They are too young to understand and it just confuses them, worries them, and creates fear in them. Children are too young to hear about your financial problems, your work problems, or hear you bad mouth a neighbour, friends or family member.
When you know how to fight fair, and of course make up afterwards, you actually teach your children that it is normal to have disagreements with someone and you still love them regardless. It teaches them to stand up for themselves, to be assertive and not fear being rejected or unloved. It feels safe.
However, when parents resort to screaming, verbal abuse, insults, throwing things, threats, leave for very long stretches of time (e.g. 8 hours to days) and so on, children get scared. They worry that their parents will get hurt, they worry that they will leave and not come back, and they fear for their safety. Whether you know this or not, children feel the urge to protect their parents and they worry for them.
We are our children’s first teachers. We teach our children how to cope with conflict because they observe us and simply imitate us. They will carefully mirror back to us what we will have taught them, and then we will witness how they argue with us, their friends and other adults. Remember that. What children witness in their homes they repeat within the family system or in the school yard.
This is how bullies are made: redirected aggression. They can’t hurt their parents so they take it out on their siblings or their peers, or even the family pet. Hurt people, hurt people.
If you can’t keep your act together the least you can do is to not punish or scold your children when they freak out, because they are simply repeating what you, the adults, are doing. So when your child exhibits behaviour that you deem unacceptable, the first thing to do is to look in the mirror and first ask yourself if you exhibit this behaviour in any way. If you do, YOU need to change your behaviour first and your child will follow.
YOU need to own up to the dysfunctional coping style, apologize and reassure your children that you are working at bettering yourself. YOU need to take control of your anger and learn healthy ways to fight. YOU need to keep these destructive scenes away from your children.
So if your children’s angry outbursts upset and annoy you, as I said, first look in the mirror and see where in your life do you act in the same way. Your child most likely learned it from you. Your corrective lectures or punishments are hypocrisy if you exhibit the same unacceptable behaviour as your child. How can you teach a child not to hit, not to scream or throw things, be respectful if you yourself don’t put it into practice. It will just confuse them, you lose face, you lose their respect. Not to mention that you are teaching them a double standard: that people can hurt them but they can’t hurt people.
Children exposed to high conflict parents become bullies themselves or victims of bullies, they develop anxiety, depression , poor self esteem, poor coping skills, they take it out on their siblings, it teaches siblings to bully and mistreat each other, it teaches lack of respect. it makes them exhibits symptoms akin to ADHD (can’t concentrate, fidget, oppositional etc), it makes them fearful, some want to run away from home, they resent their parents, and on and on. These are but a few of the consequences of witnessed parental conflict that I have seen in my office over the years…
Furthermore, if you mistreat your spouse, it also teaches your children how to treat their boyfriends and girlfriends later on in adolescence and adulthood. You set the stage for how their relationships are likely to unfold What you model as a couple is most likely what your children will seek out with a partner. Regardless of the gender of the child. It is what we call intergenerational transmission of patterns. So if you don’t want your child to grow up to become an abuser or a victim, don’t expose them to these models.
Finally, if you cannot do it on your own, please seek counselling… and if it is passed the point of no return, for the sake of your children… end the relationship. Divorce is not traumatic to children, but high conflict is.
Lecturing them about how to behave during a conflict is a waste of time. Children learn by what they see not what they hear. You need to trust me on that one. Change your behaviour and you will see your child’s behaviour change as well.
Image courtesy of imagerymajestic at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Too many times I see in my office children identified by the school system as being problematic. Whether it be that they are labelled with a disorder (e.g., ADHD, ODD, ADD), accused of fidgeting too much, not fitting in, not paying attention, not having good boundaries, etc… there always seems to be a problem with the child.
Parents show up at my office dismayed, discouraged that their wonderful child does so poorly in school yet at home there are no issues. Parents are worried, don’t know what they are doing wrong, yet in their gut they know nothing is really wrong with their child.
Funny thing is… no one ever seems to question the establishment. Maybe the problem is with the system in which the children are taught. They are expected to be all the same, when , if you look carefully in your own backyard, if you have more than one child… they are all different.
School’s focus is mainly on academics, performance, testing, ranking, and the arts and physical education have been placed. at best, as secondary in importance. Therefore assuming that all children are left brain dominant and non creative… What about the children whose strengths are in the arts (dancing, art, music) or in sports? What about the non typical left brain intellectuals, the right brain children? Where do they stand in our school system?
In this awesome TED talk by Sir Ken Robinson, he so eloquently explains how the school systems around the world are no longer focused on fostering learning but rather teaching… no matter how good the teacher is at teaching, if no one is learning, what’s the point? He explains where the school systems fail our children. It will shed light on your questions and your worries. Well worth listening too.
Listen to this inspiring talk on the state of educationand maybe, it will give you a glimpse into the world of possibilities for your child. Maybe, also, it will appease your worries that there is something wrong with your child… maybe he or she is just fine. You just need to find a system that works. It is no wonder that homeschooled children and children educated in the Waldorf, Montessori and alternative schools, do better and flourish!
Image courtesy of photostock at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
If you want your children to open up to you and seek advice from you when they are teens, you need to keep them close to you from the time they are little.
Too many parents are concerned that their kids will lack socialization opportunities so they are obsessed with enrolling them in all sort of activities outside the home, play dates, classes, etc. But tell me, do you usually learn new skills from a novice or from an expert?
Involving kids in all these activities and play dates are opportunities for exposure to other humans, but to think that they will learn appropriate social skills from other clueless individuals is an illusion.
You and other closely attached adults are the one who teaches your child socialization skills, and only in your home can you control what your children learn. Proof is, how many of you report how you kids picked up bad habits or manner from kids they hang out with? Or have been bullied or pushed around? Or have had their possessions stolen or broken? Can you say that these are appropriate social skills?
School, extra curricular activities, play dates are all artificial means to learn appropriate social skills. And they are not representative of real life. We don’t hang out with people who are only the same age, same color, same religion, same interests, etc. In real life, we are exposed to a melting pot of different kinds of individuals and this is how we learn. In the olden days, they had it right. Classrooms were mixed age groups and the younger children would learn from the older ones.
When you keep sending off your children to play with peers, or go to classes from a young age, where they spend less and less time with you (maybe one hour a night, if so), unknowingly, you are teaching your children that their best teachers are their peers or people outside your home. They become less and less attached to you and more and more attached to their friends.
Humans, and animals need to feel attached. After years of training them this way, it is no wonder that when they hit puberty, they don’t really care for your opinion, and look to peers for support and advise. That’s exactly what you will have taught them. It is a natural need… if you don’t make sure your children are securely attached to you, they will look elsewhere to fulfill that need.
On the other hand. If you keep your children close, you get involved in activities with them and their siblings or close friends or extended family, you feed that parent-child bond in a positive way.
Are homeschooling kids outcasts and socially inept? On the contrary, how about people who live in isolated areas? Socialization is taught at home and by adults, not peers.
So for parents of young children don’t be so worried that your children have to constantly be with other children to become social creatures. Your first concern should be that they are securely attached to you, their parents, and nourish that bond carefully, or you will lose the closeness of your relationship with your child. You want your children to come to you for support, advise, and help.
I recommend you read Dr. Neufeld’s book : Hold on to your kids. It will guide you on how to navigate this road. It is full of great advise. Look here for great courses he offers.
From the time they are two, children can already help you around the house. Nowadays, all too often, parents struggle in getting their teenagers to help; it is an ongoing battle. Other parents worry that children should just focus on their homework and not be distracted by chores or daily routines, or they think children are too young and incapable of completing tasks such as chores, or finally, they feel guilty that they are using their children as child labourers.
The thing is that there are multiple benefits to teaching children to help out around the house from the time they are really small. It is of a great disservice to actually not do this. I thought I would simply list below those benefits, and maybe it will change your mind about getting your children involved in household chores and daily tasks:
It teaches them to be responsible
It teaches them to be organized and time management
It reduces clutter which causes a lot of stress
It teaches them to respect their belongings and thus respect the belonging of others
It teaches them cooperation
It teaches them how to live in community and how to be respectful of other people’s space
It teaches them organizational skills and various other life skills
It teaches them to live in a clean environment
It teaches them about life in a realistic way
It teaches them about rules and compliance : that’s just the way it is
It teaches them to become conscious individuals (of themselves, others and the environment)
It teaches children to want to help around the house and contribute, and later you don’t have to pay them to do chores. Do you get paid to clean, cook, fix the house? So why should they?
It instills rhythms in their lives, and rhythms foster safety and security
It prepares them for adulthood
They make better roommates and spouses
Little children especially do not see this as a chore and they love helping out
If you start when they are young it won’t be a battle later on
It is another way to bond and connect with your children
It greatly helps you out, and as they get older it frees up your time
It keeps your house clean and clutter free
It lessens your load and helps you out
Children love to help and they feel good about themselves for doing so
It develops empathy
They are proud of themselves when they accomplish a task and bring it to its completion
They become helpful children and help outside of your house as well
It develops different skills at different ages
They become well rounded individuals
You don’t need to worry when they go on sleepovers or visits that they won’t help out
It fosters gratitude
They appreciate you better, because they experience the efforts involved in taking care of a house, meals and people.
When you start young, not only do they learn it is part of life, later as teens, you don’t need to bribe them with money or threaten to take away privileges, which ends up backfiring on you anyways.
I am sure that there are many more benefits I could come up with that are offshoots of what I have already listed, but you get the point. In my sense there is no negative consequence to getting your child involved in chores or daily routines, at all ages.
I have included a chores list developed by Maria Montessori. I hope it helps, pin it on your fridge as a reminder. You can find the original here to print.
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