Teach Kids Reality

Even the busiest parents can turn household chores into an opportunity to teach their children. 

As a young child growing up on a farm, I learned the value of a days work and what it meant to earn my way.  My parents engaged me in the everyday goings on in life, allowed me to pursue athletics, and different clubs and that in turn enabled me to make good decisions, be confident and successful as I grew older.

 
Balancing the checkbook, doing laundry, paying bills, feeding animals, planting and harvesting crops, hoeing the garden. While these tasks elicit feelings of monotony in most adults, they present challenges for children and teenagers. Money management, cooking and cleaning are important life skills that children need to master before they leave home. Learning them at an early age fosters independence and helps build confidence. With these benefits in mind, parents can turn the necessary evil of chore time into teaching time.

Life Skills Kids Can’t Live Without

Parents should teach life skills that match the age of their children and their family’s priorities.  And empower them to lead healthy and active lifestyles. 

• How to plan and follow a budget and explain the importance of record-keeping and saving receipts.  How to write a check, pay a bill and read a monthly bank or credit statement. Let children develop a budget with their monthly allowance.
• How to perform simple repairs, such as changing a light bulb or installing a faucet washer.
• How to prepare simple – yet nutritious - meals.
• How to read a map, a catalog, a phone book and a utility bill. Let your child navigate the next road trip.
• How to sort, wash, dry, iron and fold laundry. Teach basic housekeeping skills. Even preschoolers can dust!
• Basic sewing skills. Knowing how to sew buttons and hems will come in handy throughout their lives.
• Pack a suitcase. Let children practice with their own travel bag so they can pack themselves when it’s time for the next vacation.
• Teach children how to use the telephone during an emergency. Put children in charge of drills periodically to test their readiness.
• Get them involved in physical activities, and engage in that activity with them! Teach them healthy lifestyle habits that will give them a foundation to become role models for the future!

Today’s families are busier than ever. Many parents today feel stressed about carving out adequate quality time with their children. Turning chore time into family time can take some of the pressure off parents who feel guilty about working outside the home. By performing tasks together, children learn important lessons about responsibility. Teaching the “game of life” requires parents to invest time and patience, but the dividends can be priceless.

Integrity in Professional Athletes

Professional athletes are public figures and as such their personal lives become public information in many cases. There are many athletes who display a high degree of integrity in their actions while others do not. Professional athletes are role models and as such their decisions and actions influence a number of people who look up to them. When an athlete displays poor behaviour on the profession and the team to which they belong they should be held to account. However, there are those who display a high degree of integrity and professionalism but do not seem to get the recognition beyond their immediate community/region.

Many professional athletes are an asset to their communities and deserve to be recognized for their contributions beyond their community. Today it seems that those who have problems get more of the attention while others who contribute positively to their community do not. Those professional athletes who behave badly should be penalized financially. There have been times where professional athletes have been called on the carpet for their actions, such as suspension from playing and their pay being forfeited.

All professional athlete contracts should have a clause establishing rules for acceptable behaviour and the penalties for displaying poor behaviour! If such rules exist they should be more publicized. Everyone makes mistakes and people should be allowed some consideration to some extent, but nothing happens by accident. Somewhere a choice was made that had a poor result.  However if the actions and/or behaviour is continually repeated for which they have been held accountable, then I think their contract should be terminated. It is better to have athletes who respect their profession than those who constantly bring embarrassment. Embarrassment applies to their profession, their team and their community. 

Professional sports will gain respect from the public if they promote integrity and enforce the penalties that are in place for violation.

Integrity in our society seems to be lacking today and professional sports can be a leader in making a statement that integrity is important. 

Your Kids Our Future

Over the past several days I've had the privilege of sharing time with my daughter, grand daughter, niece and nephew. It's made me realize there is nothing in this world I feel more grateful for and more passionate about then children and their success.

Teaching children about empathy and emotional literacy and giving them the tools to succeed will help support early childhood development and to create mindful well adjusted youth, who can then transition into adulthood leading successfully fulfilling lives.

One of the exercises I was instructed to do in my training as a life coach was to create a collage and do a presentation about the first 20 years of my life.  The purpose of the collage was to have students come to an understanding of the way we came to be, and the things that took place in our lives that affected our emotions, actions and thoughts and ultimately our behaviours for life to come.  In that 20 minute presentation, I learned allot about myself and how the influence of my parents and other adults behaviour affected the choices I made, the way I felt about myself and how I came to be in this world 24 years later. 

I recently began reading the Roots of Empathy, Changing the World Child by Child by Mary Gordon, in it she writes, "There is an unexpected magnificence in our children and an underestimated power in their ability to change our world for the better.  It is in our children that we go beyond the frontiers of science and technology to explore the recess of the heart."  I can't agree more, somewhere along the way we have forgotten how to appreciate the power of our children to affect social change.  The power of parenting is to positively affect childrens success, to teach them to be empathic towards others to empower them, validate them and to lead by example.

Please don't misunderstand, I had very a loving warm home, and parents who taught me to be empathic towards others, to work hard and appreciate what was given to me, who demonstrated and taught good values.  The tough part was they weren't always there for me on an emotional level, therefore as a child and as an adult I wasn't able to express my feelings, or understand them and overtime I began to lack a sense of self worth.  I took everything I did upon myself to figure out, good or bad, it was me that I needed to rely on. I didn't feel I was good enough or when I needed help I was too afraid to ask out of fear of looking weak. As a child, young teen and women I didn't always have the positive nurturing and attention I was craving and as a result I began making poor choices trying to get it. 

The challenge you see is to prevent our children from following our footsteps; the challenge is to find a way out of repeating the cycle of addiction, violence, poor literacy, low self esteem and poor parenting that is being passed on from one generation to the next.  The way we treat and care for our children has a profound impact on our schools, our economy and our future.  We can't afford to underestimate the power and the importance of the early years and the family in building the kind of world where children lead the way.

I love my family dearly and feel a responsibility to be the best possible mother, aunt and grandmother I can be by being empathic to my daughter, my nieces and nephews and grand daughter.  It's my responsibility as it is yours to break the cycle and give our children every opportunity for greatness, the greatness they should have and so deserve.

Jayne