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Reigning in our kids language: keeping things in perspective

October 28, 2011 By 13 Comments

I started thinking about the way my children speak upon hearing my 2 year old, yes 2 year old, refer to something as “sick”…meaning good, great, really cool! He then began hitting a little white plastic golf ball with a brightly coloured plastic golf stick and let out a delighted “skills!”….”mum!  skills!”. Now I am well aware this is pretty much direct mimicking of his older ‘tween’ brothers, and did sound pretty cute, but it started me questioning the language in general that our children are using.  I have already written about the influence of technology and chat speak acronyms , but there are other aspects of their speech that may need to be reigned in a little.

We know that the way we speak to ourselves, the inner voice in our heads has a large impact on our feelings, emotions and behaviours. It makes sense too then, that the voice we use throughout our day may also affect such emotions, feelings and behaviours. 

Often we hear our children talking in extremes and exaggeration. [Read more...]

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Filed Under: Communicating and Connecting, Modern Parenting, Technology and Parenting Tagged With: , , ,

4 things I learnt from the Problogger Training Day to be used in real life

October 23, 2011 By 22 Comments

Last Friday,  300 or so bloggers and myself, descended on the city of Melbourne to attend a Bloggers Training Day organised by blogging guru Darren Rowse of Problogger fame.

Now I realise many of my readers are not into ‘blogging’ as such and thus aren’t going to be interested in all the details of my day. Many couldn’t care two hoots for SEO’s, plugins, branding, blog design, audience reach and the like and thus I will leave all those fabulous, although almost unreadable scribblings for myself to decipher at a later date. Yes,  unlike the many other cool people in the room tapping away on their ipads and new Mac books, I scribbled away with pen and a very professional looking “Smiggles” notebook I grabbed from he kids room on the way out the door. And for those of you that are into all that stuff, then you were probably either already there, followed it on Twitter or are eagerly waiting to download the audio version of the day. 

But I did take with me so much from the day and some of the important things I learnt, I realised could be carried over to our everyday lives and pursuits and thus certainly something I could share with you my reader.

So here are four headings I have managed to decipher from my no longer practised enough handwriting.  [Read more...]

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Filed Under: Communicating and Connecting, More Joy Less Stress Tagged With: , , ,

Grief, birthdays and remembering

October 17, 2011 By 13 Comments

I struggled with a title for this post and also about the content as well. It could have been about friendships and how they have helped me in my grief. It was also going to be about remembering people on their birthdays and imagining all that they would be doing had they lived. It could also have been about the ‘sliding doors’ theory of how one moment in time can alter the course of so many lives from there on in. It could also have been about contemplating how old siblings need to be before they can understand that they should have had a ‘big’ sister. Will they then think they may not have been born? Would they have in fact been born?

But today I don’t really feel like writing. So instead I will share a photo of these gorgeous pink roses from a friends garden. She chased me down the road and handed them to me after I’d dropped the other kids at school, and simply said “You know I’m always thinking of you”. Those 4 pink roses represent the four years today since my little girl was born. I am so grateful to have so many beautiful family and friends who will never let my baby girl be forgotten.

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8 ways to improve assertiveness, for parents and their children

October 13, 2011 By 3 Comments

Assertiveness. Something we all need but something that doesn’t always come naturally. In my last post we looked at the importance of assertiveness, what it meant to be assertive and whether or not this was something we needed to work on for ourselves and our children. 

Whilst we know that personality and the gene pool lottery can play a part in how easily or not one can assert themselves, we also know that assertiveness is a behaviour, and behaviours can be challenged and changed. 

Below are some strategies to help you become more assertive, as well as those to help our children. As they begin to become more independent and venture out into the world beyond the family home, it is important that our children too are equipped with the skills to assert themselves. 

When trying to assert ourselves, get our point across or have our needs met in a particular way, it is important to: 

1.Be clear about what you want. Get straight to the point and refrain from long winded explanations. The more you talk in circles, the less weight your point of view will have and the more likely it is that you will be overwhelmed or intimidated. 

2.Ask for more time. When somebody asks a favour of you and you are unsure how to respond, then don’t be afraid to ask for more time or for more information. Again it is far better to give yourself time to assess the situation to determine whether it is something that will work for you. To avoid saying “yes” when you may in fact need to say “No” you can instead respond to a request with something like “I am not sure yet, I need more time to work out what I am doing”.                                                                                                                                                                                                              Remember when we say no to someone we are only rejecting their request, we are not rejecting the person.  [Read more...]

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Filed Under: Communicating and Connecting, Modern Parenting Tagged With: , , , , , ,

How assertive are you? The importance of assertiveness for parent and child

October 7, 2011 By 8 Comments

What does it mean to be assertive?  How Assertive are you?  Why is assertiveness so important?  How can being a more assertive parent make for a happier child?

Are you someone who always avoids conflict, always doing whatever you can to keep the peace, often to your own detriment? Do you find yourself always saying yes when you should be saying no? Or are your children labelled as ‘shy’ or often victims of  bullying, unable to communicate their needs to the world outside the family home?

Whatever our personality type, and however confident we are in certain situations, there will always be times when we could benefit from challenging our own assertiveness skills.

What is Assertiveness?

Assertiveness refers to the way we communicate our needs with others. It is a trained pattern of behaviour that allows us to convey our feelings and emotions without violating the rights of others or having our own rights violated. It is that middle ground between being labelled aggressive or passive. Being assertive means we can ask for what we want, need or desire. We can say no when we need to and we can express emotion and feelings without being self conscious.

Why is it important to be assertive?

Self-Esteem- Assertive people tend to have greater confidence in themselves, a greater sense of their own identity, and subsequently a much higher self-esteem. By being able to state more clearly what our needs are, we are far more likely to have these needs met. If we have these needs met we are able to be more confident, if we are more confident we are more assertive, and the ripple effect continues. [Read more...]

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Filed Under: Communicating and Connecting, Modern Parenting Tagged With: , , , , ,
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