Are You A Mind Reader

Are you a mind reader? Do you know what goes on in your child's world? More than likely you make assumptions. In fact, you make assumptions about everything your child does, right? You make up motives for his actions and for his lack of action. And you are guessing.
Do you know you can ask your child what he is feeling and thinking? You can ask your child what he feels and thinks about things and people and events.
What if you actually knew what it is like to live in the world as your child?
Well, you cannot live exactly as your child does. However, you can get a good idea of what it is like for him. do you think having such a connection may help to build your child's self esteem?
While you are at it--share how it is living in the world as you. Children often fail to realize parents are people.

Can Do KIds

What do you think your child would do if she knew she could not fail? What if your son discovered that swinging at the baseball with his eyes closed did not lead to many successful hits and there was probably another way to succeeed at that task?
Does your child decide whether or not to do something based upon whether or not he thinks he will succeed?
When asked what he would be doing if he had not invented the light bulb on his 10,000th attempt, Thomas Edison replied,"I would be in the lab working on number 10,001. Not here talking to you.
You can raise children whose only question is, "How can I do it?" Such a person knows there are no failures. There are only results other than what we had pictured. And there is always another way to attempt until the desired result happens. Always...when you are a Can Do Person.
Is it hard to raise a Can Do Kid? Actually it is easier than parenting any other way.

Have You Hugged Your KId 4 Times Today?

Virginia Saitr, the developer of family therapy, said it takes 4 hugs a day to survive, 8 to get by, and 12 to thrive. How many times have you hugged your child today? Go hug him or her now.
Research continues to show that physical contact, touch, leads to healthier and happier and more intelligent children. But I suggest hugging your child often because it feels good to your child--and to you. And feeling good is something everyone needs.
Teach your child love rather than about love.
Make every moment count. Children grow up so fast! Cherish the little things for they make up a life.

Love Is Individual

Everyone needs to know he is loved, most especially your child. He knows to know. above else, that YOU love him. And not because of anything he does but simplty because he exists.

Your child is not a mind reader. You need to tell him, "I love you!" every single day--actually, many times every single day. No one can hear that phrase too may times so long as it is genuinely spoken. Your kid will know whether or not you mean it.

To let you know, each of us has our own definition of love. Maybe for your child, love is eating the breads you baked for him--his favorite kinds. And maybe it is spending time 1:1 at bedtime or being read to. Ask your child what makes him feel and know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that you love him. Guessing may lead you to thinking you are doing everything you possibly can for an ungrateful child who accepts what you do but feels unloved, not cared about at all.

How sad it is that this world is filled with people who are cherished but simply because they are not shown love according to thier definition of love think they must be unlovable.
Want to raise a child with high self esteem? Say, "I love you." And hug him.

What is love to you? What actions does a person need to do for you to know you are loved? Tell your partner, your family and your friends. There is no such thing as, "If they really loved me they would know." People are not mind readers. We assume what makes us feel good also makes others feel good. Not so.

Living Consciously

You are your child’s role model—whether you know it or not, whether you want to be or not. Your child does what you do rather than what you say⎯or the exact opposite just to be different from you. Your young person probably acts without an awareness of how or why he does as he does.

Do you think knowing how you live your life, since you influence your child's life, could be powerful information to have? You can know by living consciously.

Most people go through life accepting what comes their way. They believe that life just happens. John Lennon spoke for many people with his lyric, "Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans." Mighty disempowering thought.

The thing is, life is what you create it to be. Your belief system can be changed if you want to change it. The way to change your beliefs is to change your daily living patterns, i.e., your life style.

Creating happiness does not involve a "how-to" system as much as it involves a "wake up and live" a conscious life style. Everything that exists in the world starts as thought. Every invention was first an idea in someone's imagination. Every action you take or fail to take was first something you thought about.

Thought creates the world. Thought creates your world. Thought creates your child’s world. What you think about events determines how you respond to events. How your child interprets events determines how he responds to them.

Imagine how differently you would experience each day with the knowledge you have control over how you respond to life events. Do you think your child would be empowered by knowing he is in control of a world where he thinks he is helpless?

What happens happens. Interestingly, in Japan there is one word that means both crisis and opportunity. The same event is a disaster to one person and an opportunity to another.

How you choose to act or not act is up to you. Period. Life was never meant to be difficult. People, with their thoughts, make it hard or easy.

How do you see life? Do you know that struggle is optional? What are you teaching your youngster about experiencing life?

Pay attention to your thoughts. Stop and ask yourself what you were thinking when you experienced a certain emotion or reacted a certain way. You will uncover your unconscious way of life. The next time you experience the same kind of event make a conscious choice to act differently. Teach your child to do the same.

Ah! That is how simple it is to be in control and live on purpose. Life does not simply happen to us. Life happens to us exactly as we choose to experience it. Share the gift of that knowledge with your child.


Live in the truth that life is an adventure to be savored in every moment!

Behaviors Are Separate From People

Children are people. Behaviors are behaviors. Getting the two confused can lead to having your child see himself or herself as a good or bad person. In fact they are children who do good and bad things. Even when they do things that are terribklly wrong know they are still your child and deserve love.
I raised my children while being a La Leche Leader back in the 1970s. We had a saying, "You can have spoiled vegetables but not spoiled children." I raised my kids with that truth foremost in my mind. My children grew up with boundaries and learned appropriate behaviors from the earliest age. I didn't always like what they did or didn't do and I always loved them just because they existed. And I made sure to hug them lots and tell them, "I love you" lots and lots.
Back in the 1970s we had bumper stickers that reead, "Have you hugged your kid today." Well, have you? virginia Satir created the Family Therapy movement. She told the world, "People need 4 hugs a day to survive, 8 to get by and 12 to thrive."

Building Self Esteem In children

Building self esteemin children involves awakening you and them to life style. How you live your life creates your self esteem. Want to change your self esteem or that of your child? Change your life style.
Most people spend so much time lining up the shot, making sure it is perfect, worrying if they are not accurate they will miss the target--they spend so much time aiming they never actually get around to firing. What is your child so concerned about messing up that s/he is afraid to take action because of fear of failure? Or maybe fear of success?
Some people do not act because they figure when others see how competent they are they will be asked to do more and more will be expected of them all the time. Meeting the high expectations of others can be very stressful.
Do you know that airplanes fly off course more of the time than they do on course? The plane constantly adjusts systems to bring it back on course. I recall being on one flight where the wind was so strong I am certain we were flying on an angle forward (the door to the cockpit was open and I could see our direction) rather than directly forward much of the time and still we reached our destination.
The important thing is take action. Make adjusments afterward. All great work is constantly being revised and updated. Let your child know whatever s/he does is better than doing nothing.

My personal success motto

I now live by the motto, “If I think I can’t then I must.” Do you
think it would be powerful to live your life that way? I experience
that Little Voice yelling lots lately, trying so hard to keep me in
the box where I lived before. Well guess what. This is my life and it
is I who am in charge rather than that Little Voice. When I make what
that Little Voice wants to call scary choices I cancel its impact and
move forward anyway. I have found that the only way to beat that voice
is to jump into what seems scary and just do it. Period. When I am in
action nothing stops me. Indeed, when I am in action nothing scares
me. Being scared leads to wasting time, i.e., procrastination.