What Contribution Taught Me about Connection (and Why I Refuse to Lose Faith in Humanity)

by CHELSEA DINSMORE

Have you ever had an experience that changed you? One that touched you so deeply or inspired you so fully, it caused to to act differently from that point on? Well, here’s a little story about one of those experiences for me…

I visited Africa for the first time 9 years ago. Shortly after that trip, I quit my soul-sucking Public Relations job and decided to pursue something that actually mattered to me. It wasn’t just being away from the office for a few weeks that did it. It was the lessons that lingered afterwards, the reminders that I couldn’t seem to shake.

I recently shared 8 reasons why I think exploration is the best education—but really, it’s pretty simple. It’s because:

Your experiences create your passions.

So, after that initial trip and quitting my job, I had plans to go spend some time in Africa through a fellowship program. But Scott and I then decided it was something we wanted to do together (and was what we had planned to do after summiting Kilimanjaro). I put that dream on hold for a bit to prioritize some other things in my life—a decision I am glad I made today. 

But to honor that lingering spark inside of me, recently I joined a trip to Kenya where the focus was adventure and contribution:

SOURCE

13:32:00 - By Vincent 0

Public speaking tips for kids

At a glance

• Public speaking helps kids to develop confidence and build up their self-esteem.
• Create opportunities for your child to present speeches to the family.
• Show them how to use palm cards.
• Good speakers make eye contact with the audience.
• Help them develop a good pace and correct volume for the room.
• Spend time listening to your child's speeches.

Kids need to develop their skills for speaking in front of others long before their 21^st birthday.

Merrilyn Jenkins, principal of Penshurst West Public School, says confidence in public speaking is a valuable tool for children to have.

"A clear confident speaking voice is an essential life skill that fosters self-esteem and personal confidence," she says.

"Children need lots of opportunities to prepare and present speeches as well as to listen to and watch others speak."

If your tips for keeping nerves at bay during public speaking are limited to imagining your audience in their underwear, Merrilyn has some sound advice to help your child prepare for their big moment in the spotlight.

A clear confident speaking voice is an essential life skill that fosters self-esteem and personal confidence. Merrilyn Jenkins

Public speaking tips

• When your child can choose their own topic, encourage them to pick topics that are of personal interest.
• It's OK for younger kids to give a recount of a holiday or special event, but as they get older help them develop opinions. For example, a speech on snakes may not be just facts and figures but could include comment about their importance to the environment or why people are afraid of them.
• Help your child develop interesting beginnings and endings to their speeches, but always in a way that is meaningful to them.
• Guide them to use a variety of information sources including family discussions, the library or the internet.
• Use palm cards. Cut pieces of paper small enough to fit into the palm of one hand.Young kids may have picture clues to help them remember each part of their speech. Older kids should plan their speech out on sheets of paper first, then pick out the main points and write keywords for those points on the card
  
• The idea is not to read sentences but to use the cards just to jog their memory. For example: "First fleet. 1788. Mainly convicts - England. Industrial revolution, overcrowding gaols," might be an introductory card for a speech on Convicts in Australia.
• Even professional speakers rely on lots of preparation and practise to give smooth-flowing speeches.
• Suggest to your child to practise their speech in front of a mirror or video so they can watch it and evaluate their own efforts.
• While practising for a speech, remind your child to:

          say the ends of words clearly

speak loudly enough for the people at the back of the room to hear

          vary their pitch and pace when it makes sense to do so

          look at the audience.

• Spend time listening to your child's speech. Try to avoid doing other things at the same time because they need to practise looking at faces when they talk. Give feedback on how they present and time them with a stopwatch so they can pace their speech to meet the time they have been given.

Finally, avoid putting too much pressure on a child to perform.

"They need to be encouraged to participate at their own level and build their skills as they gain more experience," Merrilyn says.

"A relaxed, well-prepared speaker will exude confidence and therefore will always be a winner."

SOURCE

13:00:00 - By Vincent 0

When Kids Refuse to Go to School

By Debra Kissen

I have been seeing an increasing number of school refusal cases in my clinical practice. I have yet to read any studies that provide empirically based findings as to why this challenging set of behaviors is on the rise, but I do have a few (unsubstantiated) theories:

1. Children and adolescents have access to too many enjoyable activities when they stay home. When I was a child, if I were to stay home from school, I would be bored out of my mind. Unless I could have quickly caught up with the story line of “General Hospital,” there would be nothing to distract me from the long, drawn-out day, where I was lacking in social interactions. Today, the average home has TVs hooked up to cable, computers, iPads and smartphones galore and gaming systems, etc. Who would not want to stay home and “play” with their gadgets, in contrast to engaging in the challenging curriculum and unchartered social relations of an average day at school? I am always shocked when I hear how the children and adolescents who are too “emotionally ill” to go to school are allowed to be home, having access to technology. IF you are too sick to go to school, then you need to be engaging in a behavior that as closely as possible approximates the behaviors one would engage in at school. As long as your kid does not go to a school for programmers and gamers, chances are their school day does not entail being locked into technology. So they should not be allowed to do that if they are engaging in school refusal behaviors.

2. Parents fail to see the dangerous waters their child is entering when they engage in school refusal behaviors. When your child is little and screaming about not wanting to go to the doctor, what do you do? Do you negotiate? Do you wait until they are ready to obtain their annual checkup? Going to school is as mission-critical to survival as obtaining appropriate medical care. I always tell parents who meet with me that we need to treat school refusal as a psychiatric emergency. Children not showing up for school is equivalent to adults not showing up for work and not caring for their families’ needs.

3. It is unclear why the child is refusing to attend school. In treating school refusal, it is critical to first conduct a functional analysis to determine why a child is refusing to go to school. School refusal is not a diagnosis; it is a symptom of a disorder. Is a child refusing to go to school because he is being bullied? Is she refusing to go to school because she is having panic attacks in the cafeteria? Is he refusing to go to school because he fears he will not make straight A’s and his rigid, perfectionistic thinking is getting in his way? It is critical to figure out why a child is having a difficult time going to school in order to develop an effective treatment plan, to assist your child in reintegrating back into school.

It is also critical to have the support and the assistance of your child’s school. It can assist you in creating an appropriate action plan to get your child back to school. That plan may entail a school staff member temporarily coming over to escort your child to school in the mornings (nothing quite as effective at getting a kid up and out as a school security guard entering the home). The plan may also entail accommodations such as your child being able to take a break from class if he or she feels a panic attack coming on. There are many creative strategies to assist a child in more effectively managing distress and obtaining the tools and skills necessary to handle life’s challenging moments. What is most important is for children to learn that quitting, avoiding, or running away from problems is not a viable long-term solution. As we adults have all learned the hard way, it just leads to digging ourselves deeper into the pain and suffering.

If your child is struggling with school refusal or school anxiety, I recommend you contact a mental health professional trained in cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) or pharmacotherapies or both. You can search for a therapist in your area on the Anxiety and Depression Association of American (ADAA) website to help you with this challenging, but very important work.

12:30:00 - By Vincent 0

A Pint Size Plan to Help Your Kids Study Public Speaking Skills

By Definis

The last thing anyone wants is to raise a child who suffers from glossophobia – the fear of public speaking. Today, as many as 75% of people have glossophobia, and studies show that many people fear public speaking more than death!

None of us want our children to contribute to these statistics. Rather, we want them to feel strong and comfortable whenever they are speaking and especially when they are speaking in front of a group. In case you doubt that children can be poised and confident in front of a group take a look at this famous video clip of Severn Suzuki who spoke at the United Nations Earth Summit when she was just twelve years old. 

In addition to her powerful message, which is still relevant today, did you hear the strength of her vocal delivery including her word choice, clear enunciation, strong inflection and pauses? Did you see the passion in her delivery?

While you may not want your children to be quite as assertive as Severn, you do want them to be confident and poised and to hold their own on issues that are meaningful and important to them. Children who feel comfortable speaking to groups tend to speak out more often, volunteer for leadership positions and meet challenges head on. In fact, developing public speaking skills is just as important as learning to read and write. That’s why “show and tell” is such a popular activity in the early grades. But there is more that we can do to help our children master this all important skill.

When teaching young children the fundamentals of public speaking there are two important areas you can work on every day: Vocal skills and body language.

Here are a few pint size tips I have used as an actress, teacher and parent. I am delighted to pass these on to you.

Vocal Skills

·         Read out loud to your child: Research tells us that there are many benefits to reading to your children. When it comes to public speaking, reading is a hidden resource. If you enunciate clearly, vary your pace from slow to fast and use expressive pitch and inflection you will heighten your child’s interest in the story and teach these important vocal skills by example.

·         Emphasize key words: When words in the story are colorful, descriptive and emotional, use added stress to make them sound dramatic. Change your volume (speak louder and stronger or softer and lighter) depending on the word and context. Vary your pace and alternate speaking fast and slow. Pauseoften and make those words come alive!

·         Have your child read to you: When children are old enough most love reading to their parents. When they do read to you encourage them to speak carefully and say each word clearly. Then, ask them to “play” with the words in the story and bring them to life. Ask your child such questions as, “How can you say this like Max would say it?” or “How can you sound happy, sad, excited or afraid?” Encourage your child to say a word the way it sounds (buzz, swish, cool) and to explore variations of expression for each word.

·         Add sound effects: Vroom, chug, boom, screech! Sound effects are a natural means of expression for many children. They love hearing and making sounds. And making many different kinds of sounds gives them an opportunity to practice creative expression and build confidence. So tune up your inner Thomas the Steam Engine or Roary the Racing Car and bring the story to life by using sound effects. Invite your child to play with sounds whenever they read out loud.

Teach Body Language

·         Take turns standing up and reading a page out loud: This is a wonderful activity to do with your children but it may be too stimulating to do right before bed. Start early in the evening so there is plenty of time to unwind. Select a favorite story and play “round robin” by taking turns and having each member of the family read a page of the story with dramatic energy and flair. Just this simple practice of standing in front of one or two people will give your child the experience of being in front of a group.

·         Play “public speaker”: Children love to role play. They play doctor, ballet dancer, truck driver and chef, so why not encourage them to play “public speaker”? Ask questions to help them learn how public speakers behave when they speak to a group. Encourage your child to stand up straight and not fidget or pull at their clothes or hold onto their hands or arms. Ask them to open their arms away from their body and use big gestures. And make sure youencourage them to smile.

·         Use everyday conversation to teach body language: Remind your child to make eye contact whenever they are speaking to someone. The dinner table is a great place to help them learn to do this. When they learn this skill at any early age they will not be uncomfortable using it as they grow.

Teaching public speaking skills to your children requires a great deal of commitment and consistency over time, but it doesn’t have to be a chore. You can teach the fundamentals in a seamless, playful and loving way…and have fun doing it. Before you know it, your children will grow up to be confident and competent young adults capable of standing in front of any group… even at the United Nations.

SOURCE

12:00:00 - By Vincent 0

Why Grok Didn’t Have Work-Life Balance and Neither Will You

BY MARK SISSON

Research published last year revealed that one-quarter of American workers feel it’s increasingly harder to maintain a work-life balance. Among global respondents, that number rose to one-third. According to the survey, parents are among those who struggle the most. Among the difficulties cited by participants, “finding time for me,” “getting enough sleep,” and “managing personal and professional life” were the most commonly mentioned challenges. Even those who manage to leave on time from work may then face an increasing overlap between work and home life, with another survey finding that 20% of participants worked more than 20 hours from home in addition to regular office hours. For all our social and technological advancements, it seems we’re increasingly stuck in an unfortunate cul-de-sac of our own making. Shouldn’t we be beyond this by now? How is it that we can’t seem to innovate, design, reason or hack our way into a better collective work-life balance?

There are, of course, legitimate and wise ways to combine tasks and increase productivity—issues I’ve written about before. Biking to work to make your commute time work for you (and free up time after work for family) or working from home to wholly eliminate a commute most days can be a smart option for some people, but not all of us have that choice immediately available to us. Staggering schedules with a partner to cover childcare or working flex hours to optimize efficiency can be helpful at times, but they’re not a panacea and can impose their own stresses. Making matters even more complicated, both time and energy figure into this picture and each impose their own inevitable limitations. We might cram our work into shorter days but then find we’re exhausted when we get home to enjoy our extra time.

Truth be told, there’s only so much that reorganizing hours while maintaining the same expectations for output. At some point, it’s just a shell game that lets us feel like we’re taking action but results in little benefit. Likewise, we eventually hit diminishing returns in doubling up activities. Walking at a treadmill desk in the office or reading a great novel on the train, fitting in a workout and a quick lunch during the noon hour are all smart choices. But beyond these, the options can start to wade into the less advantageous swamps of multitasking pretty quickly, at which point we’re missing the key point anyway.

What we want from life balance can in most cases be boiled down to ease and fulfillment. I say ease in the sense that we’re not frantically rushing from task to task, juggling goals and projects, making the whole endeavor a miserable slog of checklists rather than a chance for enjoyment. Ease is slow, experimental, meandering, organic. Fulfillment isn’t a quantifiable or predictable recipe, but a varying, personal experience rooted in too many factors to name.

We want life balance in the sense that we want a chance to naturally, unhurriedly experience all the good of life: family connection, socialization, exercise, hobbies, leisure, creativity, rest, self-care and career. Is it really such a tall order? Well, yes and no.

Just where did the myth come from—this belief that we can have it all at the same time? You know, the idea that we should be able to simultaneously balance all the minutiae of our daily lives, our ongoing dreams, and some healthy self-development goals against the immaculate backdrop of a perfect home, great career and impressive social life.

Compared to the days of manual agrarian labor and the early industrial revolution, we have more time on our hands, right? Why shouldn’t we be able to make it all work and live the utopian dream already?

These are the times when a Primal lens can offer needed perspective. Wasn’t Grok, after all, the initial example of natural work-life balance? Can’t he be our emblem for seeking the perfect symmetry of effort and leisure? I’m sorry to burst the bubble, but most definitely, no.

Let’s look at the reality. The average workday for hunter-gatherers was by most estimates in the 3-5 hour range, and this included food acquisition. Unless they experienced food scarcity or moved camps for seasonal migrations, the rest of the time was leisure. In contrast to most assumption, it was a lifestyle not all were interested in giving up for the toils and hours of agrarian life when given a choice.

The universal and timeless fact is, there’s an opportunity cost when we choose to focus on one facet of life in comparison (or exclusion) of another. We can enjoy more leisure as Grok did (with all the opportunity for rest, socialization and self-development that could go with it), but we can’t pretend to have his life and still maintain all the professional ambitions and material affluence of our own. Hunter-gatherers understood the price and the benefits of their choice, and we need to appreciate the same about ours.

You could say that in some ways our capacity to envision and desire so many interests in life is both a blessing and a curse. We have the ability to simultaneously pursue many priorities but not in equal measure or with equal results. And in the midst of that frustration and disappointment, there’s the entry point.

We all grow up with grand visions of infinite achievements. Yet we also all hit a point when we realize we indeed won’t learn 7 languages, make a billion dollars, have the perfect marriage and 3.5 wonderful children, become leader of the free world, pitch for a professional baseball team, enjoy peace by a quiet lake every night and still have time to run that specialty bookstore and tackles shop on the side. We grow up, absorb the mathematical possibilities of a general life expectancy, and learn the unappealing lessons of compromise. Eventually, we come to some degree of peace around this. And, what then, is so different about fully acknowledging the constraints of a 24-hour day?

Even as we trim back our lofty ambitions, we do well to continue the exercise with more editing zeal. What is it that we really want from life? How do we want to allocate that proverbial pie chart of time for optimum and genuine life satisfaction? And what are we willing to forgo or limit to get it? Do we have the guts to throw out the notion that we have to be (and are even capable of being) stellar at work, family life, social life, health and self-enrichment concurrently?

Where one true commitment advances, one or more lesser interest retreats, and it’s fine—if we accept it as such. Doing so not only will help us move into a life that is more fulfilling by our personal definition, but it also lets us finally drop the fraught, exhausting balancing act of maintaining more than we can reasonably handle, let alone find joy in.

If you’re honest with yourself, could you be happy with a minimalist material lifestyle in order to devote more time and energy to family or creative pursuits? On the other hand, maybe you’ve never really envisioned having a family and don’t desire a large social circle, but you feel deeply called to fulfill a professional mission that holds great personal meaning for you. Or maybe you’ve just always prioritized career and financial success. There’s no judgment in the question, but there is necessity to it. If we accept that the picture can’t be balanced, what do we as individuals want the picture to look like?

And I think it’s important to mention also (and this is something easier to see the longer one’s been around) that there are natural seasons to life when certain lessons, realizations or priorities tend to rise to the surface. At times we go through “chop wood, carry water” stages that are short on adventure and long on labor. Grok knew this, too.

What we feel mired in one decade becomes less of a focus the next. Our circumstances change, and so do we. It’s not necessarily something we can predict, but we can bring awareness and thought to the process. Time and perspective for reflecting on our lives obviously plays a role, too. It’s in these transitions from phase to phase that windows of opportunity can open if we’re committed to making it so. I’ve known people who have gone on to entirely transform their lives in later decades, beginning amazing second acts that no one saw coming. Having the health and vitality from Primal living most certainly helps open up possibilities.

So, what if you feel like you’re in the thick of life and unable to make any dramatic changes, or you’re unsure how you’d reallocate your life given the choice? Understand that there are no absolutes. Get curious about what you want. Be experimental. What feeds you? What do you want to make sure you do every day? Maybe you juggle parenthood and a full-time job along with various and sundry other household and life duties but still manage to spend 20 minutes in your workshop doing whatever creative hobby matters to you. Or maybe it’s that you make sure you get an hour in the woods each day. Or something else.

Surrender the assumption of balance as equality, the sides of a scale always matching up. Let it be more about how you feel at the end of the day. If you can make a commitment to offering yourself quality time—for you—and truly devote it to something every day (or nearly so) that fulfills you well beyond all the passive entertainments, technological compulsion and multitasking (madness) we get caught up in, there’s your opportunity. In fact, apply the Grok model of simplicity, single-mindedness, and flow to that one thing you do for yourself. See what happens over time.

Alternatively, venture to ask the bigger, bolder question of how you want to show up as a parent/partner/artisan/hobbyist/activist/friend/humanist/etc. today. We can ask the bigger question of how we want to show up as “X” each day. This question moves the focus from accomplishment to presence. We don’t necessarily need to “do” anything big or special in any of those roles, but we might bring a deeper mindfulness to them and experience ourselves as more fulfilled as a result.

Because ultimately, a satisfying balance won’t come with parsing out hours and minutes. It comes from staying in touch with what you consider the most essential parts of yourself—who you love, what fascinates you, how you want to contribute to the world, what you want to experience most in this life. Add these to the most fundamental, Primal of questions.

Thanks for reading, everyone. I’d love to read your take on creating a Primally balanced life as you see it. Share your thoughts, and have a great wrap-up to the week.

SOURCE

11:38:00 - By Vincent 0

A Bad Temper Can Leave Scars

By Harleena Singh

Do you have a bad temper that you wish you didn’t have? Can you imagine the damage such a temper can do to you and others? It can leave lifelong scars that are often difficult to heal.

Bad temper is a persisting angry mood that any of us can have. It is merely a way to remove or displace your frustration, but only few think about what happens after that.

Nothing good really happens when you have a bad temper. Not only does the person at the receiving end suffer both mentally and physically, but you also make a dent in your persona.

A person with such an ill temper will affect others around him by making things unpleasant. It can cause stress, which leads to many health problems.

“We must interpret a bad temper as a sign of inferiority.” ~ Alfred Adler

Let me take you through a story, which is an excerpt from what I read somewhere that inspired today’s post. It’s about a little boy who had a bad temper and what it resulted in. So, here we go.

What a Bad Temper Can Lead to

Once there was an extremely bright and talented boy. But sadly, he possessed a badhabit; he had a very bad temper.

Whenever he was angry, he did and said things that often hurt people because he had little regard for those around him.

Though he would sometimes realize and accept his mistakes, but still he had very fewfriends to call his own.

This made him sad as he could not understand the reason why people stopped being his friend. He decided to seek his parents help

His parents also remained worried about his irritable nature and temper. Finally, one day the father had an idea.

He asked his son to try out a little exercise. He gave him a bag of nails and a hammer.

He told him that, “Whenever you lose your temper I want you to really let it out. Just take a nail and drive it into the old fence with the oak boards in the backyard. And hit the nail as hard as you can.”

It wasn’t easy for the son to drive the nails into the weathered oak boards in the old fence because they were tough as iron. More so, the hammer was pretty heavy.

However, by the end of the first day, the boy had driven 39 nails into the fence! Wasn’t he really one angry young man!

Gradually, within a few weeks, the number of nails on the fence dwindled down. Guess what? Yeah, keeping his bad temper in control was easier than driving nails into the fence!

Finally, the day came when there was no nail on the fence because the boy didn’t lose his temper. He felt proud of himself as he shared his achievements with his parents.

The boy’s father told him that, “as a sign of your success, you will now pull out one nail, and do that each day when you don’t lose your temper even once.”

It took a lot of efforts for the boy to control his temper, but one day he was able to report proudly to his father that all the nails were gone.

“Never do anything when you are in a temper, for you will do everything wrong.” ~ Baltasar Gracian

Lesson Learnt About Bad Temper

The father appreciated his son’s efforts as he walked along with him and took a look at the fence. But there’s a lesson that each one of us can learn from what the father told his son about bad temper.

The father said, “ You’ve done well, but I want you to notice the holes you have left in the fence. Whatever happens now, this fence will never remain the same.”

He carried on saying, “When we say or do hurtful things in a bad temper or anger, it produces the same kind of result. It leaves such holes and scars.”

“It doesn’t matter how many times you say you are sorry, or how many years pass, the scars remain. And a verbal wound is as bad as a physical one, often worse.”

“Similarly, people are more valuable than an old fence. They make us smile.  Some even become our friends and support us, share our joys and sorrows.”

“And if these people trust us, then we need to treat them with love and respect. We need to prevent as many of those scars as we can. If we don’t then people will not like to be our 

friends.”

“Keep your temper. A decision made in anger is never sound.” ~ Ford Frick

Moral

Wasn’t that a beautiful story with a valuable lesson? Isn’t it a reminder most us need from time to time?

Everyone gets angry sometime or the other and some of us even have a bad temper, and that’s alright. But remember, once the scars are formed, they take a long time to heal.

Therefore, the real test is what we do with that temper and how we handle things.

Over to you –

Do you have a bad temper? If you do, how do you deal with your temper? Did you leave any scars behind? Share your comments below

SOURCE

17:00:00 - By Vincent 0