Every Monday, I’ll post about discovering genuine hope and authentic answers for living a healthy life. — Joey came to my home to cut off the dead limb from a tree in my front yard. I noticed it dying this winter as bark occasionally fell off. I wanted the limb cut off mostly so it wouldn’t break off in one of our frequent wind and thunderstorms. Of course, it was a bit ugly, too, as compared to the rest of the tree. I was concerned a disease might have caused the limb to die. I was relieved to learn that wasn’t the case. (Apparently when fruitless mulberry trees reach a certain age, limbs often begin to die.) Joey told me cutting the limb off was wise because the tree was still expending energy to that limb. By getting … [Read more...]
Explaining Our Smarts Part 5 – Body Smart
Every Wednesday, I’ll post about multiple intelligences so we can better understand children and why they do what they do. — Each of our smarts, or intelligences, is born into us, but must be awakened by meaningful encounters with people and/or things. My body smart, or bodily-kinesthetic intelligence, was awakened when my parents enrolled me in ballet and tap dance lessons when I was about six-years-old. Prior to dance class, I was certainly moving, but I was clumsy and unsure of myself. Dancing increased my confidence and coordination. I went from taking lessons to becoming an assistant teacher. When I got older, I especially enjoyed softball and racquetball. I also spent years on drill teams and in marching bands. These … [Read more...]
Secure, Content, Healthy
Every Monday, I’ll post about discovering genuine hope and authentic answers for living a healthy life. — “He actually called me ‘Fresh Meat’.” I leaned forward and asked, “Seriously? He said that!?” “I know! Can you believe it? So many guys today don’t even hide their intentions. They know I’m newly divorced and they make terrible assumptions.” I asked, “What are you going to do?” Without hesitation, my friend explained why she thought men like this were “so sad.” While sharing, it’s almost as if she had my book, Finding Authentic Hope and Wholeness: Five Questions That Could Change Your Life, in front of her. She confidently declared, “I’m not that kind of woman. I never was. I … [Read more...]
Is Authentic Relationship Simply a Nice Ideal To Talk About?
Every Monday, I’ll post about discovering genuine hope and authentic answers for living a healthy life. — Today, I’m taking the day off and giving this space to an excellent, must-read piece from my friend and colleague, Randy Thomas. This post was on his personal blog last week and I knew I wanted you to read it as soon as I read it. I was going to pull out some of his statements to put here at the beginning to encourage you to read the whole post, but I can’t. There are too many great statements and the choice is too hard. Randy writes about the need for and value of authentic relationships. This goes right along with the belonging need I often blog about here. Many of Randy’s statements also fit our Celebrate Kids … [Read more...]
Thought Provoking Discussion Starters #53: Pictures Encapsulate Ideas
Every Friday, I’ll post thought provoking discussion starters. — Is representing ideas in pictures easy or hard for you? Some people do it naturally, without even thinking about it. The way I describe it is pictures just jump into their head. For some people, like me, words do the jumping. For a new product we’re creating at Celebrate Kids, Inc., we’d like a picture to represent five different important concepts. Maybe you can help us. You’ll recognize these as the five core needs if you read my blog on Mondays. What picture would you choose to represent Security? Identity? Belonging? Purpose? Competence? I’d love to know. Please comment below. … [Read more...]
What do you think about perfection and perfectionists?
What do you think about perfection and perfectionists? Over the past month, I’ve posted several blogs related to perfectionism to help promote Jill Savage’s book. I hope you’ve been thinking about the topic and wondering how you’re influenced by it. Today, I’ve asked Jill to share with you directly. I love what she writes near the end: “While we’re pursuing perfection, we’re missing out on the most precious parts of life: the laughter of silliness, the joy of spontaneity, the lessons found in failure, and the freedom found in grace.” Do you agree? Read on…. Guest Post—Jill Savage www.JillSavage.org www.HeartsatHome.org www.NoMorePerfectMoms.com When child number one threw a fit in the grocery store one … [Read more...]
Parents Appreciate Learning About Their Children – Pick Up “No More Perfect Moms”
Parents appreciate learning about how their children are smart for several reasons. One I’ve seen evidenced in many of my audiences is that “imperfect” is redefined as “different.” That’s a powerfully important change! Some children are very word smart so they learn to read and write easily and enjoy both. Others aren’t as word smart and they may struggle to learn and/or they may not enjoy reading in their spare time. That doesn’t make them imperfect. It just makes them different. I’ve seen children damaged by perfectionism. And, I’ve talked with more moms than I can count about the damage they do to themselves when trying to be perfect. Unrealistic expectations they have for themselves and their families are … [Read more...]
“No More Perfect Moms” – Book Launch
Every Monday, I’ll post about discovering genuine hope and authentic answers for living a healthy life. — Monday’s blogs are about how we and our children should and can meet our core needs of security, identity, belonging, purpose, and competence in healthy ways. As I’ve written before this month here, it’s not wise to try meeting our needs by being perfect. Yet, I see people doing this so often. Honestly, before God did a beautiful work in my life, I was perfectionistic. I was very hard on myself when I made mistakes and I know other people were afraid to be wrong when around me. I still have regrets about that period of my life. This is why I was happy to join the launch team for Jill Savage’s important new book, … [Read more...]
Strategic Use of Thinking Verbs
Every Wednesday, I’ll post about multiple intelligences so we can better understand children and why they do what they do. — Last Wednesday, I wrote about the power of multiple intelligences. Truly – listening, reading, talking, learning, studying, and writing are all enhanced when we remember to use many smarts. In addition to the suggestions from last week and other things you’ve gleaned from my blog, we can strategically use a variety of thinking verbs to make sure we’re using all 8 smarts. To help you, here are some suggestions. Please consider printing this out and using it. Multiple intelligences are very practical! Studying with them can really help. Don’t assume your children will automatically know how to … [Read more...]
Employing the Power of all 8 Intelligences
Every Wednesday, I’ll post about multiple intelligences so we can better understand children and why they do what they do. — One of the best ways to discover the power of our eight intelligences is to think about one topic with all of them. You’ll see how much more complete your understandings become. Using all eight smarts usually increases motivation, too. Back in June, I demonstrated that in this post using a pine cone as the thing to think about. Because more than one example is helpful, here’s a brief look at using all our smarts when learning about volcanoes: Word - write a story or make a speech Logic - list 10 questions and find answers to at least 3 Picture - watch a video Music - write a poem or song … [Read more...]
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