Posts Tagged ‘Being A Mother’

Posted on August 8, 2009 - by Jus

5 Activities To Stay Truly Present With My Son

This week I commited to myself that I would take more ‘time out’ from the steamtrain of my day job and my business planning to spend quality time with my six year old son.  By quality time, I mean being truly present with him and doing something that I know he enjoys.  When life gets busy it’s very easy to fall into the trap of just ‘being together’ – going to the supermarket together, running my errands together, or just spending time in the same room doing separate activities.  I am blessed with a very patient child, who doesn’t often act out in order to get attention, which can make it easier to let this trap continue on for longer than it should.

As part of my commitment to stay more truly present with my son this week, we sat down last night and brainstormed what he might like to do with me each day.  He wrote these activities on our family calendar for the coming week and I committed to him that we would do these each day after school with him.

BOARDGAMES
One of the things I have enjoyed about my son growing out of his toddler and pre-school years is that we can now play a number of boardgames together, which we both really enjoy.  We really like Scavenger Hunt, Uno, Guess Who, and chess or checkers.

WALKING THE DOG
Our dog is a Kelpie x Collie and needs a great deal of exercise, so two walks per day is not unusual.  The beauty of taking my son with me on this walk is that he and I really get an opportunity to talk and discuss what might be going on in his mind.  This is the time when I find I can be most present with my ‘coach approach’ to parenting.

SPENDING TIME IN BORDERS
We love book stores.  Especially those that allow to spend as much time as you like in them, reading and perusing to your hearts content without being asked “are you going to buy that?”.  However, it is very easy for us to split up when we get to Borders, I head for my sections (cooking, self help and business) and my son goes up to the kids area.  This week though, we are going together and only going to the kids area.  We’re going to read together, explore together and buy something for my son to enjoy once we leave.

A MUM & SON DATE
My son loves nothing more in the world than food.  He also really enjoys it when we go out to a cafe or restaurant together, just the two of us, and share some laughter and discussion over a meal and dessert (of course).  Pancake Parlour is a favourite of his and is very kid friendly.

ARTS & CRAFTS
We have a big box at home which is full of papers, glitter, pens, pencils, glue, coloured feathers and matchsticks, felt pieces, buttons, paints and much much more.  We roll out the butchers paper and pull on a painting smock and get to work.  It’s great fun and easy to convince him to jump into the bath afterwards!

What will you do this week to stay truly present with your loved one this week?  I’d love to hear your ideas in the comments section below.

Posted on July 11, 2009 - by Jus

Money Matters

When I was a teenager, I wanted a television for my bedroom.  My father, who usually gave me pretty much whatever I wanted, told me I would have to save up from my wage at a casual job after school and buy it for myself.  Back in those days a tiny 15″ TV was about $300, and I was earning about $9 a hour, so you can appreciate how long it took me to save up for this.

But I will never forget that TV.  It was the very first ‘big’ thing that I purchased with my own money and I learned a valuable lesson from it.  Not just about saving and delayed gratification, but also the value of money.

I haven’t waited til my son is pubescent to start these lessons.  At the beginning of the year, my son asked for a Nintendo DS.  He had received a Nintendo Wii for christmas two years ago, and I have rejected all requests for Playstation and X Box as I don’t really see the point in a six year old having multiple consoles.  So I said no.  But he persisted.  And persisted.  And finally I told him that if he saved all his pocket money (from chores he does around the house) then he could buy a DS with his own money.

I didn’t expect him to have such self control!  For six months he has saved his little heart out.  Jumped up from the couch to help empty the dishwasher, brought in the newspaper religiously, fed the dog and much more to keep the pocket money flowing into his piggy bank.  We started a barometre on his whiteboard to track his progress and coloured it in each week, watching the savings rise and the distance to his Nintendo DS shrink.

This week marked the final $$ hitting the piggy bank and the last bit of the barometre coloured in.  So off we trotted to Kmart’s toy sale and my son handed over his hard earned cash to buy his first ‘big’ thing and he is just so proud of himself.  It’s been a great feeling to start this kind of teaching and learning with my son so early in his life – I hope it has the same impact it had on me and more.

Posted on July 3, 2009 - by Jus

The Relationship Cure

That’s a pretty bold thing to call your book – The Relationship Cure.  As a title I saw on a shelf in Borders, it seemed laced with potentially hollow promises and theories that were virtually impossible to put into place.  However, then I realised that the author was none other than Dr John Gottman.  I bought it immediately.

Dr Gottman is touted as being the USA’s foremost “relationship expert” and not just because he has relevant theories on the subject, but because he approaches this topic with a heavy dose of scientific methodology – including the use of his “relationship lab” – he receives broad acclaim for his research and proposed solutions to some of the problems we all experience in relationships.

The Relationship Cure is a 5 step guide to strengthening your marriage, family and friendships.  This simple program is based on 20 years worth of research! 

In what I think is a really groundbreaking book, he reveals the key elements of healthy relationships, emphasizing the importance of what he calls “emotional connection”.  He also talks about the biggest threats to emotional connection - what he calls the Four Horsemen – a subject he explores in more detail in another of his books.  He introduces the powerful new concept of the emotional “bid,” the fundamental unit of emotional connection – that is to say what we put out there as ‘bids’ for an emotional connection and how the way others react to our emotional bids plays a big role in the strength of our emotional connection with that person.  Of course, he then goes on to provide remarkably empowering tools for improving the way you bid for emotional connection and how you respond to others’ bids.

It’s a book that I plan on reading with my husband.  There are many exercises scattered throughout the book to assist us in developing our understanding of ourselves and of one another and where our emotional connection stands right now.

I have no doubt that I will write more about this book and our commitment to putting the steps in place in our marriage, so stay tuned for updates and (more than likely) some hysterical stories of where it all goes a little bit wrong.

Posted on June 30, 2009 - by Jus

Wise Advice from George Carlin

The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings but shorter tempers, wider Freeways , but narrower viewpoints. We spend more, but have less, we buy more, but enjoy less. We have bigger houses and smaller families, more conveniences, but less time. We have more degrees but less sense, more knowledge, but less judgment, more experts, yet more problems, more medicine, but less wellness.

We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get too angry, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too little, watch TV too much, and pray too seldom.

We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often.

We’ve learned how to make a living, but not a life. We’ve added years to life not life to years. We’ve been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet a new neighbor. We conquered outer space but not inner space. We’ve done larger things, but not better things.

We’ve cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul. We’ve conquered the atom, but not our prejudice. We write more, but learn less. We plan more, but accomplish less. We’ve learned to rush, but not to wait. We build more computers to hold more information, to produce more copies than ever, but we communicate less and less.

These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion, big men and small character, steep profits and shallow relationships. These are the days of two incomes but more divorce, fancier houses, but broken homes. These are days of quick trips, disposable diapers, throwaway morality, one night stands, overweight bodies, and pills that do everything from cheer, to quiet, to kill. It is a time when there is much in the showroom window and nothing in the stockroom. A time when technology can bring this letter to you, and a time when you can choose either to share this insight, or to just hit delete…

Remember; spend some time with your loved ones, because they are not going to be around forever.

Remember, say a kind word to someone who looks up to you in awe, because that little person soon will grow up and leave your side.

Remember, to give a warm hug to the one next to you, because that is the only treasure you can give with your heart and it doesn’t cost a cent.

Remember, to say, ‘I love you’ to your partner and your loved ones, but most of all mean it. A kiss and an embrace will mend hurt when it comes from deep inside of you.

Remember to hold hands and cherish the moment for someday that person will not be there again.

Give time to love, give time to speak! And give time to share the precious thoughts in your mind.