Tag Archives: skills

Teach Your Teen a New Skill This Summer

Every summer I like to take advantage of the extra time to teach my children a skill. Some years they all learn something and other years the focus is on just one child. This summer it will be my youngest son who will be taught how to wash his own clothes. I can’t tell you how much this has unburdened me with my other two children now completely responsible for their own wash. With my daughter, she just sort of decided on her own to start doing her laundry. But she’s pretty independent and self-sufficient that way. My oldest had … Continue reading →

Dealing With Jealousy – part 2

Yesterday we looked at some reasons for jealousy. But what of you are jealous of someone’s appearance? If you are jealous of another person because of their appearance, stop and analyze your own good qualities. These may include good cheekbones, a smile that lights up your face, expressive eyes, a good figure, a beautiful head of hair, etc. Whatever your best features are, try and make the best of them and draw attention away from those areas you do not consider to be as attractive. If is because of their appearance you need to realize you are never going to … Continue reading →

Can You Teach a Child to Spit? (And Other Parental Challenges)

When we decide to embark on the joys and challenges of parenthood, many of us have no idea what we are getting ourselves into! We imagine rocking our beautiful, cherubic baby or taking them off to their first day of school, we may even prepare ourselves for changing diapers and getting to doctors’ appointments if we are realists. There are dozens of tasks and challenges, however that we may not even fathom. It does not take long for a parent to start to wonder “How in the world am I going to teach them THAT?” In my parenting journey, there … Continue reading →

Your Teenager’s First Job

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It’s that time of the year when your teenager is asking about getting their first job. However, you are scared that no one will want to hire little Johnny or Suzie. Their hair is too long. They wear the same clothes all the time. Furthermore, the only words they seem to be able to communicate are: “can I have some money?”, “can you give me a ride to my friend’s house?”, and, “whatever!” It’s times like to these that it helps to remember what it was like for you when you got your first job. Your parents talked to you … Continue reading →

Starting a Business in Your Line of Work (or Trying Something New)

Figuring out what your home business is going to be all about can come easily for some of us, but for others, we might spend years just trying to sort out what we think we ought to be doing, what we’re good at, and what we actually want to do. One of the big questions is whether to start a home business in a field that you already work in and have experience in, or do you go after something you’ve always wanted to do or head into a brand new field? The pros of starting a business doing something … Continue reading →

Combining Different Parenting Techniques

No doubt that you, like most parents, have quite an arsenal of parenting tips and techniques. It does not seem to take long for the average parent to get quite a toolbox to access whenever something pops up with one of their children. Many of us don’t think of ways to shake things up, however, and we can become quite predictable. This can give our kids a better chance at figuring us out and getting a step ahead. Instead of always pulling out the same techniques and consequences for the same misdemeanors, how about mixing things up and combining techniques … Continue reading →

What Can You Prepare them For?

Preparation is huge—whether we are preparing for a busy weekend, studying for a test, or preparing ourselves for a job interview, as adults we know that preparation can mean the difference between success and failure. As parents, we can incorporate preparation into how we teach and guide our children. Instead of trying to deal with things after the fact, it might be worth our while to ask ourselves what we can do to help prepare our children in advance. I found with my children that the more factual and helpful information I could give them before something happened, the better … Continue reading →

Teaching Children How to be Good Listeners

I think that the best communicators I know are those people who are the best listeners. Having good social skills and being a strong communicator does not mean that we talk longer and louder than anyone else or that we jump into conversations with everyone. We can teach our children how to listen and how to be good listeners, and their communication and social skills will improve… Good listening schools do not just pay off in improved communication. Children and individuals who are good listeners are also better learners in school since they are able to absorb the information being … Continue reading →

Who Do Your Skills and Talents Belong To?

Starting a home business or “going solo” as an entrepreneur requires a shift in thinking. Most of us are conditioned to think of work as something we do for someone else in order to get money. Our motivation comes in terms of compensation. When we go to job interviews or sit through those painful “evaluations” with someone from Human Resources, we are expected to talk about what skills and talents we bring to the table for the better of the company. Working in a home based business requires that we learn how to take ownership of our skills and talents … Continue reading →

Lessons in Laundry

This morning as I was working away in the relative peace of my work space (the cats had finished their annoying and destructive morning romp and had settled down at last for naps) I head the blood-curdling scream from upstairs: “Mom!!!!” You would have thought a burglar had crept in through an upstairs window or someone’s hair had all fallen out in her sleep. Instead, what HAD happened was that an enterprising and increasingly independent teenager had done a load of laundry and run it all through the dryer–with a tube of mascara tucked away in a jeans pocket… Now, … Continue reading →