Parenting (Disciplining your Children) the hard issues!!!

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In parenting today, we will look at a controversial issue: disciplining your children. The area of discipline has been has been researched intensively, Doctorates have been written, and everyone seems an expert.

Just last night while shopping your dear editor had the pleasure of taking his three children supermarket shopping – the children are aged 4, 2½ and 8 months so it’s an exciting experience at the best of times. At the register your editors son (the 2 ½ year old decided to swing on a register gate). After I asked for him to stop once, the lovely check out lady – whose talents obviously go far beyond scanning barcodes – said “that’s not the way to do it, watch this!!!”. Much to everyone’s bemusement she proceeded to walk up to him, slam the gate shut and yell at him.

The outcome was successful, if you consider that he stopped banging the gate. However, the crying that went on for the next 15 minutes took away from this ladies small win. Your editor simply replied ‘you don’t have kids do you!!!’. We left the supermarket with the child still crying, and someone else’s child swinging on the gate waiting to receive the same treatment.

Rather than focusing on what type of discipline you use – this if definitely individual and can be based on race, religion or cultural upbringing, we will focus on the keys on how to make discipline be successful. Just as a note: With Children, it is essential that you have appropriate car insurance, that is flexible and saves you money. Please visit our friends at Advantage Auto Quotes http://www.advantageautoquotes.com/ to find the best deals around!!!

Rule number one: Be consistent. Above all when it comes to disciplining children you must treat all equally and provide the same punishment for the same behaviour.

Rule number two: Give realistic and enforceable punishments. If you can think back to your childhood, you will probably remember your parents saying “you will never watch TV/Play Cricket/etc again!!!”. These punishments that we won’t stick to said in the heat of anger often serve to weaken our control over children. If our children see that we are not going to enforce our punishments they are more likely to repeat the activity.

Rule number three: Never give into your children. As hard as it can sometimes be, as parents we must learn to never give into our children. If we do, they will see this as a sign of weakness, and know that they can get away things. If we let them get away with an activity that we as parents think is not appropriate, just once, then this sets the path for repeating the activity in the future.

Rule number four: Enforce the punishment. As parents if we say we are going to punish, then we must do it. This can sometimes be hard but it reinforces that we are going to act when we say we are going to.

In summary, children are a fantastic part of life and bring countless hours of joy to parents. Children by their very nature are going to test the limits to see what is acceptable. As parents our rule is to guide them as to what we – and society as a whole – accepts.

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Goal Setting 101

As readers of this blog you are probably more than aware of the huge benefits that can be achieved through goal setting. However, like most people, you may have tried a goal setting program in the past and not succeeded. You may have set goals in a very happy and possibly inebriated state on New Years Eve and promised yourself that this is going to be the year you will achieve your goals – however by the end of the year the goals have not been achieved, and the list you set on new years eve is nowhere to be found.

Today dear reader, we are going to explore goal setting and share a goal setting secret that has been used by successful individuals for generations. A system that with only an hour or so a week, you will be achieving your goals in no time.

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Goal setting generally consists of writing down goals and revisiting them. In order to achieve their goals successful people take this further. They have four to five main generic goals in their lives and break these down into more achievable components and goals. There program is broken down into five components for you to use as detailed below:

Long Term Goals (eg 10 year goals):
At this level the goals are more generic and generally deal with four key areas of your life, for example, Health, Financial, Family and Social. A goal at this level under financial may be to have a net worth of $10million dollars.

Yearly Goals:
These goals are written generically but within the scope of a one year time frame. The goals again contribute to the four or five aspects of your life (studies have shown that four to five areas achieves the most success). Ask yourself what are you going to have to do in the next year to achieve your goals. For example, under the above financial goal, you may state that you have to increase your net wealth by $100k. To do this you may decide that setting up your own side business is the way to go. As such, your yearly goal would be to set up a side business (in a certain field), that builds $100k worth of wealth. A good number of yearly goals is around 8-10.

Monthly Goals:
We are now starting to get into the specifics of goal settings. This is where you provide the details of how you are going to achieve your yearly goals. Ascertain what you would have to do each month to achieve the goals.

Weekly Goals:
Weekly is similar to monthly specific goals. Again write what you will have to achieve each week to meet your monthly goals.

Daily Goal and to do list: This is the base level of goal setting, and is the most important. This is where you take action. When starting your day, look at your 7-15 year goals, your yearly goals, your monthly goals and your weekly goals. Write a list of what you will need to do today to move yourself closer to your goal. On your to do list, highlight the key tasks that you will need to complete today. Focus on these tasks first.

And that the system in a nutshell. To recap, Develop 10 year goals (around four) that are a sentence each. Develop yearly goals (around 8-10) that sit under your four main goals (a few paragraphs each). Write what you will need to do each month to achieve your 8 – 10 goals). Write what you will need to achieve each week to achieve your monthly goals. Write a “to do list” at the start of each day, after reading all of your other goals. Highlight the activities on your “to do list” that will bring you closer to achieving your goals and do these first.

The system is successful because it first ascertains what you want to achieve in your life, and then provides specific goals, first at a larger time frame and then more specific to help you achieve your life time goals.

If you just write down what you want to achieve (eg have $1million in a bank account) without ascertaining the reasons why you want this, then it is more likely that your goal will come unstuck.

Good luck with your goal setting!!!

Andrew Collings

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Parenting: Why learn a musical instrument

Why Learn a Musical Instrument?
What learning a musical instrument can do for you or, your child.

Today, we will focuses on the parenting side of things, in particular, what are the benefits of your child learning a musical instrument. Detailed below, are ten reasons why they should...the benefits may be greater than you think.


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1. ENJOYMENT:
It is great to listen to, and appreciate music, and even better to be able to play it. To do so does require considerable hard work and perseverance (both rather unpopular concepts in this age of instant gratification).However most students are able to, at least, manage simple melody lines of favourite songs, together with a basic chordal accompaniment in the left hand - with a moderate amount of application.

2. CO-ORDINATION
Learning a musical instrument will improve co-ordination - this is particularly so of keyboard instruments. Eye hand co-ordination is developed, plus the ability to play different notes, motifs and rhythms with each hand. Try tapping a simple rhythm with your right hand on your knee, whilst establishing a counter rhythm on your left. This may give you an understanding of the co-ordination required. It also develops physical awareness - You really need to be aware of what your hands or feet are doing.

3. CONCENTRATION
Music requires you to play different notes, with different fingers, in either hand to a particular rhythm. This just has to make you concentrate!! It will certainly improve your ability to multi-task. Studying music also helps to develop a sense of discipline and commitment to a particular activity, regular effort is the only way to gain success!

4. SHARING WITH OTHERS
Music can often be a sharing activity, even from the beginner stage, with some instruments it provides easy entry into groups / School bands / Choirs / Small bands with friends / Church groups / Local orchestras.

5. CREATIVITY
Music develops your creativity. You all know the type of music you enjoy, once the basics are learnt, you all have the ability to write the music you like - even if it is a simple melody line. When playing existing music, there is always the opportunity to put in something of yourself, and your feelings. A piece of music that you are learning is a little like a painting canvas, the picture is there - but you - the artist can add the colour, the light and shade and the highlights.

6. NO ROOM FOR BOREDOM If you learn a musical instrument you will always have “Something to do when there’s nothing to do”. Learning music should be the start of an interest to last your whole life!

7. ACTIVE PARTICIPATION
Music asks you to be an active participant. You are in control of playing it, creating it and, (dare I say it). Practicing it!! Compare this to watching DVD’s TV, Foxtel, listening to CD’s. These are passive activities - certainly you may be listening, evaluating performances - but - you are not the performer. Playing music puts you in charge. You are the one doing something, creating and living. Maybe others will listen to you!

8. UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE
Have you ever thought how wonderful it would be, if everyone in the world could speak one language?? Well - Musicians can!! When my own children were attending a SUZUKI pan pacific music conference, young musicians from Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Fiji and Australia could all join together in making music.

9. RELAXATION
Playing music, really thinking about the song you are playing, feeling the mood of the piece are a productive way of relaxing, escaping from things that may be worrying you. Unlike some ways of escaping from the pressures of our rushed world - music is drug and alcohol free and provides a very beneficial sense of well being.

10. ACHIEVEMENT
Lots of small goals along the way add up to a sense of achievement, when learning a musical instrument. Learning to read music/ learning to count uneven (syncopated) beats/ being able to play those few bars that you had found difficult/ your first performance etc. these small steps all lead the way to developing your musical self. Your feeling of confidence as you reach particular goals may help you to feel confident to aim for goals outside of music. (School/ Work and Professional).I believe there are two groups of people in the world. There are those out there doing things - Sports/ Music/ Arts/ Science etc., and those watching and waiting. When you are older, looking back on your life, you’ll be pleased you were a doer, not a spectator. You don’t have to become an expert - you may not be the next world famous pianist, or the greatest pop star, But you will have tried to attain your best, and you may surprise yourself along the way. Music can be a friend and a sourse of joy for life. Good luck on your musical journey.

Fran Collings (B.A. ATMUSA MIMT Music teacher 20 Years)


A little additional information - cited from melbournes child (april 2006)

· SECONDARY STUDENTS PARTICAPATING IN MUSIC, BAND OR ORCHESTRA HAVE THE LOWEST USE OF DRUGS, ALCOHOL AND SMOKING.
· U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION STUDY REVEALED THAT STUDENTS INVOLVED IN MUSIC HAVE HIGHER LEVELS OF MATHS PROFICIENCY BY YEAR 12.
· LINK BETWEEN MUSIC AND INTELLIGENCE - MUSIC IS SUPERIOR TO COMPUTER INSTRUCTION IN HELPING ABSTRACT REASONING SKILLS.
· MUSIC HAS BEEN SHOWN TO INCREASE SPATIAL INTELLIGENCE.
· LEARNING AN INSTRUMENT REQUIRES HEAPS OF DISIPLINE AND COMMITMENT - BUT GIVES MUCH MORE IN RETURN!!