A dog bites a 6 year old boy, and blood is gushing out of the wound. He thinks he is going to die and keeps asking his mom that. The mom, Taflyn is traumatised, but is reminding herself to stay focused and support her son while driving to the hospital for stiches. By the time they get to the hospital, he is telling everyone else he is okay, and after the stiches, still goes home and gives that dog a big hug....

What happened here? What magic did Taflyn use? The skills she used she learnt through the workshops....

Read on...

Every few days I get a story from a parent who has had a breakthrough in using their new skills.

This one really shows how Intelligent skills can create amazing results and blissful flow. And this is for real. I did not edit her story except just change the names.

I was invited to attend a pre-school groups’ ‘camp fire evening’.  The 6 year old group came together on a Friday evening to eat boerewors rolls around a fire and sing songs at school. Each child also needed to bring a torch as the school lights would be turned off later in the evening.

It was a beautiful evening and the children were very excited and ran around the garden exploring the darkness with their torches. Soon enough a young boy came over holding out his torch which had fallen and had stopped working. He was crying.

“Well you’ll have to share with someone else then, Gary.”

“But I don’t want to!” Gary managed to sob out.

“Well, Gary, it’s broken and there’s nothing we can do about it. Crying won’t do you any good, but smiling sometimes does.”

“My mom will be really angry. Its my new torch.”

“Come now Gary, we are going to light the sparklers soon.”

More sobbing while trying to shake the torch into operation.

“Gary, your tears will put the lights out. Don’t ruin our evening. Look, Liam’s torch doesn’t work either and he isn’t crying.”

By now I was about to take the torch and smash it over the teacher’s head hoping to shake her into decent operation.

Later on in the evening, they lit the sparklers. As the children ran around waving the sparklers in the air, one child’s jersey caught alight. She came running over and it was soon put on with no injury.

“Who did this?” shouted the teacher. “Who lit the jersey? Anthony was it you? I saw you were playing close by.”

“No, it wasn’t me. I swear it wasn’t me.”

“Come on everyone. Who was it?”

I don’t know what the teacher had expected to gain by asking that question. The children had been playing around, waving their sparklers and occasionally they bumped into each other. I noticed Anthony looking very uncomfortable. I went over to him and said,

“It looks like it was an accident. Sometimes accidents like this happen easily. I don’t think anyone really meant to burn the jersey.”

Anthony looked at me. He looked a bit surprised but I could see he was sizing me up. He was wondering if I could be trusted.

“It was me, but it was an accident. I didn’t mean it.”

I nodded my head. “Accidents happen, Anthony. It’s okay.”

As your awareness sharpens, and as you find respectful ways to resolve these kinds of issues, it can become unsettling to listen to the communication patterns of our spouses, friends and your child’s teachers. In every workshop the concern comes up of how to convey this awareness to spouses and other relevant people. It brings up dynamics of power, and perhaps new conflict. In the case above, the teacher was the principle of a well-known Cape Town school. Did I feel comfortable in pointing out to her another way of communicating that conveys respect? The thought of it was too uncomfortable.

My four-year-old son has got into the habit of throwing a golf ball against our garage door. We have told him many times not to do so as it may come back and hit him in the face. As I was about to leave to come to the workshop, I heard the knock-knock of the ball against the door and soon a loud howl from my son.

I ran out to see him, fearing the worst as he was holding his eye. I caught myself before I said “I told you you would hurt yourself but you didn’t listen.”

This time I said, “Ouch, that must be really sore. The ball gave you a big fright.” He nodded his head and he calmed down amazingly quickly. My husband came out to see what had happened and was just about to say “How many times did I tell you…” when I gave him a look and said, “Don’t say anything, I’ll explain later.” Amazing.

My two boys were playing tennis for the first time and the youngest was being a really bad loser. As I was watching, I saw my eldest son relax and allow Phil to win.

Afterwards when Phil had beaten Matthew, he started to show off and I could see Matthew starting to feel angry and wanting to retaliate. I walked over to Matthew said quietly, “I saw what happened on the court - it takes a big person to do what you did to keep the peace”. He immediately smiled and was his old self again and the moment passed.

For the last three weeks when it comes to Saturday it has become a complete nightmare with Sammy. He wakes up and whines and moans and just seems to be unhappy.

It got to a point where it was upsetting the whole family.  I asked Sammy on a couple of occasions what it was that was bothering him. Initially he could not figure it out himself, but after a while he was able to verbalize what he was feeling and that he did not enjoy being in the mood that he was in, he just does not enjoy whining and being the way he was.

I listened to him as he explained what he was feeling inside and how he was able to own up to his emotions and that he really wanted to do something about it. So I suggested that he write down a list of things of what he can do to support himself when he feels frustrated as he has been feeling during the weekend lately.

He wrote a list and brought it to me and I told him that this was his and that he must use it to support himself during the weekend. This was also a lovely way for me to see what he would like to do and I said to him that I was more that happy to participate with a couple of the things (not all) he has written on the list.

We will see how it goes this weekend but by me engaging with him and helping him identify what he can do to help himself made him feel not only supported but also empowered.

I want to share a little story with you that made me laugh yesterday. Margaret and I were outside for the first time in a week, it has been so cold and wet on the beach front!

On the ground outside the house there is a patch where grass struggles to grow but clover does well. For the second year Margaret has called this her Radish patch. She pretends to grow and produce radishes and we play games involving harvesting her crop and taking it to sell at market.

Yesterday as she was harvesting she said "Oh I to pee NOW". I said "OK take off your leggings and pee on the grass", knowing that she wasn't going to make it to the loo. As she stood half naked with bent knees she called back "But not on my radishes!", as she pulled back onto the pathway.

I was again reminded that although I am playing with my imagination, she is inhabiting hers.