• Ever been in a car and your children start to whine, cry and want to go back home?
• Your child agrees to not taking along the toy, but then in the car they change their mind and throw a tantrum.
• Wish you could change a crying child into a laughing one?

This video clip is taking from the online session on Acknowledging Emotions. Amanda shares how she used the skill of fantasy and changed the whole mood of the car.  In her words, she says, "It was really that easy."

This skill is the one most parents laugh at when I first teach them it, but it is the most commonly used one that brings the most success.

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.

During ‘quiet play’ all the children (aged 4 & 5years) sit on the mat and play educational games or puzzles. Throughout the year I have been nurturing the life skills of negotiation and conflict resolution with the children. It was all summed up in the following incident.

I was building a puzzle with two children with my back turned to a group of four playing a card game. As their game progressed, tension surfaced and accusations of cheating were thrown around.

Pretty soon they called me to intervene. I turned around and said, “Guys, it sounds like that some children are not playing fairly. If you don’t like what is happening you need to speak to each other.” I turned my back again.

I listened carefully as the group of children struggled to communicate their feelings and ideas about who was cheating and how they didn’t like it. I soon realised that the two children who I was building with were as interested in the process as I was because the one soon whispered, “They are negotiating now. They must talk about their problem.”

he other joined in and said, “They are solving their conflict.” The three of us carried on building, aware that the group of four needed to grapple with the issue on their own.

Chad was a child who had trouble expressing his anger and the parents informed me that there was a lot of sibling rivalry between him and his younger sister. Chad often hit children and we had already tried all of the skills. There came a day when I took Chad outside, to a quite place.

“Chad it looks like you have quite a few friends and you love playing with all of them. I notice that one of your best friends is Ashwin and you guys play with the cars mst of the morning. At times, it also looks like that some of the other children seem to annoy you and that makes you want to make them go away. It seems that as you do this, some children are getting hurt. We now need to think about how else we can support you to make sure everyone is treated respectfully.”

Taking a piece of paper, we wrote down all our ideas.

Robert: “What do you think Robert should do if Chad keeps hitting other children?”

Silence.

Robert: “Well, Robert could hit Chad back……..”

Silence.

 Robert: “We could go talk to the principal……?”

Writing down all the ideas, Chad said, “I could go inside and sit on the mat.”

Robert, writing, “Mmmm, Chad could come inside and find something to do on the mat."
Robert:  “And if Chad keeps hitting the children?”
Chad: “I could go to teacher Lamees’s class”
Robert: “Okay, lets put that down as well. Chad could go to teacher Lamees’s class. Lets look at what we have written. Robert could hit Chad, Chad could go to the principal, Chad could go inside and Chad could go to Lamees’s mat. Let’s cross out what isn’t acceptable. Robert doesn’t hit Chad so we cross that out. How about going to see the principal?”

Chad shakes his head and I cross that out. Sitting on the mat had not proven successful so I said, “I see that Chad still hits other children so we need to think of another thing. How about going to Lamees’s class?”

Chad nods his head.

Robert: “How long do you think you should stay there?”
Chad: “ Two weeks:”
Robert: “Two weeks? That’s a long time. I think two days is okay. What do you think?”
Chad agrees. We then write out on a paper, “If Chad hits other children then he will go to Teacher Lamees’s class for two days. Signed. Robert and Chad.” We both signed the paper and then I photocopied the agreement and gave him the original and I put the copy on the board so we would be reminded of our agreement. Chad restrained himself from hitting other children for a long time after that.

The social skill of taking turns is one that takes time, patience and many long faces to develop. On this day, we had our play-dough table nestled up against the wall and only two seats for the children to sit at.

After about ½ an hour, some children came up to me complaining that they wanted a turn at the table. I asked them if they had spoken to the other two at the table and they said that they had. I thought that it was that time again to start developing sharing skills.

“Okay guys, we have two children playing dough and another two who would like to play. What shall we do?”

Both parties voiced that they each wanted to play. We were heading towards a system of time allocation when another child (5yrs old) who was standing nearby piped up and said.

“I have a good idea. Why don’t they move the table away from the wall and put another two chairs on the other side, then all four children can sit at the table?”

My mouth hung open for a while till I said, “That sounds like a good idea. What do you all think?” The children agreed and they organised themselves.

As I was walking away from the table I mentioned to the idea-giver, “Ashwyn, that was a good idea. You thought a lot about how they could solve their problem. Now they can all play together.”

He responded, “I know, I have lots of good ideas. And I have lots more at home.”

• You would do practically anything for your children, right?
• Your love for them literally has no boundaries?
• You wish to give your child everything they need?

Although this is one parent's amazing story, I reckon you would do the same as well.

Although this seems like an extra-ordinary story, I still feel that this happens every day in many ways, through out the world.

This is a tribute to you as a parent, where ever you are, and what ever you do for your children.

Please share your insights, your inspirations or comments below:

• Have we let our youth down?
• Are our parenting styles creating incompetent youths?
• Is there hope for you youths in a world that is fast deteriorating?

This clever video clip takes a look at some of these questions and shows how our values may still be ok

A teacher gets a wake up call when she has pre-judged a child to be naughty.

Teachers need to be more open to seeing the world from a child's perspective. Schooling is not just about reading and writting but also about friendships, care, love, and happiness.

• How do you know if you are overprotecting your children?
• How much risk is a good thing?
• Can risking something turn into a good thing?

 A great quote says, "many a one has succeeded only because he has failed after repeated efforts. If he had never met defeat, he would never have known any great victory.'

Every time we try to protect our children from possible failure or rejection, we simultaneously deny them the possibility of succeeding, of persevering, and of accomplishing their dreams.

We nearly always regret what we don't do, and are grateful for the learning from what we do.

If you keep living your life as you are currently doing so now.... and you get to the age of 90, what will you look back on and regret?

Nearly all of us regret what we don't do. Rarely do with regret what we do as each mistake becomes a learning and every experience holds meaning.

Make sure your regrets of what you didn't do don't end up as weights on the shoulders of your chidlren because you didn't follow your own dreams first.

And if your biggest wish is that your children are happy and follow their dreams, you will need to set that example for them.