You Have a Choice by Leanne Ely, CNC

You Have a Choice

by Leanne Ely, C.N.C

Dear Friends,

In the everyday scheme of things, your quality of life is dependent on the choices you make. Really understanding the muscle of your own choices is totally empowering and has the capacity for realigning your life direction. Knowing who is in control and realizing that you don't have to take your marching orders from a bag of M & M's or a two year old can be revolutionary. Let me explain.

We are almost trained by this culture to take on the mantle of victim. A famous lawsuit over spilled hot coffee from a fast food establishment is a good example. Rather than take responsibility for the fact that the coffee was hot (as coffee should be), this individual blamed the company for not providing a warning and consequently, this individual won a substantial lawsuit and profited off this phenomenon of "victimization". [Sunshine's interjection:  This is a famous case, and while I worked in the restaurant industry, I found out more about it.  The other side of the story is actually very interesting.  The McDonald's in question was serving coffee at near-boiling temperatures and hotter than you need coffee to ever be!  They had been asked to turn down their coffee formally at least three times, and failed to comply.  They had already burned other patrons.  The poor old lady who got the coffee in her lap suffered 3rd degree burns from the boiling stuff, causing pain and disfigurement.  She was parked and very carefully opened the coffee.  So there's more to the story than "dur, coffee's hot, don't spill it."  You can read more here:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonald%27s_Restaurants, and it's actually fairly interesting.  Nonetheless, there are lots of "victim" stories in our news, and people really do need to take control of and responsibility for our own choices.]

That's a rather dramatic example, but we place ourselves in the victim role everyday. I am going to bet somewhat unaware of it, too. The examples I used from the first paragraph are good ones. Did you know that no matter what, a bag of M & M's will never hug you, never say an encouraging word to you, and can never love you like a real live human can?

Did you also know that 2 year old children don't have the brain skills yet for abstract thinking? Therefore, their attempts at absolute tyranny are (or should be!) ineffective and leaves YOU in charge. You don't have to be pushed around anymore by the whim of a 2 year old if you decide you're ready to be the boss (that doesn't mean you have to be unpleasant; just FIRM. Smile when you say no or redirect your little one!).

You have control over what goes in your child's cereal bowl every morning, too. You're the one buying the groceries; you're the one who should decide which cereal you'll spend your hard earned money on. Which is a better nutritional investment for your child-- artificially flavored and colored sugary, tooth decaying fake food or a lesser known brand of whole grain cereal without added sugars, artificial sweeteners, colorings, etc.?

Food is fuel for the human vehicle. The better the quality of the fuel, the better we feel and the more we enjoy our lives. Our bodies house our souls and it's the only "soul vehicles" we will ever be given. Treat yourself better than you do your car. That vehicle can be replaced-you cannot.

Love,
Leanne Ely
Your Dinner Diva since 2001
http://savingdinner.com for a Free Menu-Mailer when you get a our Daily Dish

Republished from Leanne's newsletter.  Find out more about Leanne and how you can SAVE dinner by visiting her website above.
 

Strengths

I received this in my inbox today, from Flylady.  I liked it and thought I'd share:

No More Parents Left Behind by Alice Wellborn:

Christmas is a season of celebration and joy, but it is also the time of year when we all focus on gifts. Let's forget about material gifts for a moment, and think about the gifts that our children bring to their lives.

One of the few things that I dislike about my job is the focus on children's weaknesses. We get so involved in figuring out what's wrong that we forget to figure out what's right. The emphasis on weaknesses is really pretty foolish, because we base our lives on our strengths. Schools don't have the time anymore to appreciate the whole child -- all the different gifts that children can have that may have nothing to do with school learning, but can have everything to do with living a good life. Teachers need to value all of the gifts that children bring to school. Success breeds success, and the confidence, energy, and motivation that success brings to children just seems to spill over into everything else they do.

There are lots of different ways to be "smart". "School smart" requires logical, sequential reasoning skills, a good memory, and the ability to thing abstractly. But we all know people who have a "green thumb" with plants, or who have a wonderful way with animals. Others have a wonderful way with people -- they have great social skills and they have a sense of how people feel and how to help. Lots of people who have trouble reading can take an engine apart, figure out what's wrong, and put it back together perfectly. Some of the most spiritual people I've known have been very simple people in other ways. I'm always impressed with people who are talented in the arts. The problem is that it isn't until high school that students really get to explore and use these other kinds of gifts.

Although we are all judged in our first 18 years of life on our ability to be "school smart", for the next 50 years we actually get to do what we're good at! I know several people who were very successful at school, but who have failed at living a happy, productive adult life. I also know many people who struggled in school, but who are very successful in life. I've worked in this same small town for 33 years, and a lot of the kids I evaluated in the past have grown up and had families of their own. I see them everywhere I go, and I can tell you for a fact that "school smart" is not a ticket to success. It certainly helps, but it's no guarantee.

So what should we do as parents? We need to work very hard to help our children do as well as possible in school, both with learning and with discipline, and then work just as hard at helping them find their gifts. When I talk to parents of disabled children, I tell them that their most important job is to find out what their child is good at and make sure they have every opportunity to excel in that area. We all have to be good at something, or we just give up on ourselves. Remember that sometimes we adults get so focused on a child's weaknesses that we forget about strengths, and strengths are what each of us builds our life on.

The last and maybe the most important thing to say about finding a child's gifts is this: You have to love the child you've been given. We don't get to pick for our children. All we can do is give them lots of opportunities to figure out who they are and what they can do, and then support them and love them as they become the person they're meant to be. It's their dream and their life. We don't mold children, we unfold them.

*****************
Our very own education specialist Alice Wellborn is now a regular contributor at FlyLady.net and we are thrilled to share her wise words with all of you. Alice is a school psychologist and the author of the amazingly helpful book No More Parents Left Behind.

You can follow Alice on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/No-More-Parents-Left-Behind/141333445932691

The No More Parents Left Behind Website:
http://www.nomoreparentsleftbehind.com/

Boys

Upturned faces

Where now lie softly

Tender cheeks

Tentative smiles

One day will hold

Ardent hopes

Fierce desires

And anger

And hurt.

But always will secretly keep

That innocent uncertainty

and perfection of youth

As it begins to bloom.

He is tall.

And strong.

But something about him is

Pure emotion.

He seems deeper than the rest.

And more fragile.

-Sunshine Gladish-Cowgill

Bike Ride

Well, that blows the whole plan out of the water.

So yesterday, we decided:  Today is the day that my little girl is going to learn to ride a bike.

She's been wanting to take her training wheels off Puddin' (her bike), but is afraid to ride fast, and I wasn't sure if she could go fast enough to stay up.  But she's bigger and stronger now, and she really wants it.  Ok fine. 

My son got a monkey bike for Christmas.  Like this one:

So Sonja decided one day to try riding it.  It's short and pretty much not intimidating at all.  After just a few minutes, she had figured it out and could ride in the house.  The next day, she figured out how to ride on the sidewalk and liked to ride the monkey bike.  But still couldn't ride a "2 wheeler."  This, I pointed out, is silly, because monkey bike is a two-wheeler. 

Back to the story of yesterday.

We got the bike out of the garage, took off the training wheels, and I walked the bike up the driveway.  I was prepared for a back-breaking afternoon of running behind her, holding up the seat and encouraging her not to give up, even if she had fallen.  She noticed the gate was open and the cat was walking out, and ran up to shut the gate.  ?  "Um, I can't get the bike out if you shut the gate.  Just let kitty go, it's fine."  She walked back and took the bike, and I took the gate and opened it all the way.

There were two cars parked in the driveway.  My experience with my own bike and my son learning to ride told me that the skinny (3 feet maybe?) space between the car and the fence would be a squeeze, so I simply suggested that she go ahead and walk the bike out to the sidewalk and we'd walk down to the school and try to ride.  She sat on the bike.  And...rode it up the driveway.

Just like that.

I just stared at her and smiled.  I don't think she had even realized what she did.  Later, I asked her what was going through her mind when she did that.  Was she thinking she would just try it?  What?  She said she just didn't know.  Nothing.  She just did it.

And then she rode the 3 blocks to the school and rode all around, turning left and right, circling the handball courts and basketball hoops.  She rode the whole time and then rode home.  It had only taken her 2 stops to perfectly master the footbrakes.  She never got nervous and never fell.

I just sat in the sun, watching and smiling.

The clank of the chains against the tetherball poles is such a peaceful sound on a Friday afternoon.

Seed

Seeds on the path.

Seems like such a waste.  Like sex with birth control.  

Then again, there are no weeds on the path.

Special thanks to anewscafe.com for the photos.  I was running and didn't want to stop to take my own of the foxtail seeds strewn across the South Hills Trail.