Unspoiled Kids

I liked the review I read of the book pictured here, not for the review but the premise of the book. The book makes the following great observation which many of us Gen X parents suspect but are too afraid to live by: OUR KIDS DON’T NEED MORE STUFF!!!!!

It’s not anti-toys or anti-presents (and the author’s not either, because I’ve read her cloumn in an Aussie newspaper here in Melbourne). But it does say that kids get more out of toys that make them think, interact with other people and develop their fine- and gross-motor skills than they do out of another game for the DS or xbox.

Thank the Lord I bought my 13 year old a bass guitar this year and paid for lessons. It’s his default away from the xbox.

How do you feel about the pressure to buy? Do kids have too much, or maybe too much of one thing to the detriment of other pursuits in their lives?

Covering All Bases parenting program

• “My influence in my kids’ lives seems to be fading fast. How do I get it back?”
• “Can I be friends with my kids if I’m also the one who disciplines them?”
• “Why do my kids try so hard to annoy me?”
• “How can I get my son to stop acting like the world revolves around him?”
• “How can I get my daughter to actually care for other people?”
• “Quality Time seems to always turn into Poor-Quality Time! What gives?!”

For 14 years, I’ve worked with teenagers and families in pastoral care, coaching and mentoring roles, while raising two sons of my own. I’ve heard questions like these from frustrated parents over and over again.

More positively, I’ve observed several strategies that many parents employed successfully from early childhood. These achieved open communication, healthy boundaries, real rapport and effective behavior management with their kids. And they made life a lot happier for everyone!

The Covering All Bases Program is built on the premise that parenting scores more ‘home-runs’ when it moves through 4 Bases (representing skills or habits).

Whereas in many seminars, you are expected to “download” some information into your skull and be magically transformed by it, I believe that it’s better to take a small bit of information, apply it, use it, tweak it, then review it before adding the next bit.

For that reason, the Covering All Bases Program runs across five consecutive weeks, each session building on the one before. Each session runs for 75 minutes.

Sessions are conducted via “teleclass” (or conference call) and registrants will be given an international number and PIN code to attend each class. (If all participants are Skype-users, of course this is a welcome and cheaper option!)

In exploring these timeless concepts with other parents, you will develop deeper relationships with your children while making supportive friendships with other adults growing through the same things as you.

Full Program Fee: $125 Australian (includes a 1:1 free coaching call upon completion of program)

For more information, contact me, or…

Free Teleforum

We will be running a free discussion via conference call over the Christmas-New Year period called Big Bad Wolf. This one is for Skype-users only so if you don’t have skype, it’s worth a look!

What threats and challenges do your kids face in the 21st Century?  Talk to live people in real time about your concerns, share your strategies for protecting your kids and hear the strategies which other parents employ.

Big Bad Wolf runs for one hour and is an opportunity for you to think and talk through one aspect of life as a parent. To find out more, contact Pete Aldin. Places are limited.

A Happier Home-life?

So you hate feeling so stressed in your own home and you’ve realised that micro-managing your family’s lives isn’t actually improving anything. Truth be told, you

• nag your kids, your partner, yourself

• suspect that your behaviour alienates your kids and loses their respect

• sometimes find yourself working yourself into a lather, lying awake for hours at night fretting, having little meltdowns

• suspect you waste valuable time worrying about what others think

• find yourself caught in nasty daydreams about how badly things are going to turn out for your family…

… but what else can you do?? Family life is just so stressful!! Right?

It doesn’t have to be like that. What if you had some options? What if the stress could start to dissipate? What if you could break out of these patterns and begin to enjoy your home life again?

I’d like to give you THREE alternatives to all the behaviors described above, alternatives which diminish parental stress. For a few minutes a day over 5 days, you can interact with these short modules and regain your composure, your power of choice and your rapport with your family.

And if you listen carefully, you might even hear your heart and your adrenal glands sighing with relief!

If your reality is not so great, why not explore the kind of “alternate realities” parents like Theresa (below) are discovering?

“I found this course great. It really didn’t take much of my time yet it gave me a fresh approach to my parenting concerns.” (Theresa, mother of 3 Teenagers)

The Stressed-out Parent’s Guide to a Happier Home-life at only $8.50 costs less than the price of a cup of coffee per day! (And it’s better for you…)

Click here for a sample…

Fear of a Blank Planet – Porcupine Tree

Found it. Was confronted by it. Embedded it.

Resources For You

Folks, don’t know if I’ve ever really promoted this before but Pete Aldin has had his own monthly e-zine for nigh on two years now. (Although sometimes it’s been bimonthly when I’ve gotten busy.) You can sign up for The Whetstone in the sidebar. You can also click here to check out an older one.

Katy Lee also has a newsletter you can sign up for at http://adventuresinparenting.org … and when you do you’ll get your own  free copy of The 5-5-5 Recipe Book – five five-minute recipes! And four of them are meat fellas! Worth a look. My boys and I are using the Cola Pork Chops recipe next week!

Detouring slightly into the realm of great blogposts, this one’s well-worth a read:

Sympathy Hormones in Dads [Whilst it is common knowledge that women experience surges and significant falls in certain hormone levels, and even get to try on a few new ones during pregnancy, what is less known is that the imminent father also experiences a couple of hormonal changes himself...]

And finally, I’ve launched an online store, Dad Store, where you can checkout my tips for great books and cool gifts for kids.

go AWAY!

… and I mean that nicely. I mean that you could go away from this blog and read some other great posts by some other great writers out there. (See how I subtly suggested that I’m a great writer? Feel free to agree).

If you’re in Australia or New Zealand or Papua-New-Guinea, it’s Monday morning and you just KNOW that you want to procrastinate before getting stuck into your work. If you’re elsewhere in the world on the tail-end of your weekend and you’re looking for some good reading to cap off the weekend, here it is.

First one for the Mums/Moms:

Boys Will Be Boys – And So What? »

Next (quite a few nexts actually), I was part of a writer’s project this month:  What I Learned From Animals! Here’s all the entries…

• What I Learned From Animals, by Audra Krell at KRELLFISH
• What I Learned From a Yappy Dog, by Pete Aldin at Freaked-Out Fathers
• What I Learned From Shooting a Muskrat, by Brad Shorr at Word Sell, Inc.
• Dog Parables, Part 1, by Ruth Hull Chatlien at Ruth’s Visions and Revisions
• Dog Parables, Part 2, by Ruth Hull Chatlien at Ruth’s Visions and Revisions
• What I Learned From Sam the Border Collie Dog, by Andrew Rondeau at Great Management
• They Touch Your Soul, by Marcie Pickelsimer at My Two Boys
• What I Learned From Animals, by Christine Sine at Godspace
• Look a possum! by Danielle Houghton at sevendaymother.com
• Welcome to the Country, by Jonathan Pippenger at Growing Up With The Kids
• Who’s Training Who, Anyway? by David Bowles at Writing the Westward Sagas
• Life Lessons from SpongeBob Squarepants, by Monica Brand at Paper Bridges
• What I Learned From Animals, by Lillie Ammann at A Writer’s Words, An Editor’s Eye
• Faith Before Fear, by Debbra Stephens at Garlands of Hosannas
• What I Learned From… Bees, by Sam Brougher at Your Scared Seductive System
• What I Learned From Dogs, by Karen Hanrahan at Best of Mother Earth
• What I Learned About Blogging… From My Granddogs, by Jean Browman at Transforming Stress
• What I Learned From Linus, by Gordon Atkinson at High Calling Blogs
• What I learned from a dog, by Sterling Camden at Chip’s Quips
• We Are Different From Animals, by Kim Quon at Preparation 4 Eternity
• What I Learned From Animals, by Lisa Velle at getting it write for you
• What I Learned From Animals – A Boy Becomes Like God, by Marcus Goodyear at goodwordediting.com
• What I Learned From Mother Robin, by Brad Shorr at Word Sell, Inc.
• Molly and Ministry, by Songbird at Reflectionary
• How to step out of your normal environment – and step into a new one, by Jackie Cameron at Jackie Cameron
• What I Learned From My Cat About the Writing Life, by Joanna Young at Confident Writing
• What I Learned From My Dog, by Karen Putz at A Deaf Mom Shares Her World
• What I Learned From Animals, by Nancy Janisch at Conversation in Faith Weblog
• The Tao of Roo: Lessons in Simplicity From My Dog, by Sara at On Simplicity
• What I Learned About Blogging… From Rats, by Jean Browman at Transforming Stress
• What I Learned From a Cat, by Luke Gideon at Luke Gedeon
• What I Learn From Kung Fu Panda, by Robert A. Henru at Reason4Smile
• What I Learned From Ants, by Ulla Hennig at Ulla Hennigs Photoblog
• A Cat Autopsy and Animal CSI: What I Learned From Animals, by Samuel Adams at Associated Content [UPDATE]

And finally -not two, but three from the Host with the Most (”what can I say? the topic inspired me!”):

• Well Ain’t That Just the Duck’s Posterior! by Robert Hruzek at Middle Zone Musings
• What Are You Saying, Without Saying a Word? by Robert Hruzek at Middle Zone Musings
• The First Step to Effective Communication, by Robert Hruzek at Middle Zone Musings

More Pics I Liked

Well, as we recover from our near brush with fame, and I get on with the mundanity of running a training course during the day and helping kids with homework at night, and I try to scratch some time out of the week to be a writer, I only have the energy to make this offering of funny pics today.

May it give all of you wonderful readers something to waste time on today.

Enjoy!!

The next pic does not in any way reflect the views of Freakedout Fathers’ author …

 

 

My Favourite Obscure Songs

Here’s my top ten list of obscure (as in not Top 40) music that either gets me in the gut or gets my foot a-tappin’…

1. Kashmir, Led Zeppelin (the death of John Bonham was such a waste!
2. Bullet the Blue Sky, U2 (& covered nicely by P.O.D.)
3. Navras, Juno Reactor
4. Worlds Apart, Jars of Clay
5. Ready Steady Go, Oakenfold 
6. Faint, Linkin Park
7. Down Among the Dead Men, Flash & the Pan
8. Lazarus, Porcupine Tree
9. Radioactivity, Kraftwerk
10. Hallelujah, KD Lang

Well, that’s mine, but what would be on yours? I wanna know. Let me know and I’ll post a list of … lists …er, soon…

And to get you thinking, here’s John Bonham’s thunderous drumming on my #1:

And as an encore, a kick-ass drum solo from the man too (about 1:15 into clip):

Some Pics that Caught My Attention

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