#Skillset Children

Teaching children the value of managing money

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Value

At what age is it proper to start to talk about finances and the value of money with your children? Should you talk about it at all? How much or little of it is appropriate to let your children manage at what age?

Do you want your children to live in financial abundance? Make sure that you know your own subconscious beliefs about money before trying to impact your younglings.

Make it a subject to research at home

When I started learning about personal development, and devoting myself to becoming the best version of me that I can be, I started setting goals. A few of those goals where in the financial area. I’ve gone slow but steadily forward moving from increasing the hourly fee I charge for my consultancy business to becoming debt free and learning about and creating passive income.

I threw myself into understanding money, how to earn it, keep it and make it grow. It’s been like going back to school but immeasurably more fun since this time I have strong reasons for learning. Everything I’ve learnt has led to even more areas to explore and to dive deeper into. As I’ve begun to see the real life value of understanding this area I’ve felt an increasing frustration of not having learnt about this before. Why isn’t this subject taught at elementary school?

I decided to make money and financial abundance a subject that we should explore at home. I wanted to create a structure for my own learning as well as for my kids’ and I began with defining a number of categories to investigate with my children.

Categories regarding money to research with my kids:

  • Mindset about money – Abundance and generosity
  • Financial literacy – getting comfortable talking in terms of money
  • The value of money and “Need vs Want”
  • Self-reliance – responsibility and the ability to plan
  • Creating, keeping and making money grow

Learning about the value of money

One of categories we explored early on was around The value of money. At what price is the price considered high or low? Who and what decides what the price should be and what is the actual price for different things?

My girls has gotten an allowance since they were old enough to reach the cashier at the store. It’s been a very small amount and we’ve given it to them weekly. A month is an eternity for small children and since their brains haven’t developed enough to judge consequences properly we thought a weekly amount would be best. Otherwise I think they’d spend all the money at once and then spend the rest of the month nagging us for when the next allowance was due.

In the beginning they could spend their allowance on whatever they wanted. We spent time in the store looking at the price tags and helping out with the math. “I want this!”, “Okey Sweetie, can you afford it?”. As they were growing older they started reflecting on how different the prices were and they started asking “Is this expensive or cheap?”. There were some interesting conversations about if they thought it was worth the price or not. Getting 5 pieces of chocolate versus the comic book with the puzzles and the toys… what to do what to do??..

We learnt that a price can be high for one person but low to another depending on how much you want it and how available the item is. If you can’t find that specific football card in any store close to home then it might be worth a higher price once you get to go to the store in the city.

Learning about supply and demand

Every summer there is a festival close to where we live. For a day the entire park, just meters from our apartment, is filled with people having a good time. There are live bands playing music and food tents selling fast food. Every year the festival draw street performers and small scale entrepreneurs looking to make some profit on the crowd that has gathered.

Booth sale

One year our daughters decided they wanted to try their luck and they asked for our help in setting up a small booth. They brought all the toys they considered themselves too old to play with anymore, small paper notes to write the prices on and on our suggestion a box to keep the money in. Apart from toys we also went to the store and bought a large bag of small individualized candy packs. The price for the entire bag was pretty expensive to our young entrepreneurs and they weren’t all that happy about lending the money to be able to buy it.

They soon realized that the small packs of candy was a gold mine. Kids drawn to the table, by all the toys, were off course immediately asking their parents if they could have some candy. The individual packs sold at a really good price since this was the only place in all the park that sold candy.

As the day progressed they got more and more into sales and shifted from standing timidly behind the table to targeting people walking by with questions and promoting the merchandise.

Replay the day and take reinforce the lessons

One of our most important jobs as parents, I believe, is to track our children’s progress and learning and make it visible and known to them. Realizing that you now know more or can do something you couldn’t before are building blocks for self-esteem and it nurtures the will to learn even more.

Knowledge has a way of sneaking up on you without heralding its presence. If you don’t keep track on your progress you might risk missing it altogether. I use a journal to keep track on my own progress and I revisit chapters from earlier months and years continuously to reflect on possible growth and development. One way to help our kids to recognize their new skills is to replay the day and talk through the things that has happened.

When our girls were done with their first entrepreneurial effort we helped them summarize and reflect. They paid us back the price for the initial investment and calculated their end results. They did a nice profit and we reflected on the day. How did they decide on the sell-price for different things? Was there any bargaining during the day? Was it easy to get customers? What was the actual profit? What made it possible to sell the candy at such a higher price than what they invested in the first place? How did it feel to sell? What was the total experience of the day?

Make a plan for your family’s skillset within the financial area

What areas within finances would you like to learn more of for yourself? Is it keeping a ledger, making a budget, exploring online marketing or even trading with stocks? What concepts could benefit your children? Take some time to reflect on what small experiments you could run together to start teaching them and yourself about one of the more potent sources of influence and independence.

See future posts for more ideas about teaching children about earning, keeping and making money grow.

BeBrave

Your relationship to money will impact the amount you have

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Money

How do you handle your money? There are few areas that trigger as many instinctive reactions in people as money does. Everyone has a relationship to it and everyone has been raised by people that have their view on it. Do you talk about money with your children? Do you talk about it with you spouse? How does this subject make you feel?

What kind of person gets rich and how does living in abundance look like?

If you close your eyes and picture a person who is financially wealthy – what do you see? Try it. Be honest. What characteristics defines this person? What must this person have done to acquire all that wealh and what must this person have sacrificed to reach this abundance?

Is your view on this person a positive or negative one? If we use a scale where 1 is completely positive and 10 is all negative where would you score the feeling you have?

Some people vision a corrupt, soulless person with greed and selfish desires as the only driving forces. Some vision a striving, hardworking person who never permit herself to rest or to have fun. Yet others see a person worthy of admiration but up on a cultural pedestal far out of reach.

So far in this post I’ve posed a lot of questions. The reason for that is that questions are the best way to access your subconscious from where all the programming for your actions stem from. You are operating based on your subconscious truths and beliefs. If you have any traces of a negative view on abundance and financial success it will trip you up.

You might, consciously, believe and say that you’re all for being rich and living in abundance. But if any of the answers to the questions above contained doubt, contempt, worry, jealousy or any resistance at all you know that you have some subconscious ideas that are not going to help you reach your goals.

Your relationship to money will impact the amount of it you have

Any negative feelings towards money and wealth will impact your relationship to it. Some try to explain this phenomenon as something esoteric or supernatural. They might complacently say something like “You have to talk to your money and tell it how much you love it so that it’ll come to you”. I think that would be a super way for me to feel stupid, I can’t seriously see myself talking to a coin..

I do, however, believe in the power of my subconscious and that the way I feel when I talk about money and finances is part of how much or little I have of it. It’s not like the money has an awareness that keeps it from me if I don’t “love it”. It’s because any negativity I harbor towards it, or people that have a lot of it, will steer my everyday actions that in turn will impact how I earn/save and spend money.

My sister sent me a link to a Youtube video of an adorable woman, Gill Fielding, talking about wealth. I particularly love her enthusiasm about money – “I really LOVE money!” she says at one point. The video is about wealth and the secrets of acquiring it and making it grow. It puts a smile on my face, I can recommend it 🙂

What can you do to change your view on money?

If you have thoughts and emotions that are negative towards money sometimes just knowing about them and consciously choosing other thoughts is all that’s needed. But most often we’ve been impacted by beliefs about money and wealth from the early stages of childhood. That means that our beliefs are thoroughly imbedded in our subconscious.

How do we best access those inmost hidden places? With questions and visualizations.

Close your eyes again and picture a person that is abundant, wealthy and living a life of financial freedom. Become determined to present this person as 100% good and to bestow admirable, virtuous and inspiring qualities to her.

Now ask yourself:

  • What thoughts and beliefs does she have to enable her to act the way she does that results in this abundance?
  • What skills have been essential for her to reach this level?
  • How can she now impact the world and do more good?
  • What will you do when you have all these resources at hand?

Were your answers totally free from negativity? If not, then commit again to a completely positive view and try the exercise again.

As with changing any belief, impacting the ones around money will take some conscious effort. However, any work in this area will not only help you in relations to finances it will also make you more aware of other limiting beliefs that are potentially holding you back.

BeBrave

Igniting intrinsic motivation for learning

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Igniting

Humans can perform the most amazing feats. Build constructions that rival mountains, send people to the moon and create a way to connect people all over the world in an instant. Individuals have made gravity seam optional, composed music and created art that can move you beyond words and worked their gifts into levels of mastery. What is it that makes one human dedicate her life to mastering the world and another to fade quietly into history?

Spark the light of intrinsic motivation

I believe the motivation must come from the inside for someone to be able to reach mastery in any endeavor. I believe the foundations for intrinsic motivation is a growth mindset combined with the ability to break goals down into specific skills needed to achieve those goals.

So how do you motivate a child into intrinsic motivation? The idea sounds a contradiction in terms, right? There is off course many ways, one is to live these concepts yourself. How often do you define a new skill set or a knowledge gap you need to close and actively go after acquiring them?

Treasure chest

Another way is to tell a story. Stories have a way of seeping into your subconscious without you even noticing it and children are especially susceptible to it.

Maybe you could sit down with your child and tell her/him the story of the treasure chest that you can find on MotherOfLions webpage. It’s written to spark imagination as well as inspire a drive for learning.

Your children want to please you

Humans have an inherent will to please those that are part of their tribe, family. It’s been a good strategy for survival to keep those around you happy with your presence. Children are especially susceptible to the opinion of their parents who they spend so much of their defining years closest to. So, kids are inclined to go to great length to please their parents.

That means that you can actually influence them very far when it comes to achieving goals. The possibility to earn your praise can give them enormous motivation. I bet you’ve seen people work their butts off trying to please this or that parent. High achievers that credit their parents’ tough love approach for giving the motivation needed for those long hours of hard work.

But I believe that nothing beats the kind of motivation that comes from the inside. The kind that is personal but based on a positive and pleasurable need and desire. When you really want something, for your own sake, you get an additional pull that will get you through even the toughest or most boring challenges that comes with going after important goals.

Progress is a key to motivation

Knowing that you’re “on your way towards something you want”, that you’re making progress, will often give you a really good feeling. You might have just started learning a new skill, still be at a true beginner level. You might even know how many grueling hours of practice you have in front of you now that you’ve gotten started and realized all the nuances needed. But having started and being aware of making progress gives you energy and power to continue.

Can you help your child define what skills she/he needs to learn to be able to do something she/he really wants to do? What does your child enjoy doing? Maybe drawing, writing, hanging out with friends, riding the bike, singing, skiing? Whatever it is, skills are a huge part of enjoying it fully. Mastery brings joy and confidence and also creates passion.

When you’ve identified a skill it’s time to break it down into learnable/practice’able pieces. There are elements to everything. My father has taught my daughters how to ice skate. He is a skilled skater himself but also a very good teacher. He is consciously aware of his knowledge and can translate it into itty bitty pieces of skills that are learnable. Getting the skates on, learning to stand up, learning to fall without hurting yourself to much, bending the knees, turning the feet just right when taking off… the list of details goes on and on.

Life is a game and it’s time to level up

If you can teach them the value of acquiring skills and help them break their personal dreams down into bite sized pieces they are well on their way to develop intrinsic motivation. Start with something relatively easy so they quickly realize it’s true that they have the ability to gain skills that are useful. Once you understand that everything you want is on the other side of figuring out what skills you need and going out to get it, life becomes a fun game 😊

Remember to role model this behavior for them as often as possible. If you haven’t learnt anything new lately maybe it’s time to rediscover the joy of challenging your body and brain. It’s scary sometimes but oh so worth it!

BeBrave

How often do you let your inner child lead towards playfulness?

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Playfulness

What would change your feelings towards playfulness when you’re faced with a negative situation? What could you add or subtract to make an experience that you earlier thought of as an energy drain into something at least neutral or maybe even fun? When was the last time you stopped and listened to that inner child begging you to play?

Photo of the inner children

I saw the photo credited to Gerome Viavant , taken at Burning man, a couple of years ago. To me this constellation is truly inspiring and thought provoking. It’s a beautiful piece of art showing us our inner children. I realized many years ago that I have, indeed, a young girl inside of me. She’s about the age of five – you can reason with her but she’s kinda easily frightened. My girl usually needs me to reassure her and make her feel safe – she’s the voice of my girlish fears.

I’ve had occasions where I’ve had to take her by the hand and tell her it’ll be ok. Inside my mind I’ve literally said the words “baby, I know you’re afraid right now, but it’s going to be okay. We need to do this even if it’s scary”.

I’ve also had the distinct feeling that it’s that little girl who keeps me sulking long after I, as an adult, think it’s reasonable. When I’ve been in an argument with someone I care about and my conscious mind really only wants to get back on track with that person there she is, that pouting little girl, stopping me. An art constellation describing that voice would be more accurate with the inner children turned away in resentment and hurt.

The real photo, I believe, describes another voice. The one that doesn’t take things so seriously. More like that of Anna in Frozen – “Do you want to build a snowman? Come on, let’s go and play!”.

Can playfulness be a choice?

What would happen if you added a little, or a lot, more play to your life?

What addition would make your everyday chores more enjoyable? And what about exercise? Or spending dinner with your family? How could you bring laughter into dinner time in a way that’d leave you gasping for breath because you’d be laughing so hard? Would your teenagers look forward to family dinner time more if that was the setting?

I love using music to brighten my mood. Music and candles 🙂 Almost every family meal is accompanied by lit candles. The music we listen to differs a little depending on what time of day it is. Calm in the mornings, upbeat during the weekends and evenings. Sometimes we sing along and goof around or start dancing in the kitchen. Oh, yeah, we also spend some meals in silence because we’re just irritated or too tired to talk – we Are a pretty normal family 🙂

My point is this. Why would you want to do something one way when there’s possibly other ways to do the same thing that include laughter and fun? What does your inner child say? What are some things you loved doing as a child that would surprise your children or even your spouse if you did today?

Can cleaning your room be fun?

When my daughter Emelie was younger she had a really cool way of tidying her room. She’s always had a vivid imagination and she never minded spending time on her own. When the time came to tidy her room she made it into a game. I’d hear play going on in her room and sometimes go to remind her to get started. But she’d be in full tidying mode already half done – she’d “invented a game to make it more fun” 🙂

Her Pet shop pets were involved. She’d separate them into three different teams and then start a competition for them. The team that got their tidying done first would be the winner. Then she’d go through team after team and let each team progress in their area. The dogs would start with the table that was filled with pens, glue, paper and other traces of creativity. When they’d gotten a long way she’d switch to the cats team and get them working on getting all the laundry into the laundry basket. When almost all clothes were gone she’d move on to the third group (horses?, birds?.. don’t know..) and get them busy with tidying everything off of the floor. Then back to the first group and on and on until all groups were almost done – the exciting finale; which team would stand as the winning one?

It took her something like three times as long to tidy up but she’d have a great time doing it and it got done. A win-win for everyone 🙂

Would you like to share your ideas for making family life fun and enjoyable on a weekday basis? Please leave a comment and share! 🙂

BeBrave

Who’s responsible for kids learning skills and acquiring new knowledge?

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Learning

The right to learning and education is described in the Children’s Rights Convention: “28. You have the right to an education. You must be able to attend primary school, and it should be free.”
I believe most of us can agree that having knowledge and skills is important. But how do we best acquire them and why doesn’t all kids have a burning passion for learning?

Whose job is it to teach our kids what they need to know?

Highly political question. Every pre-election period we hear our politicians promise this and argue that in regards to the school system. “We should give grades from an earlier age to ensure that we track the progress of learning”, “We must give more resources to schools to facilitate classes with fewer students per teacher”, “We should prohibit the use of mobile phones in school so that the students can focus more”.

In Sweden the debate goes warm about where the responsibility for our children’s learning lies; is it the teacher’s job or is it the parents’? It’s not an easy question. How much responsibility can be put on a teacher to provide an interesting, educational, thought provoking curriculum while trying desperately to get 24 kids to sit at their desks, keep the noise level down so you can be heard and stop playing with their phones looking for Pokémons?

There are so many responsible parents thinking it’s their responsibility. They believe they should’ve raised a well behaved kid meaning a kid that can sit still, listen to the teacher and do all the homework correct and on time. A traditional A-grade student.

I believe it is indeed our teacher’s responsibility to provide challenging and tricky problems for our kids to learn from. I think school should nurture curiosity and a will to explore. The school culture as well as the passion and drive of the individual teacher is so important.

I also share the belief that it’s my job to raise my children in a way so that they show respect and can interact with other people.

When it comes to the actual learning though, I believe, that the ultimate responsibility must be on the child herself.

Can you put that responsibility on a child?

I’m not saying that we as parents should just lean back and heap the responsibility completely over on our little cubs. “Go on, I’ve taught you to behave, now go learn everything your teacher tells you!” lovingly adding; “I’ll be so proud of you when you get your straight A’s”. No. Putting pressure on acquiring knowledge, I believe, will not serve my kids very well.

You know that saying; “You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink”? Nowadays there are thankfully many who talk about shifting focus to figuring out why the horse isn’t drinking in the first place. The saying has slowly evolved into “how can I make it thirsty instead of leading it around?”.

When I suggest that it should be the responsibility of the child to learn new things I don’t mean that we should commit less to their education. I just think we would do more good if we focus on getting them intrinsically motivated. If we can get our kids thirsty for knowledge and skills they will make sure to get it themselves. If we show them the real life effects of having knowledge and skills; the freedom it provides and the possibilities that opens up they will be inspired and motivated, I believe, to go out and get it.

Foundations for intrinsic motivation

So what are the basics for getting thirsty? Well, I’d be amiss if at first I didn’t at least mention the importance of nurturing a growth mindset in this context. Carol Dweck’s work regarding mindset details how foundational a growth mindset is to be able to maintain grit and persistence.

With a growth mindset as a strong base it then comes down to understanding what knowledge and skills are good for. Why is it important to learn new things? Do you know your answer? How would your kids answer that question today?

I believe learning is what makes it possible for me to reach my goals. Knowledge and skills makes it possible for me to succeed at whatever it is I want to be doing. Every goal, no matter how big or small, can be broken down to what I need to learn. It’s sometimes not easy to figure out what the individual pieces, of knowledge and/or skills, are for a specific goal. But even that is something that can be learnt. The skill of breaking down goals into small steps. The ability to take action is also a skill than you can learn.

So the basic foundation for learning, after a growth mindset, is to dream and to stay curious.

If you believe you can reach a goal you are more likely to do the work

As a grown up, with a slowly evolving growth mindset, I’m currently working on the skill to dream. Yeah, that’s right, it sounds completely insane but I stopped using that skill, which we all have at birth, and so it’s a bit rusty. Connecting the belief that I can learn anything I want, given enough time, to my dreams creates a whole new level of drive.

I believe that the formula for reaching goals look something like this:

Dream

Dream + Game plan + Knowledge/skills + Action = Reaching your goals

What are some things your kids would love to be able to do? Can you help her/him to break that goal down into bite sized action items?

Does she want to learn to play the piano to be able to hold a concert? Maybe you can break it down to learning the first three notes and play a song for your family gathering in a couple of weeks?

Does he want to learn to speak Spanish? Maybe you can learn a couple of phrases so that the next time you’re in a Spanish restaurant he can order the food?

Help them track their progress, remind them what level they were at just a couple of weeks or days ago. Bring their attention to the fact that it’s the learning that are making them progress.

BeBrave

The art of dreaming BIG, promising LITTLE and taking small steps

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start small

Taking small steps has not been part of my go to solutions for progress. Taking massive action á la no pain no gain has been more my tune. But like the snowball that starts small and grows into an unstoppable force I’ve started to suspect that there is truth, for me, in starting slowly and building my confidence.

“You should dream BIG!”

Yes. You really should dream big. Dreaming and visualizing a future that inspires you and those around you is essential for knowing where  to go. And you should talk about it. Talking and writing your dreams creates a special kind of magnetism that will pull you in.

When you talk to others about your dreams you also tap into a human drive; Social pressure. The human brain wants you to stay consistent with what you say so telling people about your plans will create healthy pressure.

There are two possible traps to be aware of when dreaming BIG.

The first is the risk of fooling your brain out of taking actual action. Since the brain doesn’t know the difference between that you think and what you’re actually experiencing it might get the idea that you’re already making progress. It will reward you with the chemicals of progress and you might very well settle in that happy feeling and “forget” to do what is needed.

The other possible risk of dreaming BIG, and telling people about it, is the risk of failing on your big promises. Look into the post about truth and keeping promises to get more background;

”The essential thing to understand is that when you talk to others, or think something to yourself, your subconscious is listening. If you say something and then don’t act accordingly your subconscious will get confused; “We said something but we didn’t take action on it. We better protect ourselves from feeling stupid/confused or like we failed. Let’s make that thing we talked about into something “not important”. We would never NOT do something that’s important so let’s make sure we don’t waste time on that unimportant thing! Ever!””

Dream BIG and promise LITTLE

Continue to dream BIG and talk about the dreams but maybe without a deadline? Promise LITTLE to yourself and even less to others. In fact – if you’re just starting to build credibility with yourself then start extremely small.

If you want to cut back on sugar for health reasons then don’t start with promising yourself to never eat it again. Start with maybe drinking one less soda per day?

If you want to start spending more quality time with your children don’t set the bar at spending two hours of deep and meaningful conversation seven nights a week. One; your kids will hate it 😉 Two; Maybe promise yourself that one night a week I’m going to set a reminder on my phone and when it rings I will go into my daughters room, sit down and say “I just wanted to be near you for a little while – is it ok if I sit here a couple of minutes?”.

Maybe you want to start exercising. Promise yourself to go on one 20 minute-walk this coming week instead of jumping into a stressful new routine that you’re not ready for neither mentally nor physically.

Building trust is the most important step

Making such small commitments might seem totally useless and idiotic. “How will taking one 20 minute walk bring me closer to my goals??” Believe me I know that doubt very well. I know the frustration that can kick you into action as well as the eagerness when you think you might be onto some new solution. I can get myself all A-type worked up and keep going HARD towards my BIG goals for a reasonably long time. But the BIG promises and vision always fails me when they are my main focus. I lose my initial momentum at some point and immediately my self-doubt kicks in and tells me “I’m no good” and that “see you’re not going to make it – again!”.

The trick is to build your trust in yourself in a pace that’s sustainable so that you don’t give that inner critic/fear ammunition when you’re weak. If you start small and keep hitting your goals then you will start to feel proud and slowly you’ll start trusting that when you say you’re going to do something then you do it.

Power of rewarding chemicals

Apart from building trust with yourself there is another theory that makes small steps so powerful. It has to do with chemicals. The brain loves “doing the right thing” – every time you do something you truly believe is good you give your brain the go-signal to release the hormone cascade that feels so good. You flood the system with dopamine and you think “wow, this feels good!”. You have that feeling of pride and happiness – you’re rewarded. This all happens subconsciously but that doesn’t stop it from impacting you both in the moment and in the future.

You will be automatically drawn towards the things that brought you pleasure. And it doesn’t matter how BIG or small the actions is. The only thing that matters is that you believe/decide that it is important. So though it might sound silly at first it’s all really just a smart management of your body’s normal functionality. How do you make a small step feel important if it doesn’t? Well, this is where complete trust in the aforementioned theory comes in handy. Do your own research if you’re not willing to take my word for it, which might be a healthy mindset since I’m no doctor with a degree 😉

When you look for the truth behind your reward system you’ll find all the evidence you need to start believing that steps, no matter how small, are the starting point for action and you’ll be on your way 😀

Triggers and momentum

Yet another way for optimizing how the human brain works is to use the power of triggers and routines. There is power in connecting one action to another. E.g. take your medicine when you’ve brushed your teeth or repack your gym bag immediately after hanging the wet ones up to dry when you come home. If you connect actions to each other and then focus on getting the small first action done then chances are that you’ll continue with the next actions as well.

Making small steps part of your life

Would you like to try using the power of small steps? What if it actually works? What if, at the end of this experiment, you have a bit more trust in yourself and you’ve started a few new habits?

For this exercise I will assume that you know an area or two that you want to change. Even if you’re maybe not completely crystal clear on what you want as the end goal I’m sure that there are some general directions you’d like to go in.

  1. For one or two areas, that you want to change/improve, pick one small action that you can take on a weekly basis. The actions should take no more than 15 minutes to do, ideally 5-10 minutes, and it should be something that leads in the direction you want to go.
  2. Make this a serious effort and research if you must to ensure that you truly believe that small steps give these valuable results.
  3. Make a plan! Take out your calendar and phone and schedule/set alarms for performing these small steps for the coming 6 weeks. You will have 6-12 (depending on if you picked one or two areas) dates and times for actions that should take no more than 5-15 minutes each.
  4. Notice if it’s working. Set another alarm for each of the days you’ve scheduled. Set it to the evening and when it goes off just take a quick note of how you’re doing and what the effects of doing your actions, small as they are, are on your mood.

Note; In my experience setting a small-step-goal to something that I can do in the morning has had the best effect. When I win the morning I tend to want to keep taking home other small victories throughout the day.

BeBrave

People aren’t bad they make bad decisions

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Isolation

“He is a bad person, I hate him!” My girls have both been through situations and met people that have made them angry and upset. So have I. Off course! There have been people in my life that I would prefer not spending time with. But unless you plan to hide yourself, on the metaphorical one-man-island of “internal travels” and isolate yourself from the rest of the world, you will have to relate to other human beings.

And humans are messy and we’re all a work in progress. We’re stumbling along trying to survive, feel good and make some sense of our time here on earth. Sometimes we crash into people. Sometimes with enough force as to send that person right into a fall that lands on a third innocent bystander. A woman at work snapped at me, because she’s not slept for days worrying about her terminally ill mother. I fell into an obsessive negative thought pattern wondering if I’d done something wrong. Coming home I brought that energy into our family evening. I was being distracted and absentminded and I argued with my girls for leaving the back packs on the floor.

One of the most important decisions a person can make in life is what to believe about the universe. Is it benign or evil at its core? I choose to believe that people act as good as they can under the current circumstances. When we know better we do better. I choose to believe this because it makes me stronger. It also makes it easier to manage whatever happens in my life.

I don’t feel that you’re on my side!

My drive for understanding why people do what they do has sometimes led to misunderstandings with my daughter. When she’s told me about this or that situation in school and about how someone was being bad I’ve tried to understand that other person’s situation.

When I questioned the situation; “How do you think was he feeling when he said that bad thing to you?” or “how are things for him at home?” my daughter felt I pushed back against her description or objected to her right to feel victimized.

She’s said; “You always try to understand how someone must have felt instead of listening to me! You’re taking their side.”
Sometimes, when it’s not about her, she lovingly hugs me for “Trying to see the good in everyone no matter what”.

I try to explain to her why I want to understand why people do what they do. It’s not to be “a good person” or “turning the other cheek”. I do believe that being positive and looking for the positive is a winning strategy for interacting with people but the main reason is more selfish. I want to understand others so that I can stop being impacted by their negative behavior and to be able to influence them towards a more positive behavior. If I understand them then I can more easily adjust my approach so that we get a win-win situation; I get what I want and hopefully that other person get what she/he wants.

While trying to understand motives for seemingly weird actions by others I also learn about myself. I still do things that surprises me, things that I don’t understand why I do. If I can understand what drives someone else then I can evaluate if I also have that same need/driver.

Understanding someone’s motives does not mean you should accept their behavior

Trying to understand why someone does this or that, which impacts you negatively, does NOT mean that you make excuses for that person to continue to treat you badly. You teach people how to treat you by how you let them and you need to be very clear about your limits and your definitions of terms like respect, love and cooperation.

Understanding their motives just frees you up to working out a solution to the negative impact in your life. Take that woman at work that keeps yelling at you, because she’s under extreme pressure at home. If you are told about the dying mother then you will be in a much better place in meeting this woman with compassion. From understanding comes the ability to not take things personally and you are in a much better position mentally to stay supportive and empathic when you don’t feel personally threatened.

A talk from this perspective will have a much higher chance of success. You’ll be more elegant in finding the phrasing to offer warm support while making it clear that you won’t tolerate being yelled at in the future.

If you believe you are a bad person you will not have hope enough to act

It’s important to switch into the idea that people do what they can under the circumstances not only because it helps you to become more mentally immune to the actions of others. Being able to distance yourself from drama and keep your equilibrium becomes easier if you believe that some people simply make bad decisions instead of thinking you’re surrounded by bad people.

Another reason is that when you get used to trying to understand the underlying reasons for someone else’s negative actions you become more likely to try to understand your own motives. Why do YOU sometimes do things that are not helping you progress in life? Is it because you are a bad person? To believe that you are a bad person is to believe something really disempowering. How can you muster the confidence or courage to change if you believe that you are bad no matter what?

On the other hand, if you are used to meeting negative behavior with an inquisitive mind, you will be more likely to look for and find reasons and motives that you can actually impact and change.

When you are faced with negativity

Unless you plan on escaping to a remote isolated island to fend for yourself you will come across people that impact you. If that impact feels negative then maybe these steps can help:

  1. Decide that the behavior impacting you is coming from someone who for some reason can’t do better at the moment
  2. Try to figure out what that person have been or are going through that can explain why they act the way they do
  3. Remind yourself of a time when you weren’t communicating in the best way. This will increase your level of empathy further
  4. Become really clear, to yourself, of what changes you need in behavior from this person. What you can live with/tolerate and what you really need to find a different solution to
  5. Communicate with empathy and compassion for the both of you.

BeBrave

How do you go to the store without buying candy?

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Sugar Candy

Can’t there be a ban on candy in our stores? I know.. “Adult people making decisions on their own. What kind of communistic society would we have if the people in charge started dictating what we can or can’t eat” This blog is not an attempt at changing legislation nor is my aim to guilt trip all us consumers going against our better judgement and buying sugar filled products now and then.

I just wanted to vent my frustration over having to deal with the sugar issue so often. Commercials and the availability of candy makes my parenting life a bit more challenging than I’d like it to be. Maybe some of our strategies for fighting the sugar addiction will work for you, maybe you’ve got some tricks for us?

Taking my hungry children, or a hungry me, to the store = bad idea

A number of years ago the following scenario was a common one. Walking into the supermarket on the way home from work. I’ve picked up my two girls from daycare, they’re about 4 and 6 years old and as we walk in my youngest asks me “Mommy can we have some ice cream today?” I know they’re tired, I know they’re hungry and the easiest answer would be to say yes. Not only would I have an easier time getting home, I would instantly be the hero of the day in my girl’s eyes.

I can’t say at what ratio I’ve managed to stay true to my conviction and resisted the urge to cave into their sugar monsters. To be honest I believe my own sugar monster/cravings has directed my actions more often than theirs.

I’ve tried a number of strategies for minimizing the nagging and resisting buying things I think are bad for us in a long term perspective. The most effective one has been to help them become aware of their feelings and how they are affected by our surroundings.

The desire for sugar could be an evolutionary super power

In terms of an evolutionary viewpoint a lot has happened very quickly in the way we live as humans. Food with a high calorie count based on carbohydrates has never been more accessible than in the last decades.

Some argue that the human DNA, and our triggers to different kinds of food, hasn’t had the time to adapt to the availability of the modern time. If we go back in time our human ancestors were moving with the seasons harvesting the earth for food. Within that background there are clues to our eating triggers in terms of sugar. Eric Edmeades, entrepreneur/speaker/author, has described one of the triggers in a, to me, logical and easily relatable story.

Get more while you can! – Winter’s coming!

“Imagine that you’re a human ancestor about 100 000 years ago. You’re living in accordance to nature and the seasonal harvests of the earth. To be able to survive the dry season, when food is scarce, you need to store energy during times when energy is abundant. The season before a dry season would be equivalent to “autumn” meaning the period when fruit and berries are ripe. When a human ate something with typically high sugar intake it would be a signal to the body that “winter’s coming”. The human DNA would then “help” to prepare in two ways;

  1. Switch the metabolism rate down
  2. Signal to the human to “get as much as you can while you can!”

Imagine finding a fruit tree and eating of that tasty fruit. When you’re full you begin to walk away but all of a sudden you get this enormous urge/desire/need to go get some more.”

I believe this is part of why some people, myself included, have a really tough time to “just eat one” cookie. The body responds by urging you to get more. If I don’t take that first cookie I’m usually fine. I’m not saying this is the single answer to sugar addiction but what if this could be a part of the explanation?

Help your child understand the craving

One way to create awareness in a child is to tell them the story about the “sugar monster”. Pay attention to how the child reacts, some doesn’t like the idea of having a “monster” inside. If you know that your child is sensitive or if you notice that the story is a little upsetting then just adjust into maybe a… “sugar rascal” 🙂

The Sugar monster

Sugar monster

“Inside of you there is a little monster that loves to eat sugary things. It’s like a little sleeping creature that wakes up and feeds when it’s given candy, cake and fuzzy drinks. If there is just a little sugar the monster won’t get enough to fully wake up. But if you give it too much then the monster will wake up completely and start making demands! The more you feed it the larger and louder and more rude the monster gets. However if you refuse to give the monster any sugary food for a day or so it will shrink. Soon you almost won’t hear it at all and then it will snuggle up and just go back to sleep again. Sugar monsters really like to sleep and be rocked by you when you walk and run around playing. “

The story enable you to talk about sugar in a new way. Now you can relate to it when you want to keep the sugar levels down.

Tips for making it through the story without a fight

The sugar monster story has helped my girls to relate to their cravings in a way that empower them. On the way to the store I can ask them about the status of their sugar monsters – “Are they asleep or awake and behaving up?” This way we can manage the awareness about the “need” before we go in.

Here are some other tips I’ve tried.

  • Bring a banana or an apple that they can nibble on while you’re shopping. This will distract their attention as well as keeping the worst hunger in check
  • If you have the possibility then sit down for a couple of minutes before entering the store. Connect to your child and talk for a little while. Tell her/him that you’re about to go shopping and that this time you won’t buy anything sugary. Ask her/him not to nag you about it.
  • Explain about store marketing plans for candy/sugars
    This is a great way to create awareness and the ability as well as desire to resist. Ask them if they know why there is always so much candy close to the checkout line. Explain that it’s well thought out and done on purpose. The checkout line is where all parents have to go and stand close to so that’s where the children will be able to see and want candy.
  • Get them involved in the grocery shopping by asking them to find things from the shopping list.

If you have ideas or strategies that have worked for you I’d love to hear from you in the comments.

BeBrave

When the risk of “falling” keep you from living full out!

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Falling

Do you or your child avoid trying new things because of the risk of falling and potentially looking stupid? There are some people that don’t even hesitate when they’re presented with a new challenge. There are actually people, adults and children, that actively seek the opportunity to participate in new situations!

I realize that my surprise at that tells you something about my mindset 😉

Fear of what others might think

When I was young I was that girl standing at the side of whatever was going on. I was watching, learning the ground rules and making sure I knew what was expected from me before even considering joining in. This behavior of course came from the fear of looking stupid. It’s a fear that I’ve struggled with growing up.

As an adult I came to realize how limiting and quite frankly BORING that mindset was. I was missing out on so much fun! When my friends went on ski-trips I didn’t wanna go. I didn’t join in with the beach-volley teams at the beach in the summers even though I actually had played volleyball in a team for two years in my late teens. I didn’t sign up for challenging physical races, no races actually. (Still don’t. But I’m working myself towards it 🙂 )

I decided to kick this mental habit out! It’s a work in progress.

You can help you child stay out of the fear mindset

If you want to help your child to stay out of the trap of holding herself back from new experiences there are many things you can try. It is of course, as usual, easiest if you walk your talk. If your child see you put yourself in new situations and see how you handle falling, failing and getting back up. See you laugh while learning. See you not giving up. Then your child will act the same.

Playhouse

Playhouse

I want my girls to play and have fun and not to be hindered by their bodies. Especially as girls I believe they need the extra encouragement to challenge themselves. Society will try to box them into a good girl behavior sooner or later and I want to prepare them so they resist.

Since they were babies we’ve been very physical in our play with them. Their father and I used to throw them between ourselves, very safely of course (!!!). We let them jump and climb all over our bed and living-room sofa (be very clear that that is not something they can do at other people’s houses). We built a little playhouse in their playroom up by the ceiling that they needed a rope-ladder to reach.

“How many times are you going to fall today?”

When the time came for Linnea and Emelie to try new things, like skating, skiing, skateboarding, climbing trees or just balancing, I used to smile and ask “So how many times are you going to fall today??”. If you don’t fall, you’re playing it safe and you’re missing out on the fun and the learning. It is at the limit of your ability that you grow the most. The question has given us many fun memories; when my youngest was learning to ski I actually heard her counting every time she fell and after about half an hour(!) of insistent practicing she beamed at me and stated “Mommy, I’ve fallen 34 times!!”

Use your words to help your child stay open

Read these sentences and see if you can feel the difference. There are ways of thinking that will encourage grit, practice, an open mind and curiosity. Maybe some of these tools, in terms of perspective, will be useful in your family.

Hey darling, you’re really good at skiing now! => Wow, darling, I see you’ve really put effort and time into practicing.

I’m really good at this! => It feels like I’m really on the right track!

I give up, this is too hard! => What other strategies are there that I haven’t tried yet?

This is easy! => I need more challenge!

Lisa skates so well, I’ll never be that good! => I’m going to figure out how Lisa does it so I can learn from her.

Use your body and your mind to become all you can be

Don’t let the fear of falling and looking stupid stop you from living your life in a physical way. Your body and mind are connected and developing the one will impact the other. Don’t miss out on the opportunity to build a strong mind through the shortcut of your body. Challenge yourself.

And hey, maybe the most important message when talking about this; have FUN! To participate in life in a physical, active way is fun! You will laugh and be energized and restored.

BeBrave

Tell the truth and keep your promises

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Truth

My theory about raising children include the importance of giving them tools that will help them lead fulfilling and independent lives. I also believe that the more empowering programming you can implement in your children early on the less time they will need to spend on re-scripting later in life. Although it usually is way more impactful to live my theories, than it is to try to raise my daughters into a behavior by talking about it, sometimes I believe it can be valuable to start implementing strategies and theories even if you don’t feel that you’re mastering it yourself just yet.

Your inner voice

For children and adults alike it is valuable to become aware of the beliefs  and often subconscious meaning that we color our lives with and that effect our actions. One way to help someone bring the internal dialogue into the light is to put a name on the “person” that does the talking inside your head. I’ve touched on this theory in terms of becoming friends with your fear.

Everyone has an inner voice that whispers the truths of the heart. To be able to hear this voice and then to grow the courage to follow it is paramount to live a life with integrity. For myself I’ve been practicing for years to hear that voice and to be brave enough to listen and to act accordingly. I’ve come to believe that this practice will be an integral part of my life that will never be “done” but more like a way of living. Even if I can’t say that I follow my truest desires or even always know what they are, yet, I still feel that it’s an idea worth introducing to my girls.

I’ve discovered two areas that are powerful in terms of discovering that you have an inner voice. The theories of these areas are simple so you can start with these even if you as a parent is not walking your talk just yet.

Telling the truth

The first area is telling the truth. You can measure the level of how you live your truth by how you feel about yourself when you’re alone. If you feel like you have nothing to hide, that the people closest to you know everything about you and still loves you, you can sleep without worry. Look for the non-egotistical version of pride and imagine how amazing it feels when you know you’re living according to your truest values.

Give the gift of living a life in truth to your children by staging situations where they will experience how good it can feel to tell the truth. Help them identify with someone who tells the truth and minimize the risk of them keeping things bottled up.

If you start when they’re small you can practice with relatively easy things and build trust and an open channel of communication. In the future you want your teenagers to tell you when things happen, you want to have a connection that ensures that they come to you with questions or situations they need to reason through with a trusted adult. If you have a shared history where it is safe to tell the truth to each other then it is far more likely that your child will continue to let you in as he/she grows older.

Keeping your promises

The other area is keeping your promises. Akin to telling the truth, the idea of keeping your promises is something that will greatly impact how you feel about yourself. There are two different kinds of promises you make, the ones you make to yourself and the ones you give to others.

The essential thing is that when you talk to others, or think something to yourself, your subconscious is listening. If you say something and then don’t act accordingly your subconscious will get confused; “We said something but we didn’t take action on it. We better protect ourselves from feeling stupid/confused or like we failed. Let’s make that thing we talked about into something “not important”. We would never NOT do something that’s important so let’s make sure we don’t waste time on that unimportant thing! Ever!” Your subconscious will definitely not assist you towards positive action, it might actually work against your higher goals.

These internal conflicts might not even be known to your conscious self. But having them will give you a physical reaction that will keep getting more intense for as long as you don’t adjust your course. If you have stomach-issues, difficulty to sleep, have tension in your body you might want to look inwards and see if your inner voice is telling you to do something that you’re not following through on or if you’re actually voicing something out loud to people that you’re not acting on.

Help your children to create an identity for themselves of someone who says what they mean and do what they say. By doing this you will have given them a behavior pattern that will help them lead a life based on their inner truths and to become someone that others know they can trust.

If you’re going on this journey as an adult

Treat yourself with extraordinary care during this process. If you’re not used to stopping and listening inwards it might be somewhat surprising and scary. Be gentle, be loving and be patient. That internal voice is yours and it will never say anything to hurt you. In fact, that voice, just like the voice of fear, is trying to get your attention so that you can live a fulfilling life.

Maybe you need to step back and look at the promises you give. Maybe it’s time to lower your ambition. I know that sounds insane! But it is MUCH more detrimental to your wellbeing and your progress to give high promises that you don’t follow through on.

While working on yourself you can still introduce these thoughts to your children.

Practicing with my daughters

I’ve been focusing on truth and honesty with my girls from an early age. There are so many opportunities to practice these skills during a day. Focus on the small truths and on the miniscule promises that are being stated and kept and shine your spotlight upon them so they become clear.

My youngest was once asked during dinner to put her plate into the dishwasher after she was done which she agreed to do. She was about 4 years old at the time. When she was done, about 2 minutes later (small kids have short concentration spans so help them by asking very close to the actual event), she put her plate in and I hugged her and told her how much I like that she’s the kind of girl that keeps her promises.

Another time one of my daughters told me about a situation where she lost her temper at a boy in her school. He accidentally broke her key chain and she snapped really harshly at him. She told me how she actually heard that inner voice tell her that she’d been too hard on him. He didn’t know how important that key chain was to her and she knew it wasn’t his intention to brake it. Her voice had made her go to him and apologize “almost against her will”. When she told me this story I hugged her fiercely and told her how proud I am of her, that she listened to her voice even when it didn’t feel so good in the moment.

Would it make a difference in your family?

What positive results do you think could happen in your family if your children were encouraged to listen to their inner voice and to make and keep promises? Would it be helpful to get some more inspiration and ideas on how to think and act as a parent to start to implement?

Actionable

  1. There are many situations during a normal family day that will come with the opportunity to practice. Head over to the Lifehacks page at MotherOfLions to get some ideas on how to implement and begin this journey.
  2. Practice often and please remember that it is SO VERY important to always give your children praise for telling the truth when they do. Start when they are small and the consequences are relatively small. Trust that you have instilled values in them so that they already know what the right thing is. When they come to confess is NOT the time to lecture!
    There will be times when you need to bite your tongue to keep from getting upset. There will never be a better time to prove the love and trust that you feel for your child. This is the time where you focus on expressing how grateful and proud you are that they told the truth. The harder the situation the greater the reward for keeping that focus on your connection.

BeBrave

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