New Year's Resolutions - revisited

We published this blog entry 6 years ago. It is still as relevant to us as it was then, when our five kids where all younger than 12 years old... time flies!
Happy New Year 2013!
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With only two more days left in the year, we start to think about the things we did, the things we didn't do, the projects we accomplished and all the things we want to do next year.


Every year we guide our kids through a little exercise that my father taught me: we sit down in the living room, put on good music, have a warm drink like hot chocolate and a bring a notebook so we can start writing down this year's accomplishments and our new goals for next year.

Some questions we use to get them started:

Did I do enough sports and exercise? Did I do my best in my team? Am I eating right or am I having to much junk food? Did I stop biting my nails? Have I done good to others? How have I treated my friends, my brothers and sisters, my parents?
How did I do at school? What can I do to improve my grades, my reading level, my math skills? How is my handwriting? Can I do better? Am I learning new languages and music? Am I being challenged?
How did I treat God this year? Have I forgotten Him? Have I read good spiritual books?

It is important to always remind them that good intentions are not always enough to accomplish our goals. The most likely reason that we did not achieve our goals is that we lacked perseverance, lacked motivation or we simply set unrealistic goals.

Usually we like to see results right away and we fail because we want to run a sprint instead of a marathon. Sometimes we don't want to move from the comfort zone we are in now. We need to persevere with strength; the continuous effort on the things we set out to do, is something that will help us be different, to stand out from the crowd. With a little effort every day, we can accomplish our goals.

In order to persevere, we must set realistic goals and be clear about our motivation. Even if the goal seems far away, the fuel that keeps our perseverance going is what drives us in the first place: it can be that somebody is counting on us, or that somebody has put their trust in us. Only we have the ability to produce a change inside of us.

Our next year resolutions must be realistic and very few. They cannot be impossible, they must be attainable, so we build confidence in ourselves first and later, as our confidence and strength grows, we can accomplish more demanding goals. Plan ahead, and keep track of your progress.

Finally, we encourage them again to don't give up, to persevere. We remind them that their parents and brothers and sisters will help them along the way to their goals as best we can.

These year-end meetings are getting better every year and we have made them a tradition, brought forth from my parents' home into ours.

Happy New Year!!!

Merry Christmas to all our subscribers all over the world!

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What can we do?

We believe that we should raise our children teaching them virtues, good values, good habits - preventive and positive education.

When the country seems split about forbidding guns and on its way to legalizing drugs. When marriage between one man and one woman is being attacked as the main building block of our society. When mothers are allowed to kill their unborn babies inside their own uterus; it doesn't mean we have to follow this path. Even when something can be legal, it does not mean it is right.

What can we do so our children will make the right choices and help steer this complicated world in the right direction?  One thing we must do: We can bring up children who can make good use of their freedom, who become compassionate, understanding, responsible adults. More on this later...

Lost Generation - excellent video!

A palindrome reads the same backwards as forward. This 1 minute and 44 second video reads the exact opposite backwards as forward. Not only does it read the opposite, the meaning is the exact opposite...

So simple and yet so brilliant!

Take a minute and watch it with your older kids.

Parenting the Youngest of Many Siblings

I am forty years old and parenting a 6 year old boy - the youngest of five - and even though I have the knowledge and experience of parenting the other four, it is hard to juggle the rules, norms, independence and age while raising a young healthy, fun, beautiful six year old. I get tired more often than before and I have less patience.

Sometimes I find myself doing more for him and demanding too little; my own more complicated schedule gets in the way, so it is faster if I pick-up his dirty clothes, or dry the wet floor in the bathroom, than explaining, teaching, supervising and enforcing. Often I ask myself: how did I do it with my first girl? I was so good at enforcing, supervising, teaching and explaining back then.

If you find yourself in this situation, here are few tips that have helped me: you get organized, you use your experience and involve older brothers and sisters into enforcing and supervising while you do the teaching and explaining. The older siblings are great at it because they don't forget to tell you: "Mom: I remember you would never let me do that and you are letting him get away with it".

We have to set and maintain high standards for all our children. We have to have high expectations and treat them with the confidence that they can do it, just like their siblings did a few years ago!

Open Letter to a Teenager

Open letter to a Teen-ager Always we hear the plaintive cry of the teen-ager. What can we do?...Were can we go? The answer is GO HOME! Hang the storm windows, paint the woodwork. Rake the leaves, mow the lawn, shovel the walk. Wash the car, learn to cook, scrub some floors. Repair the sink, build a boat, get a job. Help the minister, priest, or rabbi, the Red Cross, the Salvation Army. Visit the sick, assist the poor, study your lessons. And then when you are through - and not too tired - read a book. Your parents do not owe you entertainment. Your city or village does not owe you recreational facilities. The world does not owe you a living...You owe the world something. You owe it your time and your energy and your talents so that no one will be at war or in poverty or sick or lonely again. Grow up; quit being a crybaby. Get out of your dream world and develop a backbone, not a wishbone, and start acting like a man or a lady. You're supposed to be mature enough to accept some of the responsibility your parents have carried for years. They have nursed, protected, helped, appealed, begged, excused, tolerated and denied themselves needed comforts so that you could have every benefit. This they have done gladly, for you are their dearest treasure. But now, you have no right to expect them to bow to every whim and fancy just because selfish ego instead of common sense dominates your personality, thinking and request. In Heaven's name, grow up and go home! - Judge Phillip B. Gillian,  South Bend Tribune, Denver Colorado, Sunday, Dec. 6, 1959.

Character

"Character" is the constellation of virtues possessed by a person. "Character education" is the deliberate effort to cultivate virtues.

Several years ago, I was trained and worked for five years as a counselor at my old school (my eldest daughter's new school). Trained by Mr. David Isaacs and the IEEE, we focused on working with the students helping them to develop virtues such as prudence, justice, fortitude, temperance.

I also had the opportunity to help them develop work-related qualities of character: self-discipline; persistence; dependability; diligence; and responsibility, including making the most of one's education.

I also help them confront the most fundamental human questions: 

 -How should I live my life? 

 -What qualities in human beings are admirable and worth emulating? 

 -What goals are worth pursuing? 

 -What leads to fulfillment in life, and what does not?

Our goal as parents should be to help our children be able to answer this fundamental questions, What qualities in human begins are admirable and worth emulating? Our society pushes us to consume, to buy stuff, to try to be like a movie star; and rarely do we think about what are the important virtues that we should have in order to succeed in life: courage, order, discipline, responsibility.