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Parenting Tip – What is the Secret Word?

May 15th, 2012

Diane

11 Comments »

How often as a parent have you said to your children “Don’t talk to Strangers” or “if someone wants you to go look or see their puppies – then r

un away” ?

The reason I am talking about this is because of two different conversations that I had this morning and there is a point to all of this……

The first conversation was with Sam McFarland on Facebook about abuse and as always conversations have a habit of taking on a life of their own as seen in this screenshot -

“the first day she was allowed to walk back from school alone – and lured her to the car by saying they had a shih tzu puppy….

How do we help and teach our children to be safe in the midst of strangers and how do we get through to them that cute puppies or not …never to go with a stranger?

After doing a lot of reading of what others have said via blog posts and articles, I did find one post that was very good and quite realistic and that was from Ali Goldfield on her blog Therapy Stew. Ali made an important statement “Instead of “don’t talk to strangers,” it is strongly suggested that we teach children how to interact with strangers and how to watch out for dangerous adult behaviors.”

I agree that bubble wrapping our children is not the way keep them safe and I also agree with the different tips that Ali outlined, but I also found one parenting tip that is not being mentioned and that was something that Sam mentioned – “The Secret Word”

Now what is the secret word you ask?

The secret word was something that around 30 or so years ago that I was taught to use to help protect my daughters. What it was ..was a code word that only the children and parents knew. If someone approached a kid for any reason and did not know the code word ( or secret word) that child KNEW never to go with that adult and trust me it worked!

I still remember implementing this idea into my family and we had fun coming up with a word that we all could remember and then making it work for us. I still remember the time when a friend of mine went to pick up my kids from school and they refused to get into the car with her, because she did not know the secret word.

I found this very good video, that you as a parent can use to help teach this important concept to your children or to help you understand the concept yourself to pass on to your children.

Sometimes it is the simple ideas that work and the ones that need to be remembered, lets face it, parenting today is as challenging if not more so as it was when I was a parent of young children…. do you have a secret word?

Social Media – Where is the balance?

May 12th, 2012

Diane

5 Comments »

In the world of social media, we seem to be living two extremes

Social Media Addiction

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and

Anti social media disorder

While both of these videos are very funny, I have wondered many times (if) ~~Social Networking Sites~~ social media is good or bad for us as I go through the extremes of being on line far too much or I get to the point of not wanting to be on line at all.

On ProCon.org I found this question – Are social networking sites good for our society? and I will show you how two people thought about it all-

PRO (yes)

Brendesha M. Tynes, PhD, Assistant Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, stated the following in her Nov. 2007 article titled “Internet Safety Gone Wild?,” published in the Journal of Adolescent Research:

“Online social networking can facilitate identity exploration, provide social cognitive skills such as perspective taking, and fulfill the need for social support, intimacy, and autonomy. Whether constructing their profiles in MySpace, creating a video and posting it on YouTube, or talking in chat rooms, teens are constantly creating, recreating, and honing their identities — a primary goal of adolescent development. This requires constant reflection on who they are, on who they want to become, and on their values, strengths, and weaknesses.

As teens prepare to enter the adult social world, online social environments provide training wheels, allowing young people to practice interaction with others in the safety of their homes.”

CON (no)

Tom Hodgkinson, writer for the Guardian, stated the following in his Jan. 14, 2008 article titled “With Friends Like These…,” published in the Guardian:

“I despise Facebook. This enormously successful American business describes itself as ‘a social utility that connects you with the people around you’. But hang on. Why on God’s earth would I need a computer to connect with the people around me? Why should my relationships be mediated through the imagination of a bunch of supergeeks in California? What was wrong with the pub?

And does Facebook really connect people? Doesn’t it rather disconnect us, since instead of doing something enjoyable such as talking and eating and dancing and drinking with my friends, I am merely sending them little ungrammatical notes and amusing photos in cyberspace, while chained to my desk?…

Clearly, Facebook is another uber-capitalist experiment: can you make money out of friendship? Can you create communities free of national boundaries — and then sell Coca-Cola to them? Facebook is profoundly uncreative. It makes nothing at all. It simply mediates in relationships that were happening anyway.”

Somewhere I feel that we lost our balance when it comes to social media and we need to get ourselves back… but how can we do this when we are pushed to be more active? Take for example Klout, while some people will question the validity of such a service, I can honestly say that for me, when I lose a point or even part of a point in the Klout score, I get a feeling of “guilt”, because as we all know the better the score the better we start feeling about ourselves and what we do. Is this what life is all about and is this what success really means?

Sorry folks, but if that is what success, life and society is all about, it is time for me to get the hell out of dodge!

Balance

Balance…. what a fantastic word, what a glorious word and something that I feel we are losing sight of while we rush around, like rats in a maze, scoring points to engage, to influence, to be more popular and we need to stop for a moment, look around us and see what we are missing and we are missing a lot!

This post is not meant to be a downer , but just a little reminder, that life is for living and that means “scoring points” by being in the real world as much as being on this virtual world, by “ engaging” with those around you as much as you need to do “hangouts” and that being popular is a state of mind – honest!

#Motivational – Let There Be Peace

May 9th, 2012

Diane

No Comments »

“Imagine all the people living life in peace.

You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m no

t t

he only one.

I hope someday you’ll join us, and the world will be as one.”

John Lennon

Trust Issues

May 3rd, 2012

Diane

No Comments »

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/9619972@N08/2125063999″ target=”_blank”> Vulnerable

We’re never so vulnerable than when we trust someone -

but

paradoxically, if we cannot trust, neither can we find love or joy.

~ Walter Anderson

In the last while, I’ve been dealing with a lot of issues that revolve around trust that has had me thinking and pondering. When one realizes that trust is the ultimate value exchange, it becomes an incredible commodity but also can create the most devastating losses. The act of trust is a very emotional act and can be associated with such emotions such as love, comfort, friendship and yet it is a logical act where we predict what other people will do and what situations will occur.

So when did we start losing our trust and when did we become so jaded to believe that trust is just a word with little to no meaning?

Let me explain, the word trust has layers of meaning and while there are those who are “trusting souls” ( trust first then get burned), you are talking to a person who is a bit of a realist ( you have to “earn” my trust) and I have my way of testing.

So what is my test you might ask and is it realistic? I have 4 main criteria that I use when forming trust and I use it in my work and my personal life….

1. Honesty What the heck is honesty anyways? We have governments that say they are honest, we have businesses that use the keyword phrase – trust us we are honest and we have people who say…look at me I am honest..but what is honesty?

To me honesty means being truthful, sincere and forthright in everything we do not just in words but in actions. You would think that being honest would be a simple matter, but it seems that many people have their own definitions to honesty and that is the truth!

2 Did you know that the opposite of the word “Integrity” is hypocritical ( or two-faced)? To me trusting a person/brand means having integrity pure and simple! Far too often I have noticed that people don’t have an understanding of what integrity means and worse just like “honesty” there seems to be a grey area in how we behave or view integrity. I have been exploring a community called the Integrious Project which was founded to inspire & empower people to live with integrity and it was here that I found this example of Examples of Integrity: The Power of Words Video

3. Reliability (that means keeping your word) Oh what a world we live in, saying we will do things, make promises and commitments and then wham…the excuses start happening! I have a favorite expression ( I have a few of them…lol) This one speaks to the issue of being reliable and that is ” without action, words mean nothing” It is easy to say that you will do this or that and maybe the intent is there to carry through. but when you let people down time and time again, then do not expect to be trusted! I have seen kids being hurt because of parents making promises and not keeping them, I have seen businesses fail because of unwise commitments and I have seen relationships fall flat because of “bad faith excuses”. I shake my head at how little people seem to understand that without reliability then traits such as truth and loyalty mean nothing!

4. Loyalty. Is it just me, but has the perception of what the meaning of loyalty changed a bit over the years? At one time you stood by a person, a boss, a government or a brand through thick and thin in some ways wearing rose-colored glasses, always faithful, never questioning and never thinking. Today’s loyalty comes with a clause..I will stay with you because I choose to and not because I have to and I will be loyal to you because it is the right thing to do. To me when you trust a person to be loyal, it does not mean that you put that person in a situation where they have to go against their moral compass or break the law.

None of the above qualities can happen in a day so I will say that the most important criteria for me is the test of time. Trust when earned will last you a long long time and the benefits are beyond compare, so my advise to you is to treat it with care, with respect and with all the attention it deserves.