New Year's Resolutions' time again

As we await the coming of a new year I found this article about resolutions and thought it was worth sharing.

5 tips to being healthy, wealthy and loving in 2012

By Brenda Rawlings, FuseworksDecember 31, 2011, 3:12 pm

 

 

As people commit to New Year's resolutions to eat less, spend less, exercise more, what about a resolution that could change your life, give you better health and happiness? This resolution could be the best gift you ever give your children and is reported to be the best savings or retirements plan ever invented. It might even result in great sex!

No it's not a drug! It's not a diet or exercise plan. It doesn't involve large sums of money but it does require you to put in a little bit of practice every day, as you might at the gym. But the results could well change your life and those around you for the better.

In 2012, make your relationship with your partner your number one priority. Two easy keys are to really listen to them and two, make sure that every day you tell them something you appreciate about them and what it adds to your life. This exercise could take as little as 10 minutes a day but the results could transform the way you talk to each other.

Many people find their relationship with their long term partner a source of stress and anxiety. We get locked into unhealthy negative patterns where we see the person that we live with as the problem. Deep down, we want to be close to them, to have their eyes light up in delight when we enter a room. But instead we find ourselves nagging and criticising, or closing up and withdrawing.

Make a New Year Resolution to improve your relationship with these 5 tips. (and remember you can do it on your own, without your partner, and it will still make a difference!)

 

 

1. Listen to your partner when they talk about what is happening for them. Really listen to them in a way that shows them you care for them and are curious about who they are. Instead of waiting to reply or interrupt, listen, make it about them. When one person gets angry or withdraws often it is how they manage their anxiety when they feel alone or as though they can't do anything right. So talk to your partner about your fears and hurts. When you talk, make it about you, not them. When you listen, make it about them, not you.

2. Use willpower. You might feel you are playing a game with one person always shouting and the other withdrawing or clamming up. It only takes one of you to do something different to change the negative pattern. Catch yourself when you start to want to nag and criticise, take a deep breath and pause. Look for something to appreciate and say it! If you are the one who withdraws, gather up your courage and say something, tell your partner what's going on for you. Practice every day saying something you appreciate about your partner and what they add to your life.

3. Change your thinking. We often think that it is our partner who is the problem in our relationship. If they would change, then everything would be okay. The reality is we usually choose people that we are not entirely compatible with to be in a relationship with. We need to learn how to love and appreciate each other's qualities and differences, not make them like us. This is a critical part of a mature relationship. After you have moved from romantic love it's quite normal to move to conflict and difficulty. Practice these steps and you could move back to a more happy state.

4. Don't give up. All relationships require work, just like a healthy body or mind. You've lasted this long with each other, look at them with those eyes that first attracted you. Remember to be curious again and eliminate the negativity.

5. Make your relationship your number one New Year's resolution. Plan a fun trip together or decide to spend an hour or two one evening a week, just the two of you. Maybe get a kick start with a few hours of counselling with a specialist relationship counsellor or do a couples workshop together.

Begin the New Year with a smile, a hug and an appreciation of your partner. Look at your partner as someone you want to get to know better, with curiosity and interest, and a deep knowing that they are different to you and that is why you chose them.

 

Practice these tips and 2012 could become a standout year, oh and keep you healthy and wealthy!
www.becominghealthy.co.nz

Schooling?

www.becominghealthy.co.nz

Before I came across the Steiner School near us I had always considered homeschooling.  Being a qualified teacher I had many occasions to see the down side of schools and as a consequence homeschooling became more and more an option for our kids.

The problem for me is weather I personally would be doing our children a service or dis-service!  Even though we love the school we have chosen as it comes as close a possible to how I would educate them I still think of homeschooling.  Here is an interesting piece from good old Wikipedia (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeschooling for whole article).

Numerous studies have found that home schooled students on average outperform their peers on standardized tests.^[23] Homeschooling Achievement, a study conducted by National Home Education Research Institute (NHERI), a homeschooling advocacy group, supported the academic integrity of homeschooling. Among the home schooled students who took the tests, the average home schooled student outperformed his public school peers by 30 to 37 percentile points across all subjects. The study also indicates that public school performance gaps between minorities and genders were virtually non-existent among the home schooled students who took the tests.^[24]

In the 1970s Raymond S. and Dorothy N. Moore conducted four federally funded analyses of more than 8,000 early childhood studies, from which they published their original findings in Better Late Than Early, 1975. This was followed by School Can Wait, a repackaging of these same findings designed specifically for educational professionals.^[25] Their analysis concluded that, "where possible, children should be withheld from formal schooling until at least ages eight to ten."

Their reason was that children, "are not mature enough for formal school programs until their senses, coordination, neurological development and cognition are ready." They concluded that the outcome of forcing children into formal schooling is a sequence of "1) uncertainty as the child leaves the family nest early for a less secure environment, 2) puzzlement at the new pressures and restrictions of the classroom, 3) frustration because unready learning tools – senses, cognition, brain hemispheres, coordination – cannot handle the regimentation of formal lessons and the pressures they bring, 4) hyperactivity growing out of nerves and jitter, from frustration, 5) failure which quite naturally flows from the four experiences above, and 6) delinquency which is failure's twin and apparently for the same reason."^[26] According to the Moores, "early formal schooling is burning out our children.

Teachers who attempt to cope with these youngsters also are burning out."^[26] Aside from academic performance, they think early formal schooling also destroys "positive sociability", encourages peer dependence, and discourages self worth, optimism, respect for parents, and trust in peers. They believe this situation is particularly acute for boys because of their delay in maturity. The Moores cited a Smithsonian Report on the development of genius, indicating a requirement for "1) much time spent with warm, responsive parents and other adults, 2) very little time spent with peers, and 3) a great deal of free exploration under parental guidance."^[26] Their analysis suggested that children need "more of home and less of formal school" "more free exploration with... parents, and fewer limits of classroom and books," and "more old fashioned chores – children working with parents – and less attention to rivalry sports and amusements."^[26]

John Taylor later found, using the Piers-Harris Children's Self-Concept Scale, "while half of the conventionally schooled children scored at or below the 50th percentile (in self-concept), only 10.3% of the home-schooling children did so."^[27] He further stated that "the self-concept of home-schooling children is significantly higher (and very much so statistically) than that of children attending the conventional school. This has implications in the areas of academic achievement and socialization, to mention only two. These areas have been found to parallel self-concept. Regarding socialization, Taylor's results would mean that very few home-schooling children are socially deprived. He states that critics who speak out against homeschooling on the basis of social deprivation are actually addressing an area which favors homeschoolers.^[27]

In 2003, the National Home Education Research Institute conducted a survey of 7,300 U.S. adults who had been home schooled (5,000 for more than seven years). Their findings included:

• Home school graduates are active and involved in their communities. 71% participate in an ongoing community service activity, like coaching a sports team, volunteering at a school, or working with a church or neighborhood association, compared with 37% of U.S. adults of similar ages from a traditional education background.

• Home school graduates are more involved in civic affairs and vote in much higher percentages than their peers. 76% of those surveyed between the ages of 18 and 24 voted within the last five years, compared with only 29% of the corresponding U.S. populace. The numbers are even greater in older age groups, with voting levels not falling below 95%, compared with a high of 53% for the corresponding U.S. populace.

• 58.9% report that they are "very happy" with life, compared with 27.6% for the general U.S. population. 73.2% find life "exciting", compared with 47.3%.^[28]

23. HSLDA | Academic Statistics on Homeschooling

24. HSLDA | Homeschooling Achievement

25. Better Late Than Early, Raymond S. Moore, Dorothy N. Moore, Seventh Printing, 1993, addendum

26. Raymond S. Moore, Dorothy Moore. When Education Becomes Abuse: A Different Look at the Mental Health of Children

27. Self-Concept in home-schooling children, John Wesley Taylor V, Ph.D., Andrews University, Berrien Springs, MI

28. HSLDA | Homeschooling Grows Up

Entwined already

We arrived at our first Steiner playgroup not knowing anything about the philosophy and not knowing that it would be the first step towards an ever increasing relationship. A relationship that has seen us enrolled both our children into kindergarten, me to do relieving teaching, attend staff meetings and now embark on Steiner Teacher training.


As a trained teacher you would think that I would know at least a little about the educationalist and philosopher Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) somehow though it this knowledge had passed me by.


In researching Steiner recently after an enlightening discussion with a friend, I came across a sceptic’s website, which was surprising unbiased (maybe just my bias showing here), that had the following interesting statement “Children should not be burdened with either spirituality or materialism. They should be loved and be taught to love. They should be allowed to grow in an atmosphere of cooperation. They shouldn't be typecast according to an ancient theory of temperaments. We should develop their emotions as well as their intellects. They should be introduced to the best we have to offer in nature, art, and science in such a way that they do not have to connect everything either to their souls or to their future jobs. They may not find this in most public schools but they almost certainly won't find it in a Waldorf school."


It is an interesting statement for me as in many ways it sums up my ideal concept of education and why I have often considered homeschooling.  The reality though is that every system – be it an educational one, a political one or anything in between – will have its faults and its merits.  Obviously some systems are more inherently faulty but for the most part I thing Steiner has got many things ‘right’ or at least the things I consider important ‘right’.  Emotional well being is such an essential ingredient for creating healthy individuals, more important I believe than academic study, who believe in themselves and are able to succeed it life – whatever they define success as – and this is a real strength in Steiner education.  Children are encouraged to be themselves, accepting and respecting themselves along with others who are being themselves.  There are studies that show children’s emotional wellbeing can have physical and mental effects that last long into adulthood and therefore, for me, a system which fosters acceptance and working out differences rather than running away problems has got to worth trying.


It is hard continue to maintain something of merit for a long period of time without having some guidelines to follow however once these guidelines have been set it is sometimes hard not to follow them by the letter and harder still to risk change when problems arise.  The typecasting according to an ancient theory of temperaments, that being choleric, melancholic, sanguine, and phlegmatic is a real possibility as is creating an indoctrinated community rather than an educational environment.  The key is to continue to question. This works in all areas of life in order to have meaning and also a check that we are where we want to be.  Why? Will be one of my foremost thoughts as I continue down this journey, trying to understand why things are taught, encouraged, allowed will hopefully enable me to be conscience of why we are part of the Steiner educational system and community.

Arohanui
Y
www.becominghealthy.co.nz