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Gabor Maté’s Approach to Parenting: 5 Tips to Improve your Relationship with Your Child.

Gabor Maté, a renowned physician and author, advocates for a compassionate and understanding approach to parenting that emphasizes connection and empathy. His recommendations prioritize building strong emotional bonds with children, fostering an environment of unconditional love and acceptance. He emphasizes the importance of acknowledging and validating children’s feelings and experiences as a fundamental aspect of nurturing their emotional well-being. This involves actively listening to children, empathizing with their perspectives, and offering support and validation for their emotions, whether positive or negative. By creating an environment where children feel heard and understood, parents can lay the groundwork for healthy emotional expression and self-regulation.

Maté encourages parents to prioritize open and honest communication within the family dynamic. This means fostering a culture of trust and transparency, where children feel comfortable expressing their thoughts, concerns, and questions without fear of judgment or reprisal. By cultivating such an atmosphere, parents can strengthen the parent-child bond and promote healthy social and emotional development.

In terms of discipline, Maté advocates for setting boundaries with empathy rather than resorting to punitive measures. This involves guiding children through challenges and conflicts with patience, understanding, and a focus on teaching rather than punishing. By approaching discipline from a place of empathy and understanding, parents can help children learn from their mistakes, develop self-discipline, and cultivate a sense of responsibility for their actions.

Maté underscores the importance of nurturing a relationship based on mutual respect and trust between parents and children. This entails treating children with dignity and autonomy, valuing their perspectives and contributions, and fostering a sense of partnership and collaboration in the parent-child relationship.

This approach to parenting believes that parents can create a nurturing and supportive family environment that fosters children’s emotional well-being, promotes healthy development, and strengthens the parent-child bond for years to come. Maté suggests:

  • Acknowledging and validating children’s feelings and experiences, rather than dismissing or minimizing them.
  • Communicating openly and honestly, creating a safe space for dialogue and emotional expression.
  • Setting boundaries with empathy, guiding children through challenges with patience and understanding.
  • Nurturing a relationship based on mutual respect and trust.
  • Providing emotional support that lays the foundation for healthy development and resilience in children.
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What are 10 ways you can improve your marks at school

1. Attend all of your classes and arrive on time. This will ensure that you don’t miss any important information or instruction from your teachers.

2. Take detailed notes during class. This will help you retain the information that is presented, and it will also give you something to study from later on.

3. Participate in class discussions and ask questions. This will not only help you understand the material better, but it will also show your teacher that you are engaged and interested in the subject.

4. Make sure to complete all of your homework assignments on time. This will help you practice the material and reinforce what you have learned in class.

5. Create a study schedule and stick to it. This will help you manage your time effectively and ensure that you have enough time to study for all of your classes.

6. Find a quiet, distraction-free place to study. This will help you focus on the task at hand and avoid getting sidetracked.

7. Use study aids such as flashcards, diagrams, and summaries to help you review the material. These tools can be especially helpful when studying for exams.

8. Seek help from your teachers or classmates if you are struggling with a particular concept or topic. It is better to ask for help sooner rather than later, as this can prevent you from falling behind.

9. Stay organized and keep track of important dates and deadlines. This will help you avoid missing any important assignments or tests.

10. Take care of yourself by getting enough sleep, eating well, and staying physically active. This will help you stay focused and energized, which are both essential for success in school.

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What are 15 ways to support a young person dealing with anxiety?

There are many ways to support a young person dealing with anxiety. Here are a few suggestions:

1. Educate yourself about anxiety and its symptoms, so you can understand what the person is going through.
2. Encourage the person to talk about their feelings and listen actively and empathetically.
3. Help the person develop healthy coping mechanisms, such as deep breathing, meditation, or exercise.
4. Create a safe and supportive environment at home, and encourage the person to engage in activities that they find relaxing or enjoyable.
5. Encourage the person to set achievable goals and praise them for their efforts and accomplishments.
6. Help the person identify and challenge negative thoughts or beliefs that may be contributing to their anxiety.
7. Encourage the person to seek professional help if their anxiety is severe or interfering with their daily life.
8. Support the person in sticking to their treatment plan and attending therapy sessions.
9. Help the person maintain a healthy lifestyle, including getting enough sleep, eating well, and avoiding drugs and alcohol.
10. Encourage the person to express their feelings through creative outlets, such as art, music, or writing.
11. Help the person build a network of supportive friends and family members.
12. Encourage the person to take breaks from stressful situations and engage in self-care.
13. Help the person learn relaxation techniques, such as progressive muscle relaxation or visualization.
14. Offer to accompany the person to social events or activities, if they are feeling anxious about being in a public setting.
15. Be patient and understanding, and remind the person that anxiety is a common and treatable condition.

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What Thoughts do Resilient Children have help them be Successful?

What is it about some children in that they are able to show resilience in the face of adversity better than their peers?  Cartwright Hatton et al looked at what thoughts those children have that enable them to be able to manage in their day to day interactions.  Here is a list of what they found.

  • I can cope with most things that I experience

  • The world is a pretty safe place

  • I have some control over the things that happen to me.

  • Bad things usually don’t happen to me.

  • Bad things usually don’t pop out of the blue.

  • People are generally pretty kind and friendly.

  • Other people generally respect me.

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Boy’s Outdoor Challenge

In our technological world, more and more children are spending time inside on devices and less time playing outside.  Spending time outdoors isn’t just enjoyable but it’s also necessary. Many researchers agree that kids who play outside are happier, better at paying attention and less anxious than kids who spend more time indoors.

Spending time in nature can build their confidence. There’s a lot less structure than most types of indoor play and they can choose how they interact with the nature around them. This gives them practice managing their own actions and encourages creativity and imagination.

Being outdoors can also teach them responsibility. For example, if they are in charge of watering a plant, they can learn that they must take care of living things to keep them alive.

Being outside gets kids moving, too. Regardless of what they’re doing, there’s usually more exercise involved than if they were sitting on the couch. Not only is exercise good for kids’ bodies, but it seems to make them more focused. This is especially helpful for kids with ADHD. Being outside also helps kids feel less stressed.

In the spirit of getting kids outside, here is an outdoor challenge for engaging boys in the natural setting. These tasks can simply be done in a backyard or at a park if needed.  Fire starting and foraging are omissions from this list for safety reasons. Good luck!

Learn to Tie the Bowline Knot

Knots come in handy for a slew of survival scenarios.  Tying snares, securing shelters, lowering equipment or yourself down a cliff face. Ideally, you should have an arsenal of knots, from hitches to bends to loops, in your repertoire. But if you learn only one, learn the bowline.

Build a Shelter

A shelter should be your top priority in a prolonged survival situation. To make a simple lean-to, find a downed tree/fence/rock resting at an angle, or set a large branch securely against a standing tree, and stack smaller branches close together on one side. Layer debris, like leaves and moss, across the angled wall. Lastly, insulate yourself from the cold ground–which will draw heat from your warm body–by layering four to six inches of debris to lie on. If branches aren’t available, get creative and improvise from stuff around your home.

Make a Solar Sill

Collecting water is imperative in survival situations. Try this method for getting water with the help of the sun.  For an idea of how to do this, see here for an example.

Navigating by stars

This one needs to be done at night in an area with minimal city lights.  To find the North Star (Polaris), which is the end of the Little Dipper’s handle. If you can find the Big Dipper, draw a line between the two stars at the outer edge of the constellation’s dipper portion. Extend this line toward the Little Dipper, and it will line up with Polaris. Face Polaris, and you’re facing true north. If there is a crescent moon in the sky, connect the horns of the crescent with an imaginary line. Extend this line to the horizon to indicate a southerly bearing.

Build a Bed

Find a dry area.  Frame your bed with rocks or logs (make this a bit bigger than you are). Plug cracks with moss, leaves, or bark. Gather dry leaves and other dry materials. Pile them into the bed until it bulges. Nestle into the leaves and keep a thick layer on the ground.
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Anxiety when Public Speaking? Try Some Of These Tips to Crush Your Next Presentation

Public speaking is one of the most common forms of anxiety that people experience with some estimates upwards of 73% of the population feeling some level of discomfort when speaking.  If you fall into this category, try some of these tips to help make your next experience a positive one.  Managing anxiety is best used in combination with thorough preparation and practice for a presentation.  Try accepting your anxiety instead of battling with it, and you may find it becomes much less of a problem for you.

Some Basic Assumptions about Anxiety

  • Emotions, both negative and positive, are a natural part of living and cannot be avoided or controlled, nor do they need to be.
  • The fear of failure and the desire to succeed are two sides of the same coin.  We feel anxious because we want to perform well.  This is a normal and healthy part of being human.
  • Anxiety is uncomfortable and inconvenient, but not unbearable.  It is when we start judging ourselves about our normal anxiety that we begin to create real problems for ourselves.
  • A certain amount of anxiety is beneficial to one’s performance because it motivates us and helps us to focus our energy and attention.

Destructive Beliefs about Anxiety

Have you ever found yourself thinking like this?

  • I should be able to control my feelings. I should be able to rid myself of anxiety prior to my presentation.
  • If I’m this nervous, there must be something wrong with me
  • There’s no way I can give this presentation until I feel more confident
  • I’d rather die than have to talk in front of the whole class

What happens if you think like this? It can be a vicious cycle. By trying to resist the feeling of anxiety, you prolong your focus on it.  That leads you to reject your feelings and your emotional self.  Your attention gets stuck on the anxiety and on yourself, increasing your self-consciousness and making you feel even worse. You’re critical towards yourself and your productivity to achieve the task at hand- the presentation.  Your belief that you can’t handle these kinds of situations is reinforced.  The next time you’re in the same situation, you have heightened level of anticipatory anxiety because of your previous difficulty.

Positive Self Talk

If you find yourself thinking these kinds of things, consider these more helpful and healthy alternatives to the above statements.  Identify the ones that are most relevant to you and repeat them to yourself whenever you start getting anxious about your presentation.

  • I cannot and do not need to control my anxiety
  • Anxiety is a natural part of being human
  • Anxiety is a cue to take action
  • It is okay to feel nervous and anxious before and during my presentation.  It reflects my desire to do well and succeed.
  • There is no reason to fight the nervous and anxious part of myself.  I will not resist my nervousness and it will subside in its own time.  I will perserve without avoiding my presentation.

Deep Breathing

Taking deep breaths will help to calm your self down in the lead up to the presentation.  Try to slow down your breathing and focus on big, deep breaths right up until you are about to present. We can reduce anxiety by breathing differently. Take slow inhalations and even slower exhalations with brief pauses in between. We’ll be more likely to use this technique if practiced in times of low stress.

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