Discipline

Self Discipline

Archive for October, 2009

Perfect Parenting – Family Dispute Resolution

Oct 31

Posted by editor in Uncategorized | No Comments

Is there such as thing as a perfect parent? Perhaps not, and in any case, if there was, it could reasonably be assumed that this perfect parent made all the mistakes we all make, and learned the best way to parent thereafter.

Solving a family dispute is a good way to show, just how perfect of a parent, someone is.

Cardinal Law of Parenting

Again, safely assuming that most parents make a great deal of errors before they learn the best way forward in parenting, the cardinal law of parenting must be stated.

It usually saves the family from breaking up, and certainly gives the children a firm basis for their own lives.

The cardinal law of parenting is that the parents love each other. If they do that, the children will be all right. This is an age old proven observation, crossing civilizations and time itself.

The Family Dispute

There is no way to characterize all the different kinds of family disputes. The answer lies in the word used to describe keeping the kids in order, which is ‘discipline’. This word comes from the root word ‘disciple’ and as it can be expected, the parents expect the kids to be like them…their disciples.

Family disputes are often centered on the parent’s rules and the children’s desires that contradict those rules. There are other reasons for family disputes, certainly, but more often than not, the root cause will lie in rules and breaking the rules.

Resolution of Family Dispute

The parent, if properly informed and sensitive to the needs and psychological make up of the children (and the spouse), can achieve the following with a small bit of effort:

• Dispute analysis

• Psychological state of each family member

• Stress levels affecting each family member

• Degree of outside (the family) influence (i.e. peer pressure)

• Goals (or lack of ) from each family member

Armed with the above information, the parent attempting to resolve a family dispute can act to:

• De-heat tempers

• Soothe damaged egos

• De-stress and relax a stressed and pressured family member

• Offer some workable and compromistic solutions

In fact, there is not much more a parent can do, except to have been and be a good example and role model for the children to follow and the spouse to admire and respect.

Let the Cardinal Law of parenting also work in your behalf, and the children may, with your sensitivity and limitless understanding, agree with you to resolve instead of dissolve.

The parent must lead the way, perfect or not. If for some reason, the parent is the cause of the dispute, then the parent must also, quickly become the solution.

Sacha Tarkovsky
http://www.articlesbase.com/relationships-articles/perfect-parenting-family-dispute-resolution-82938.html

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Irritated? Annoyed? Stressed? Don’t Scratch That Itch – Meditate

Oct 31

Posted by editor in Child Discipline | No Comments

Copyright (c) 2009 Willie Horton

I constantly tell my clients that meditation is like your life in miniature – in other words, everything you encounter during meditation mirrors your daily life.

So, for example, during meditation, your conscious mind will distract you – with an average of 50,000 random thoughts whizzing through it, it’s bound to! If you let those random thoughts simply pass on during meditation, you learn how to be more focused during the ordinary day, when you really want to and need to concentrate on the things you have to do – to do them to the best of your ability.

Again, what if you’re having a bad session of meditation – as a lot of my clients tell me “I can’t get into it the way we did during the two-day workshop”? Well, if you can avoid getting annoyed with yourself during meditation, you will develop your ability to stay balanced and calm when you’re having a bad day at work, when things aren’t going your way – or where something that might otherwise seem like the end of the world has just happened. Learn not to react to bad stuff during meditation and you will not react to the crap that life throws at us regularly. As a result, you learn how to act.

Then, of course, some of my clients get all excited about getting really deeply into flow during meditation. Fine, I say, but, just like a bad session, the good session passes too! Don’t get hooked on it – that’s not the purpose of meditation. The purpose of meditation is to discipline your mind – remember the normal mind is unruly, all over the place. The purpose of meditation is to gain control of your mental capacity – not to have a good time. So, just as you learn, through meditation not to react to a good session, so, in your everyday life, you become more balanced, not spaced out with joy when something good happens – because just like the crap in life, the good stuff arises and passes away as well.

In meditation, all manner of things can want us to join in in their little drama. Noise can be a major distraction – but only if you let it, because listening to and hearing noise during meditation can be one of the most effective ways of gaining control of your mind. Again, your body will start acting up – during a workshop a few weeks back I asked the group to start their meditation in a sitting position that they wouldn’t have to change during the exercise. The mere suggestion that I wanted them to stay completely still resulted in all kinds of shuffling and bodily rearranging – we all thought one of the guys had started dancing, he was moving so much. After we discussed the insanity of allowing your mind play tricks on you like that, the second session was perfectly still – everyone got the message, everyone understood that you choose whether to be distracted or not – exercise the choice during meditation – it gets really to exercise the choice between mindless reaction and real action during our everyday lives.

I also mentioned to the group that, being adults, they could choose whether or not to focus all of their attention on a particular area of their body – one area at a time. I mentioned to them that, during one of my recent one-to-one sessions, I had told my client, Peter, that if, as I had asked him, he focused all of his attention on the top of his head, he would not have scratched his nose! Understand? He should not have even noticed that there was an itch, if all of his attention was where he had decided to focus it. If you learn not to scratch the itch during meditation, something really interesting happens – the itch passes away! Like every minor irritation in our ordinary lives, the itch simply arises and passes away. But, boy do we let minor irritations become major ones.

Just after the group session that I mentioned a moment ago, one of the guys, Paul, got a ‘phone call from his wife. She explained that their because their daughter was not well enough to go sailing with her school that afternoon, the school’s principal had banned the child from going on a theatre trip that evening. The kind of injustice that sends parents into spasm! She asked Paul to get onto the school and sort the teacher out – and, believe you me, Paul is the kind of guy that not only would have no problem doing that, he’d positively relish it.

But, Paul decided not to get involved in the school principal’s little drama – as he said to his wife, the teacher would find some other way of getting at their daughter – sooner or later. To quote Paul directly, he said “I’m not going to scratch that itch!” You and I know plenty of people who are, literally, only itching for you to get involved in their dramas! Don’t we? One of my clients calls them energy vampires – they suck you in and bleed you dry. But, if you learn not to scratch the itch in meditation, you learn not to react to that nonsense in everyday life – let them pass – just like the itch, they’ll go away if you don’t give them any energy.

Your energy – your mental and spiritual energy – is yours. Yours to master, yours to focus and direct, yours to give freely in taking appropriate action in everyday life – yours to deny to those who would wish you to react – yours to conserve and refocus when outside events distract you.

Learn, through meditation, how to harness and focus your energy – and that ability will become an integral part of your everyday life, changing you from a reactive normal ‘not all there’ person, who can only muster up 1% of their energy, into a cool, calm, focused person with presence. What you learn in meditation and apply in daily life, will change your daily life – dramatically.

Willie Horton
http://www.articlesbase.com/self-improvement-articles/irritated-annoyed-stressed-dont-scratch-that-itch-meditate-754802.html

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Drug Addiction Steals the Life of a Young Man, the Second Chance Program Gives Him His Life Back

Oct 29

Posted by editor in School Discipline | No Comments

Senior year of high school Julio started using inhalants. He was bored. A friend offered him gold spray paint. He inhaled, and got a buzz. He liked it. Thus began his recreational use of inhalants. He had good grades in school. And he was doing what he loved, he had always wanted to play soccer, and he was good; being the #6 leading scorer his junior year, and All State. And he was maintaining a 3.0 grade point average.

He arrived at college, with a full financial aid scholarship. He needed this. He was being raised by his father’s parents, as his dad was doing time for accidentally shooting his mother when Julio was 3 or 4. His inhalant usage manifested into an addiction. Julio threw it all away. He flunked out of college, and was kicked out of school, losing all his financial aid.

By the time he was 30, Julio had been arrested 15 or 20 times, he has lost count. This last time he was given an offer to try a new type of incarceration. A place where the inmates are called students and even though it’s a fully secure facility, he finds he feels at home there.

The Second Chance Center is a secure long-term residential rehab and transition program providing an alternative for the judiciary to traditional sentencing to jails and prisons, located in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The program was started by Rick Pendery, a drug rehab veteran, who had piloted a similar program in two Mexican prisons for over five years. “The intent of the program is to restore personal integrity and self-esteem in the inmates, and stem the rising rate of recidivism,” explained the CEO of the center, Rick Pendery.

“After arriving at Second Chance on September 7th of 2006,” Julio explains, “I tried to maintain optimism about being able to successfully function in a sober manner. But with so many failed attempts in the 30 years of my life haunting my memory, my excitement level was low. All at once I noticed the straightforward attitude of the staff and their warm confident receiving of myself that screamed nothing but success. I perceived a vibration that no matter what has occurred in the past or where I’d failed at in life, if I would just allow myself this opportunity, things would be different, and I would not fail!”

“It’s been a step by step process in getting to where I am now from where I was at the beginning.” Julio continues. “At times, the only assurance I had that I was still making progress and being productive was by taking my supervisors’ word that I would get through it. It’s never been an easy program to follow. The idea is simple. But actually doing it is not at all a piece if cake. It takes a lot of hard work and it’s this hard effort made which requires sincere dedication and discipline.”

A unique prison rehabilitation model inside the criminal justice system, The Second Chance Program specifically addresses common deficits found in offenders with substance abuse histories, such as cognitive behavioral skills, life skills, and the development of moral values and restoration of self-esteem, which have been found to have a positive impact on the development of pro-social behaviors and reduced recidivism. Delivered in a secure setting, this six to eight-month program also offers a long-range nutritional and sauna based detoxification program which uses no alternate drugs.

“As I continue to accomplish each step, I become more motivated to continue accomplishing what I set out to do.”, Julio says, “I am not willing to give up in exchange for the past failures or lifestyles. I am just thankful to my lord for his hand of mercy extending through the concept of this program, its staff and my fellow students to support and encourage my continued success here in the program as well as outside of the program in life. Its an ongoing success story that continues today.”

Julio also said, “I had not encountered relief from the whirlwind of recidivism within our justice system until Second Chance. I am no longer a part of it’s vicious cycle but have now become an entity and future pillar in our communities and state willing to assist others in breaking that cycle. My new attitude, outlook on life and actions give credibility to the scripture ‘You can tell a tree by the fruits it produces’. It is through the personally observable transformed life that will encourage others to seek out the same results seen in us. Because of the opportunity presented to me by the Second Chance Program to mature mentally, physically and spiritually as well as the sincere urging and encouragement to do so, we now embraced and continue to run with the Second Chance of having granted myself a Stay of Execution from my own, Self Imposed Death Sentence that I had once voluntarily handed down to myself because of my choice to use drugs.”

Jayden Adams
http://www.articlesbase.com/news-and-society-articles/drug-addiction-steals-the-life-of-a-young-man-the-second-chance-program-gives-him-his-life-back-120468.html

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The 1-2-3 Step Process of Self Improvement

Oct 29

Posted by editor in Positive Discipline | No Comments

The self improvement process involves steps that will not likely be acheived without the accomplishment of their preceding steps. As humans, we find it very difficult to adjust to changes all at once, because we have already been programmed to do and see things a particular way. It does not mean that it is impossible. It simply entails that completing the final stage of the process requires discipline, patience and persistence.

Rome was not built in a day, as the popular proverb goes. Thus, if we want to reap the benefits and enjoy what our self-improvement changes can bring, we must learn to be patient. The process of self improvement does not and will not happen overnight.

Remember that personal and professional changes take some time to get used to and some degree of adjustment on our part; so we should never seek to push ourselves to adapt immediately, or these efforts will just end up in vain.

Self improvement does not happen with simply thinking that we want to improve. We have to act on this ‘want’ and transform it into a ‘need’. Saying that we want to improve is just the beginning of this challenging process.

The basic self improvement process consists of three simple steps:

1) Deciding that you really want to improve,

2) Acting on it, and

3) Maintaining the goal in mind.

To truly get ahead in life, we have to accept that sacrifices will have to be made. For example, if we choose to join a Stop Drinking support group, we have to exercise maximum discipline to stay away from the ‘enemy’. We should make every effort to avoid situations that put us in a position where choice becomes very difficult and just stay focus by repeating the benefits of the endeavour to ourselves.

We must have a good follow through for the self improvement process to really work. If we only act on it and then change our minds, or fail to stick with it, it would be like we never started to achieve anything, at all. Keeping both our eyes on the goal at all times is key. Self improvement does not stop when something is accomplished, because it is a continuous process.

Who ever said getting ahead in life was easy? Your journey will surely be difficulty, not just based on external factors, but also from yourself. If you truly want to better your life, you must realize that your worst enemy will be yourself, which is, ironically, the most difficult part to conquer. However, if you set your heart and soul into your goal and convince yourself that though the path is rocky there is a great reward waiting for you at the finish line, you will be able to survive and excel.

Life is a challenge. Conquering your inner fears and apprehensions will make your journey much more challenging. However, it will not be so if you know that you can do it. The process of self improvement is challenging, but very rewarding once you surpass the obstacles. You just have to keep a positive and open mind all the time.

Andrew Chin
http://www.articlesbase.com/motivational-articles/the-123-step-process-of-self-improvement-138814.html

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Acne Cures For Teenage Years

Oct 29

Posted by editor in Kids Discipline | 11 Comments

The majority of people develop acne at some stage in adolescents, often beginning with the development of blackheads on their nose. Children as young as eight regularly visit dermatology clinics looking for acne solutions. The first important point to remember is that the black “dot” at the center of that blackhead isn’t dirt, but a combination of melanin and cells that turn black when surfaced. Unfortunately, acne carries a stigma that often lead to teenagers feeling dirty or embarrassed about the development of acne.

It’s estimated that over ninety percent of teenagers aged between 12 and 17 will be affected by acne and similar skin conditions at one stage or another in life. It may be an occasional pimple, or it could be a full-scale breakout. It may not be limited to the face; acne may also develop on the neck, chest and back.

Adolescence can be a testing time – perhaps the understatement of the year. Bodies develop, hormones are high, and teenagers find themselves facing new social experiences. Acne issues simply add to the mix and can lead to extreme frustration, embarrassment and discontent.

Teenagers are the main age group feeling the affects of acne, due to natural body developments and hormonal changes. Both growth and sex hormones – which, as their names imply, are responsible for physical, mental and sexual development – swing into action during the onset of puberty. For adolescent males, the hormone responsible is testosterone, which is produced in the testes. In female teens, the primary hormones are estrogen and progesterone, which are produced in the ovaries. Androgens, the sex hormones also cause sebaceous glands that secrete more oil, affecting the condition of the skin.

Unfortunately, less than ten percent of all teens affected by acne actual visit dermatology experts for diagnosis and treatment. Many will take the advice of various home cure resources, some offering valuable insights, some less valuable such as the use of toothpaste, dishwashing liquid, hydrogen peroxide, rubbing alcohol and even Preparation H to reduce pimples. These solutions aren’t developed as a cure for acne, and can have adverse affects on the skin. While you may think hydrogen peroxide and alcohol, as disinfecting agents, would reduce bacteria and cleanse the skin, the tend to dry the skin to an unhealthy extent and can actually make acne worse. There are many products on the market – both prescription and over-the-counter – that are specifically designed for acne treatment that come highly recommended.

As all teenagers affected by acne know, it can be difficult, but very important to talk to your parents about the psychological effects acne has. A common myth is that teenage acne means ‘bad skin,’ it is actually a simple development stage. In many clinical studies, acne sufferers share feelings of depression and some have even felt suicidal as a result of acne. This is an extremely alarming issue, considering acne can be treated simply by educating yourself about acne and effective treatments. Parents need to be aware if a teenager is becoming anxious, depressed, ashamed, humiliated and embarrassed. Such anxiety affects behavior and attitude that reflect in poor school performance, discipline issues and often effecting social skills. Teens may develop body image problems, and you may start to withdraw from friends, family and generally become more introverted. This can be seen in changes as small as a teen that suddenly stops going to parties, school events and social events.

Acne can often affect family life and create problems within the family unit, as frustrations grow children tend to act out against parents and siblings. It can be extremely difficult when other family members make jokes about the situation and humiliate with subtle remarks.

Needless to say, acne can turn relationships into a nightmare. There’s nothing worse than preparing for a big date and noticing a pimple in the middle of your face. You begin to believe that your date will see nothing other than your acne- you, the Human Zit – and you may even be tempted to cancel.

As you get older, you may become self conscious visiting, or taking part in interviews and meetings. To worsen the situation, some studies have demonstrated that employers may actually discriminate against job applicants affected by acne. It’s undeniably unethical and often illegal, but it just demonstrates how much importance today’s society places on acne-free skin, encouraging the stigma that surrounds acne.

And being stressed out about acne will only cause it to get worse. There is a direct correlation between stress levels and acne flare-ups. In a March 2001 study conducted by the American Academy of Dermatology, 10% of teens stated that acne is one of the worst things in their lives. Virtually every teen is obsessed with his or her complexion and disturbed by acne breakouts. Sufferers are convinced that everyone around them is staring at their faces – and we all know that kids can be cruel, inflicting damage with names like “Pizza Face.”

Parents can also be a unintentional negative influence, telling adolescents that they mustn’t be practicing proper hygiene, further fueling the frustration. This creates tension and alienation. The best solution for teenage acne can be an informed parent. A responsible parent that takes his or her teenager to a dermatologist and arrange adequate acne treatment. Parents must remember that acne is a normal part of adolescence – not an abnormality. Perhaps they are reacting to their own teenage experiences and painful memories. Some parents may even be embarrassed by their teenagers’ complexions. A skilled, experienced dermatologist can help both teenager and parent deal with the real issues associated with acne.

Anne P
http://www.articlesbase.com/medicine-articles/acne-cures-for-teenage-years-84765.html

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5 More Common Mistakes New Online Business Owners Make (and How to Avoid Them)

Oct 29

Posted by editor in Uncategorized | No Comments

Every business owner starts a new business expecting to create a success story. Here are 5 more mistakes they frequently make that can keep it from turning out that way.

MISTAKE #1: Believing a single product, formula, or system is the direct path to million dollar results.

Distraction is the number one enemy of success! You’re bombarded daily by messages pushing this, that and the other thing as the golden ticket. Don’t be fooled. Excellence in everything you do is the direct path to million dollar results. Everything else is secondary. And excellence, like success, is something you are, not something you buy.

MISTAKE #2: Believing luck is the difference between an entrepreneur who is successful and one who isn’t.

There is no such thing as luck. There is only preparation meeting opportunity. Preparation requires discipline; opportunity requires observation and persistence. (Sometimes timing also plays a role.)

MISTAKE #3: Believing an online business requires little effort, skill, specialized knowledge, or time to achieve million dollar results.

If this were really true, there wouldn’t be a market for coaching of any kind in the online marketing world. And everyone would experience massive success instantly. That’s just not the way it works (despite what you’ve read)!

Everything you could possibly need or want to know about running a successful online business is available for free from the internet. But most people prefer (and benefit from) having someone in the know show them the way.

You can’t help but benefit from working with a mentor or business coach who tells you the truth about what it takes to build a solid business. Especially when they show you how to use proven strategies, tips and techniques to your competitive advantage.

If you are at all serious about building your successful business, be equally serious about finding a good mentor to help you create something you’ll be proud to own that serves you well over the long term.

MISTAKE #4: Believing an online business requires little more than outsourcing the work to cheap overseas labor to achieve million dollar results.

You can hire people to do the work for you and you can outsource many things; that part is true. But when you do, you must know how to properly define, set up and run projects and manage remote teams. You also need to know how to hire, evaluate and motivate team members and vendors. Time is money so efficiency and productivity are critical to making a profit.

Even if you decide to have a business where you do everything yourself, and especially if you have others working with and for you, you need to manage the work effectively and support it by developing efficient processes and reliable systems. These are learned skills, not inherited ones. And certainly, if you can’t manage your own productivity and effectiveness really well, it isn’t likely you’ll be able to manage others or serve as a role model for them.

A good mentor can help you determine the best methods, resources, management techniques, and time savers to use when it’s time to expand your team. You’ll be better able to figure out what you’ll need, when and how to get involved with others, and how to tell if you’re getting full value for your money spent with a vendor.

Nobody likes to waste money on work that has to be done over before it can be used because, if released as is, it will harm your professional and/or brand credibility and damage your reputation. And who has so much money to burn they can afford to pay for services that don’t add any value to the bottom line?

MISTAKE #5: Believing that working hard is the key to success.

Only 3% of people working hard ever experience success! And there are a lot of people working hard in that other 97% too.

More important than working hard is working productively, efficiently and effectively. Doing the right things, at the right time, in the right way. Don’t confuse being busy with being productive. Working the right way means with less effort and at less cost. You can do less and achieve more. It’s the real secret to experiencing less stress and more success.

No mentor or business coach can help you until you’ve reached the point where you know what you want and have given yourself permission to succeed. But, with the right guidance and a willingness to persist in working toward your goals, you’re virtually guaranteed to be in that 3% who experience success.

Linda M. Lopeke
http://www.articlesbase.com/internet-articles/5-more-common-mistakes-new-online-business-owners-make-and-how-to-avoid-them-664571.html

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New Puppy Rules – How To Save Your Skin

Oct 29

Posted by editor in Uncategorized | No Comments

If you have a puppy, all you have to do is look down at your hand covered with teeth marks and you’ll understand why I gave this article its title. One of the hardest things to do is discipline your new puppy. After all, they’re so cute and cuddly. It makes it hard to get on them when they are chewing your hand into hamburger meat. Pardon the pun, but if you don’t nip this problem in the bud real quick. It can cause problems later on down the road.

If you’re puppy was still living with its mother and litter mates, its mother would cure them of its nipping problem. Since it’s not easy for us to show our teeth and ground to get our point across. There’s a few things we can do to get our message read loud and clear. Quite simply, you want to mimic the mama dog’s behavior in trying to stop your dog from nipping. When you’re puppy nips too hard, you want to say a command in a loud enough voice to startle the puppy. That doesn’t mean scream at the top of your lungs. You just want to get their attention. Once you’ve reacted you want to discontinue playing the game. It really doesn’t matter what your command is my personal preference is to say: No!. Be easy! Obviously the “no” command is one that you will use often, and soon he will relate be easy as meaning he is biting too hard.

I personally don’t mind my puppy using my hand as a chew toy. I feel by allowing him to use my hand is doing the same thing as mother would be doing. If he bites too hard, I react like the mother would and pinch him on the lips until I get a yelp. This is what is mother would do and it gets the point across that he’s being too rough. Now if you are like my wife and a mosquito bite pretty much puts you in bed, and I suggest you pick out a toy to use to play with your puppy.

Some folks believe in using a nose tap as a means of breaking your dog of the nipping habit. This really isn’t a form of punishment, but rather an attention getter. Remember that it’s only effective if you use a stern voice and command along with it. To use this technique simply wait to the next time you dog bites. It his or her attention and tapped him on the nose with your index finger, while giving your command. No be easy! Remember now that you’re not trying to break his nose are giving him black eyes are way out of line. You merely want to get his attention.

Just like with your child it is important to be consistent with your puppy. You have to be consistent about disciplining your puppy as soon as the nipping behavior starts. He can’t play with them and let them nip one day and not discipline them and on the next day be playing with him and decide to discipline. Like young children puppies don’t understand “sometimes it’s ok”. So try remain consistent, and let your

Bart LeToad
http://www.articlesbase.com/pets-articles/new-puppy-rules-how-to-save-your-skin-101185.html

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