Just for Fun

Jul 272010
 

On my way to an appointment the other day I heard these song lyrics:

“….I hit a big pothole… it made me lose control….” and it reminded me of a news story I wrote about a few months back.

Singer song-writer Randy Kaplan performs a sweet little song called “My LIttle Laugh” and I was able to find it on YouTube. It includes a trip to the doctor, a spill from his bike and a surprise ending!

I thought of it as a really fun way to introduce out little ones to the idea that, no matter what our circumstances, we can ALWAYS choose our response.

Enjoy!

Kids as Colleagues

Jul 072010
 

Did you ever have the urge to “strongly encourage” a colleague to “go to your room?” We talk a lot here about immature, irresponsible behavior…. childish (NOT childlike!) attitudes that somehow trail into adult life and the workplace, often making an employer feel more like a parent than a supervisor.

But is it ever appropriate to send a colleague to timeout? Or to hold back a paycheck until household chores are complete?

If you work in a retail or office setting you’ve probably decided I’m nuts… but if you’re one of the millions of entrepreneurs who work from home then you’re laughing along with me.

Many parents choose a home-based business so that making a living doesn’t keep them from having a life…. but are sometimes stressed by creating the boundaries that are flexible enough for home yet professional enough for business!

Many of the mompreneurs that I know opt for one of my favorite solutions: doing the work that requires extreme quiet either very early in the morning or after everyone else has gone to bed. Others choose to employ their kids for specific business-related duties such as housekeeping and maintenance, shipping or supply clerk. As long as the parent views this time more as “kid time” than “work time” it’s a strategy that can develop your child’s work ethic and interest in entrepreneurship. (Many of us have also found that when the kiddos understand and have a stake in the family business it can become easier for them to manage an hour or so of ‘quiet time’ when you really need it.)

I’m going to be talking about these things a little later today on Jeane’ Bennett’s BlogTalk radio show AtHome Business. Location: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/jeane

In addition, I’ve been working with the Direct Selling Women’s Alliance – the professional organization for independent direct sellers (party plan, network and other at-home business) and find that the resources they have available are outstanding.

Regardless of how they choose to make a living when they are older, teaching our kids about entrepreneurial thinking is a gift that will help them look for ways to serve others and solve problems…. not a bad trait to share????

Summer Goals?

Jun 112010
 

Some summer vacations stretch endlessly with kids sleeping late and wandering around finding interesting things to do.  Others seem to be more strictly scheduled than the school year.  What is the goal?

Goal?  For summer vacation?  Am I nuts?  Maybe.  But why wait until they are long grown to help our kids use blocks of unstructured time to explore new ideas and activities.

There’s the “phew!  I can be lazy” approach to vacation and that certainly has some value.  But teaching our kids to be life-long learners begins with letting them know that they can choose to learn about things that aren’t in anybody’s lesson plan.

Why not help them by asking what they’d like to learn about in the next few weeks; often people want to accomplish something, but they don’t know how to start or  what to do next.

Start by helping them get a good, clear picture of what it is they want to accomplish.  Are they going to build or read or write something?  Plan a trip?  Improve a skill?

They can develop that picture by making a picture or vision board or writing about it.  Different methods work for different people.  Next of course, is starting to look at the steps that they would need to take to achieve their goal and to figure out what comes first — another great discussion!

Then comes the hard part for most parents — ask about and support the effort without taking over and ‘taking it away’ from them.  If you can do that, you will have given your kids a wonderful gift — the ability to decide about and create something on their own.  How’s that for confidence and self-esteem???

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