Teamwork

Teamwork: Several people working together, usually with each person doing a certain part, to achieve a common goal.

Dear Parents,
As tennis great Althea Gibson said, “No matter what accomplishments you make, somebody helps you.” She knew it would take teamwork to overcome the barriers she had to hurdle. Teamwork is a life skill all of us use, whether it is in school or the workforce, and martial arts classes are a great place for children to begin learning how to get along with others and share in their successes.

As your children learn teamwork, they will learn to communicate and listen to others and work well together. Like other life skills, teamwork requires practice and knowledge about why it is important and how to recognize it.

What can parents and caregivers do to help their children develop teamwork?

Demonstrate teamwork at home. Explain to your children, while you are doing chores, how difficult it would be to take care of an entire household by yourself. Show them how each part is just as important to the end result, i.e., making dinner begins with planning, shopping, preparing, cooking, setting the table, cleaning, etc.

Praise teamwork efforts. When you and your children are working together on a project, praise them for working together. Explain how nice it is to have help. When you work together, things are done quicker, and you get to spend time with your favorite people!

Teach teamwork. Unfortunately, when working together, tempers and personalities sometimes clash. When that happens, sit down and explain that everyone has an opinion, but sometimes we must compromise and meet in the middle, or, sometimes, one person has to have the final word.

Teach your children how to define a clear goal when working on a project. If, for example, you want a room cleaned, don’t say, “Clean the living room.” Try saying, “You pick up the toys, while he dusts the furniture, and I vacuum.”

Respect

Respect is being thoughtful, courteous and showing care and regard for yourself, other people and things.

Dear Parents,
One of the most important things you can teach your children is respect. Respect is not the same as obedience. Children may obey you because they are afraid of you, but children who respect you will listen to you, because they know you want what is best for them.

Have you ever told your children, “Do onto others as you would have them do onto you”? Of course, because the best way to teach respect is to be respectful. When children experience respect, they learn what it feels like and begin to understand how important it is. Being respectful helps children succeed in life. People who are disrespectful to their peers, supervisors, or themselves, seldom succeed. Believe it or not, parents are more influential in how well their children behave than any other factor.

What can parents and caregivers do to help their children develop respect?

Show others respect. Use the same manners you would like your children to exhibit. When you show respect to other people, your children learn how to be respectful. Apologize when you are wrong, be honest, follow rules, and show concern for others.

Show your children respect. Sometimes the people we are closest to are the ones we show the least respect. Honor your children by respecting them. Don’t embarrass them in public. Let your child take responsibility for their choices. Give your child your full attention when talking.
Keep promises. Listen to your child’s side of the story before making a judgment.

Teach your child self-respect. Respecting oneself is the most important form of respect, because you can’t respect others unless you respect yourself. Don’t say how dumb, fat, or ugly you are in front of your children, even when joking. Show how you respect yourself when eating,
exercising or studying.

Explain rules you set. For instance, if the rule is, “No television between 4:00 and 6:00,” explain that this is homework time because it is important to keep your grades up.

The End Result Approach

Next month is when many people make New Year’s resolutions that will change their lives for the better – for a few weeks anyway. Before making those resolutions, take time this month to determine what your goals are for next year, five years from now, and retirement. By looking at these goals, you will know what changes or resolutions need to be made now to give you the bright future you so desire.

How should you determine your goals? By dreaming big. If there were no obstacles in the way of you reaching your dream, like money, education, and work, what would you really like to do that would make you really happy? This is when you need to use the end-result approach. Set your final big goal and work backwards by setting smaller more manageable goals.

If your goal is to become a black belt before your next birthday, but you are a white belt now; it probably isn’t going to happen. That doesn’t mean you can’t become a black belt, it just means that you will need to rethink your timetable. Your first step would be to make an appointment with your instructor. He or she will be able to help you set reasonable goals for reaching each belt color. Once you have a time table, you can see what you need to be doing to stay on track.

As hard as it may seem, write down your weaknesses and find out what you can do to overcome or strengthen them. If you are only 5-feet tall and 90 pounds, find out how you can use your size to your advantage. Turn something you have no control over into an advantage -- you are probably faster than a larger opponent. If lack of upper-arm strength is your weakness, you can change it by adding weight training to your workouts.

You’ve heard it before, but it works; write down your goals so they will seem real to you. Share them with friends and family, too, so they can help motivate you. Most importantly, you need to know what your goal is, not what others think your goal should be. Grandma Moses was in her 70s when she began her prolific career as an artist. Her goal wasn’t to be an artist. Her goal was to enjoy a creative outlet by painting scenes from her long, rural-based life. Even if she had not become famous, she would have succeeded in reaching her goal; becoming famous was just an added bonus. Today, she is known as having been a successful artist, but even if she had never sold a painting, she would have died knowing she had achieved the goal she set before her. Would you be able to say the same thing? It’s not too late!

Goals: Something you work hard to reach.

Dear Parents,

The difference between a dream and a goal is you have to take action to turn a dream into a goal. We all have dreams of fitting into the jeans we wore in high school or running the mile as fast as we did at twenty. Those are dreams that can be goals by taking action to reach them.

This month, at LIFE 180° Martial Arts, we will be discussing with our students how to break big goals into smaller goals. Many times, we never get past the dream stage, because the dream is too big to accomplish in one sitting. However, by breaking a big goal into smaller goals, we are able to reach the big goal by taking one step at a time.

Unfortunately, in reaching for goals, we also hit obstacles. Some people see obstacles before they begin reaching for their goal, so they never progress past dreaming. By overcoming obstacles, you are able to appreciate the achievement even more. Join us this month, as we discuss what goals are and how you can reach them.

What can parents and caregivers do to help their children develop self-discipline?

Know what your children want. Sure, children want everything, but as caregivers, you are in the unique position of knowing these children well. You have the capability of determining what may be a passing fancy or what has really grabbed their attention. Encourage and help your children discover what will become their passion in life and then set goals to learn more or develop those interests.

Offer healthy rewards. We all have those horrible chores we don’t want to do; even adults face that one. Show your children how you reward yourself for doing them. Explain how you are going to take a long walk if you finish cleaning the closets.

Overcome obstacles. Depending on the age of the children, we often hide obstacles we face. Let them know certain obstacles you face and how you move past them to get what you want. You want to run in the charity 10K race, but you can’t get past 5K and you are facing overtime at work. Tell them, you plan on waking an hour earlier to get in extra running to get over the plateau you are facing.

Include everyone on taking action. If your family wants to take a special trip next year, show the kids the budget and ask how you can meet it. If you gave up eating out once a month and put that money in the savings account, you are taking action. Or you can watch a movie on DVD instead of at the theater. What else can the entire family do to help save money for a dream vacation?