Help them develop a positive attitude. http://www.momentsaday.com/10-activities-help-young-children-develop-a-positive-attitude/
5
Talk about how choices become habits. Habits can become addictions. Describe how pathways are literally dug into the brain and it's very hard to change them once those paths are made.
13-16
Look for glimmers. The opposite of triggers. Feels of elation, belonging, peaceful contentment. I just watched you glimmer as you delighted in your first Crunchbox. “I made this!!!”
12, 15, 19, 21
Ask him for Christmas present: recite Andy Weir’s “The Egg.” Bonus points for memorization! Also great idea for audition tape. )I’m assuming you’ll be in theater!) xoxo
15
Learn about current trends in social media. Figure out where you draw boundaries, what platforms are allowed and not. Teach them how to stay safe, be positive and kind and always respectful.
9
Fact: when you drink to excess you are significantly more likely to cause harm to someone or be harmed yourself. Being drunk means surrendering your ability to keep yourself and others safe.
12, 15, 18
Summers in Ireland and UK Drama camps? I could work from there while he did his thing.
12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17
In the wise words of Taylor Swift, you don’t have to forgive or forget in order to move on. You can just…move on.
15, 21
You may lose a relationship but you keep the love. It becomes a part of you. It changes you for the better.
15, 19, 21
Blessing for the Brokenhearted: Poem by Jan Richardson ___________ "There is no remedy for love but to love more." – Henry David Thoreau ________________________ ________________________ Let us agree for now that we will not say the breaking makes us stronger or that it is better to have this pain than to have done without this love. __________Let us promise we will not tell ourselves time will heal the wound, when every day our waking opens it anew. ___________Perhaps for now it can be enough to simply marvel at the mystery of how a heart so broken can go on beating, as if it were made for precisely this— as if it knows the only cure for love is more of it, as if it sees the heart’s sole remedy for breaking is to love still, as if it trusts that its own persistent pulse is the rhythm of a blessing we cannot begin to fathom but will save us nonetheless.
20
Zero-cost method to reaching your goals (academic, career, fitness and health): Get up an hour earlier. You’ll be amazed how much you can get done and how “on top of it” you feel.
16, 18, 21
Music, arts, words or dancing can have a profound effect on the spirit. Let's find something that gives you chills!
11-14
Let them borrow your calm. Little ones (grownups too) sometimes just need to freak out a bit. Stay there. Be near. Don’t judge or even help. Just be there, and stay calm. Your loving energy is all they need as they work through it themselves. Keep them safe but other than that don’t help or advise unless they ask.
2-6, 17, 21
Practice not putting stuff off. If it takes 10 seconds or less do it now. Then move up to 30 seconds or less. Keep going up to ~3 minutes. Good example is putting away laundry or emptying dishwasher, etc.
15
Letting go hurts. There's no two ways about it. You just gotta feel it and get through it. Cry. Sweat it out. Sing, run, write, or just scrub floors. You will get through it, and you will be stronger and more compassionate.
14
Mindset for a breakup: “I’d rather adjust to your absence than be continually frustrated by your presence.” Can work with romantic partners, jobs, habits...anything you’re hanging on to that you know you should let go of.
19
Before speaking (or texting) ask yourself three questions: Is it kind? Is it true? Is it necessary? If not all three, don’t speak. (PS “kind” isn’t the same as good news. You can deliver bad news with kindness.)
11, 14, 20