When the child is feeling upset or out of control, that is not the time to teach a lesson. Share your calm, be a safe place for them. When they’re feeling better, THEN teach the lesson.
1, 2, 3, 4
Just let a sweet moment be. There’s a time for jokes or small talk, but sometimes silence is best.
15,21
It’s not a project, it’s a practice. (Health, fitness, keeping up with current events, prayer or meditation, housework, reading, etc.)
16
Keep stories about younger years to tell them later: You used to call yellow “lellow” etc. Ten years from now you think you’ll remember this stuff but you won’t.
2
Keep a pair of nail clippers in the car - much better lighting outside. Clipping tiny fingernails is terrifying!
Infant-1
Make yourself a good hand. Don't wait to be asked, just jump in when you see a need. Wash a dish, make a bed, change a tire, help out a friend or a stranger whenever you can.
14-20
Be teachable. If you walk around thinking you know it all, your career and relationships will suffer. Consider how much you have to learn and welcome any opportunity to learn. “Teach me” instead of “I don’t know.”
16
Someone else’s success doesn’t subtract from yours. Celebrating with them and encouraging them won’t make you the loser and them the winner. We’re all in this together.
12, 15
My biggest regret is wasting my energy on people who didn’t think much of me. You can’t make someone love you. It’s a mystery what brings people together. You didn’t do anything wrong, you just need to let go and spend your light on people who bask in it.
17
Find an activity / sport that they enjoy and support it. Get them outside and in the fresh air.
6-16
“Pick a problem - any problem,and do something about it. Because to somebody who is hurting, ‘something’ is everything.” -Oprah Winfrey
12-16
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
Celebration and acknowledgment: Make a big deal over little-big things and teach them the same: getting their braces off, or a cast on a broken bone, a friend gets a new car, etc. Always acknowledge the sad that someone is going through or the difficult situation. Applies to all ages.
12, 15, 19, 21
Name a few male celebrities you would feel safe with alone in a room. Keanu Reeves, Jack Black, Barack Obama, to start us off.
11, 13, 15
Read "You Can’t buy a Dinosaur with a Dime" by Harriet Ziefert. Teaches kids about earning money through work, making choices, even paying taxes!
9
Sometimes you’ll be in the wrong side of history. When you discover you’re wrong, move to the right side of history. When I first started training as a nurse it was the early 1990’s. HIV/$@!#% was pretty new. I remember telling my fellow student I would double glove and take any “over the top” precautions I wanted to. That was my fear and ignorance talking. Amazing how cozy self-righteousness makes you feel. I was wrong. Always look at the issue through the lens of humanity.
16, 21