I’ve been listening to this amazing video of Dr Daniel Seigal who presented at a couple of the Google’s health series.
Dr Siegal talked about how we can have a kinder and more empathetic outlook on life so that we can have more harmony in our lives.
Essentially what he gave in this talk is a recipe for developing a healthier mind. Our mind, he says, is information and energy created by our nervous system (physical) and our relationships - our interactions with others.
According to Dr Siegal, a healthy mind ie - harmonious, calm, empathetic, kind and connected with others - is developed by integrating the external physical aspects of the brain, and how we operate in our relationships. For example, if we honour and accept the differences of our partner as a separate human being (the external physical aspect), and at the same time promote caring, healthy communication (the emotional aspect) a good relationship can exist.
The key, he says, in promoting a healthy mind is taking time ‘in’. Or, taking time out to concentrate on lending the physical workings of our mind with our emotional relational elements to create new neural pathways that are healthy.
It’s not so much about a cerebral understanding of our mind’s workings that’s important but being aware of how our mind operates - watching how it functions so that for example when a negative thought arises, we recognise it for what it is and therefore maybe not get so affected by it when it comes into our thoughts.
The incredible thing about what Dr Siegal talks about is that it’s rooted in science. It means it’s proven knowledge and therefore, it is the latest imperical research on how we operate as a human being. The video says it all a lot more eloquently, and it’s pretty cool!
Hot ways money saving tips for the savvy bachelor mum
Saving money is a necessary preoccupation among single parents and here are a few ingenious ways to make it work so you and your kids can have a better time.
Firstly, give yourself a goal so that you are rewarded for any sacrifices you make. My goal is to go on a decent holiday every year. It makes living frugally a lot more enjoyable because every brown rice and tuna bake I eat twice in a row is a step closer to Paris or Whistler to ski, or Thailand for the beautiful people and temples, India for the elephant orphanages, Bali for the luxurious spas or Sababa, to see the Orangutans. It doesn’t have to be that exotic - it could be a new Chanel lipstick - just something to make you feel good, which in turn keeps you strong so your kids get the benefits.
Lights out
Turn off the lights in the rooms you’re not using at night, and turn the TV off at the wall when you’re not using it.
Shop at Aldis
If you’re in Australia, shop at Aldis. It’s got a reputation for having mean customer service (my sister jokes the lettuces are grown in Chernobyl), and you can’t use petrol dockets, but the savings are real - at least $1 to $2 off most items. Eg: fresh apple and mango juice - $4. In other bigger outlets it’s $6. The quality is also comparable. I save about $50 a week.
Replace your broadband
If you have an iPhone or similar, use the personal hotspot application to power the internet on your computer. Check your data usage although I never go over the limit despite downloading videos etc, in fact i’m using it now to write this. I save $100 a month as I don’t need a home phone nor broadband connection.
Use Skype
Use Skype to call people/services if you have a low-rate call plan on your mobile (powered on your computer by your personal hotspot).
By online books
If you’re an avid reader get an iPad or similar device. It sounds odd as there is an initial outlay but ebooks are up to two-thirds cheaper. There are also hundreds of free app games including Scrabble and your kids can watch movies from it as well. So it’s a long-term savings plan.
Buy kds’ gifts in advance
Buy kids’ birthday part presents from places like The Book Depository - an online bookstore which provides great discounts and free delivery. Alternatively, when you’re out and you see a good-value birthday (ie cost effective but also decent) item buy it and store it for when it’s needed. I picked up some great monster anothlogies for boys at the Post Office for under $10. Much easier than being caught on the hop and forking out $25.
School clothing pools rock
Get your kids’ uniforms from the clothing pool. It’ll save you a fortune and most of the time when you buy new clothes at about 10 times the price they’ll look second-hand in about three weeks.
Work your credit card smartly
Do everything you can to pay off your credit card monthly. You need to work the 55-interest free days that are often given but don’t go over. It’s a complete waste.
If you buy a coffee on the way to work stop. Get yourself some decent freshly ground coffee and store it in the fridge at work, buy a plunger and make your coffee at work. You’ll be amazed at how much spare change you have in your wallet.
Why do good women for blokes who are not partner material and waste time on a relationship doomed to fail?
I just had a call from a good friend. This friend is on her own, divorced, no kids.
As we spoke it came out she’s feeling pretty down. She’s not one to admit this and she’s an unlikely suspect for depression. Generally, she’s up, the party girl, the one in control.
Her problem is that, despite having two fellows trying to court her at the same time, and the fellow she married now behind her (her decision to leave because he couldn’t put away the Bolivian marching powder – fun at 20, desperate at 40), she can’t meet the right bloke and settle down.
As she started talking of the latest boy drama, I thought about the person she is, how i would describe her, and then about the kinds of blokes she goes out with. They don’t in any way mirror each other – there is complete mismatch.
She is a straight shooter. She has a strong work ethic and is a former world-champion sports woman.
She’s great with kids, who she works with now as part of her coaching. She’s got lots of good male and female friends and is good at keeping those friendships. Yet, when it comes to a partner, rather than going for someone like herself with similar values and character traits, she goes with Peter Pan losers or shifty dealers who are just not available or at a standard that makes her feel good.
I raised this with her – asking why she’s going for blokes with values so far removed from her own. She couldn’t answer but understood what i meant.
I came to the conclusion that if this friend of mine wants to hook up with a long term partner and have a healthy, satisfying relationships she really needs to stop the continuous drama she puts herself through and instead:
put some time into herself
accept she’s alone for the moment and deal gently with herself over the uncomfortable feelings that arise
have a think about what stops her from meeting someone like herself who is interested in a long term stable relationship and,
start connecting with blokes that have the same attributes as her.
Sounds simple really but I wonder if it can be done?
How hard is it to get your kid to study maths especially when you hated the subject?
Some people are born mathematically minded and won’t necessarily empathise with those of us who just don’t get maths, don’t want to or don’t care. Yet there are absolutely compelling reasons why we should be encouraging our kids to not only study maths but become good at it. The newspapers continue to scream out to us that maths is becoming the forgotten subject, a bit like Latin, and therefore those kids who have the potential to become brilliant maths scholars are missing out on vital learning.
Cool careers
Similarly over the next 25 years there are going to be more jobs available for those kids who have gone to university than those kids who are looking for trade-related work. Naturally, a portion of those jobs will require stronger skills in English and the humanities but maths is one of the fundamentals for just about everything we do. We use maths in shopping, budgeting, calculating how many days we can have off work, how much petrol will cost, how much we owe for our mobile phone bill … in fact without maths we wouldn’t have mobile phones at all.
Google, one of the most creative and funky employers in the world, says the most important thing kids should ever do if they want a sexy job is study maths. And even if your child never wants to work specificially in IT, understanding maths helps their thinking generally.
Creativity and problem solving
Maths is creative, and helps us to solve problems. It’s this mantra that has made little ol’ me - a maths dropout - at least sit down with my daughter and try and help explain to her why or how 1 x 10 = 10. I can see her poor little head throbbing away as she tries to grapple with this logic, and all I can tell her is that she will, one day get it. And, beautifully, some days she does - and then forgets it the next day. But then we persist.
Flexible thinking
Kids who have an abillity to be flexible in their minds with maths are going to be better at it - or are going to find it easier - and from what I’ve been told, one of the keys to maths is being efficient in how you work stuff out - for example, instead of counting 100 lollies by 1s you’d count them by 2s so you get the answer faster - that’s the beginning of multiplication. Guessing which pile of lollies is bigger is estimation. Recognising patterns (rather than designs) in anything is the beginning of algebra - it all builds from basics (so it’s not hard to begin with at least to help our little kids).
There are heaps of fabulous resources out there to help parents and their kids get maths. I started using the School A to Z Maths Monkey phone app, which has simple muliplication activities. My daughter has already accomplished her 10 times tables now. Yay!
The School A to Z site also has a pile of fabulous fact sheets, explanations and ‘how to’ videos to help children at every stage of their maths from Kindergarten through to tweens and teenagers.
When you add up all the pluses about maths, it starts making sense!
When children’s author Nadia Wheatley talks about her book My Place, one of the strongest themes she elaborates on is the sense of belonging.
In an interview with the parent website School A to Z, Nadia says:
“From the moment we first open our eyes, we start to develop a sense of belonging through our connections with place and with people.
“This is why the place where we grow up is important to us for the rest of our lives – irrespective of whether we love it, or whether we find it ugly or boring or even frightening.”
Belonging is something that I’ve been struggling with as a single parent / bachelor mum for some time.
Like many people, I don’t live in the same neighbourhood I grew up in - for many different reasons. However, as a single person, I belonged in a certain area that suited my lifestyle - close to work, easy to get to parties, people and places. But since having a child a lot of that has changed - my priorities have changed and so I need to be in an area that has more traditional values. I needed to ‘settle’, to create the white-picket fence dream for myself and my daughter, and feel like I belong in a family-centric community. But irrespective of what values I might hold, being single shifts things to the left of centre. I may have created a family but when my child goes to her dad’s place, I’m not a family, I’m alone. And it’s this aloneness that somehow challenges me of my right to belong to the community of family.
“From the moment we first open our eyes, we start to develop a sense of belonging through our connections with place and with people.”
This all arose most significantly when I needed to enrol my daughter in school. All of a sudden I had to choose where I was going to settle. It was my decision alone, and it felt like an insurmountable one - where do I feel I belong? Each time I asked the question, my answer was nowhere.
I’m not sure if this is something many single parents feel? In my case, I hadn’t been married and settled when my baby came along - it was a surprise and so i continued living the way i had previously, but now with a child. So seguaying into an established community where most families have two adults to reinforce their sense of identity was difficult - I felt shy, and a bit out at sea.
However, like Nadia says above, developing connections with people and place is the key to belonging. And I’ve been realising that it’s more about me being comfortable in my own skin, having a strong sense of self than about the location or even the community. I’ve come up with a few ideas that help me feel like I do belong in the community I’ve chosen to dwell in, and may help you too.
How to feel you belong
Go to the school parent functions even if you feel like you’re going to be the only one who doesn’t have a partner. The fact is others will go alone while the other minds the kids, and you’ll naturally connect with people you like.
Join local community organisations and persist in going regularly - Nippers, other sporting or arts activities.
If you work at least try and be seen at the school gate once in a while, and occasionally take a day to volunteer in the classroom if it’s possible so other kids can get to know you. This is great for your child’s self-esteem, too.
Know that you have something great to offer your local community, start off small, even if it’s just a hello, and let it naturally take it’s course.
![parenting:
Oh the thinks you can think! … Dr. Seuss cookies!
[Via soudersstudios.com]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m0iwpdg0JX1qb499jo1_400.jpg)
