sarah's Arty Dreams

You know, I have not talked about what I am doing to improve the life of my children. That is sad isn't it?

Well, currently I am reading a book called, "Confident Children" By Gael Lindenfield. THANKS TO MY MOTHER, whom I love so much. My mother is a librarian at a Jr. College here in town. She runs into so many good books about how to raise children, how to be a better parent, and so on.

Some wonderful points that the author touches on are,

Discovering my auto-parent
Sabotaging behaviours of my inner child
Recovering my dreams
Action plan to upgrade my knowledge
My stress warning signals
Acton plan for stress prevention
Home-check
Family check-over
Building self-esteem
Helping my children to get to know themselves
My children's goals
Encouraging positive thinking
Improving communiction and presentation
Encouraging assertiveness
Managing feelings
Problem-solving
Dealing with conflict









~cool, i just typed all of that without looking and only made 3 mistakes, ~

Okay, so on with the book,

It is helping me as well as going to help my children.

"What is inner confidence?"
1.self-love
2.self-knowledge
3.clear goals
4.positive thinking


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Inner confidence give us the feeling and belief that we are OK
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Confident people love themselves
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Confident people are very self-aware
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Confident people see the brighter side of life
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~Isn't that wonderful and to the point? The author goes on to describe how to obtain this~

What is outer confidence?
1.communication
2.assertiveness
3.self-presentation
4.emotional control (something I have to work on in a MAJOR way)


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Outer confidence helps us appear and behave in a manner that shows to the outside world that we are self-assured.
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The 7 'saintly' characteristics of perfect parents
1.Stength-being sturdy enough to withstand having serveral people dependent on them for up to two decades

2.SensitivityI-having the ability to sense the needs and feelings of others who have not yet developed the capacity to express these adequately themselves

3.Sociability-having a lively interest in people and enjoying being part of social events (even if small and informal)

4.Skill-being interested in developing their full potential, being thirsty for new knowledge and ideas

5.Stimulationsurrounding themselves and their children with motivation and inspiring resources such as toys, books, music, videos and computer programs (my mother informed me I do this quite well:) )

6.Sense-providing enough security and stability so that their children are not constantly 'infected' with anxiety and fear that their basic needs may not be met

7.Successfulness-being keen to live their lives to the full and reach old age with few regrets ( got to work on that one) or constantly setting themselves challlenging but realistic goals

~I just noticed they all start with S, interesting~




The 7 'sinful' characteristics of 'not good-enough' parents

1.Selfishness-not veing willing sometimes to sacrifice their own comforts, pleasures or ambitions for the good of their children

2.Spitefulness-preventing children from using the opportunities and resources available to them because they themselves had to 'manage without' when they were their age

3.Sanctimoniousness-always knowing what is best and unable to see that anyone else's values could be worthwhile

4.Scepticism-being generally suspicious of people and reluctant to trust them

5.Sorrow-Being too full of their own hurt or grief to be able to share in and nurture their children's natural joie de vivre

6.Servility-being generally at everyone's beck and call, and then suddenly 'nose-diving' into periods of burnout and bitterness or allowing their children to treat them with disrespect (I personally hate this type of parent, not hate but .......despise)

7.Stagnation-Being resistant to change and ideas, leading a life which is overcontrolled by routine and regular rituals and has little opportunity for spontaneity.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Most of us are both sinner and saint. That's fine as long as the mixture is a 'good-enough' blend!
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That is one of my personal favorite quotes.

Well, there is much more but writing/typing it down really helps to burn in into my mind.
Hope everyone's weekend was filled with good human touch, good drinks (or good water at leaste) and fullfilling conversation (if even with yourself) hahahaha

Siempre,
Sarah