We often label children as being difficult. We forget that we too can be really difficult! What's actually difficult is growing up in a world that is full of exhausted, busy, impatient, nervous, and especially today digitally overstimulated adults. We were not taught how to deal with the current scenario of digital advancement. If we don't have time for the child, how can we expect the child to learn how to manage their emotions when we haven't learned how to manage ours? It's time to PAUSE and ask ourselves what WE are doing to help our children cope with their emotions and become less difficult. Have we learned to cope with ours? Thoughts anyone?

There are 4 stages in life that are not mutually exclusive. The learning years The earning years The legacy years The Golden years Our goal is to arrive at the Golden years having built a legacy we can be proud of. Also, in the Golden years people call us for our wisdom. However, wherever we are on the journey, we can still dabble in the other areas, in fact it is advisable. We can contribute a little wisdom when we are young, a little energy when we are not so young. We can contribute throughout our lives. Often these opportunities to contribute are right before our eyes. It can be a smile, helping someone across the street, a kind observation, patience when the wait is longer than it should be, making us late for the next thing, not needing to be "right" all the time, letting ourselves have a little grace when we screw up. All of these contribute to our legacy and prepare us for our golden years, when we can contribute true wisdom and be happy in the knowledge that we contributed.

What a revelation this was when I learned this. Among others, @Tina Saxena (one of our learned members) was responsible for this MASSIVE STEP FORWARD for me. We are not perfect. We will do our best and we will make mistakes. We can castigate ourselves or we can give ourselves "grace". Grace is NOT an EXCUSE. No, grace is the recognition that we all make mistakes, and as long as we do our best and LEARN from our mistakes and move forward 1 cm or more, we are doing well. The next time you make a mistake, mistreat someone or think something less than pure. Realize you are human. Realize you can do better, but realize, as long as you are doing your best in THIS MOMENT, you deserve a little bit of grace. What are the benefits when you give yourself some grace?

'A child learns to self-regulate by borrowing your calm, not by sitting alone with their overwhelm.' - Niki Green I came across this today, and it makes so much sense as compared to sending the child off alone as punishment or making them face the wall, stuff that was normally done when we were kids. I guess our parents simply didn't know any better. How do you deal with your children acting up?

When I watch football players take penalties (I like football), they take several deep breaths so as to control their body and emotions. It's just an example of what we can do in our lives before any stressful moment. Often we can't predict when a stressful moment will come in our days so it is up to us to take several small pauses each day to close our eyes, get connected to our bodies and our feelings/stresses so that when compounding stresses arrive (triggers) we are already "destressed" from the other tentions we had in our bodies and minds beforehand. What do you think? How do you do this?