Teach Kids Peace

One of the best ways to teach your children about the nations political process and power system is to actively take part in it.  I don’t mean just turn out to vote once every 2 or 4 years, I mean actively participate in the political party of your choice at a local level.  There are numerous ways to do this, but by far the best way is to become a precinct chair.

The precinct is the smallest voting block, consisting of a neighborhood of maybe two thousand voters, and the precinct chairman is the basic grassroots official of both the Republican and Democratic parties.  By being actively involved in this role your kids will not be able to help but learn by osmosis the inner workings of our major political parties.  In fact, growing up in a household with this level of political activity they will no doubt be better educated about the way our democracy works then the vast majority of adults!

Precinct chairs regularly engage in volunteer activities with their respective parties.  This is also a great education opportunity for your children.  Not only do they learn how things really work by rubbing shoulders with your towns movers and shakers, they can also potentially make valuable friendships via networking with these people that can hold them in good stead later in life.

Take the extra steps and get personally involved in politics.  By exploring your civic duty in this manner you are both providing a positive role model for your kids, and potentially making a difference in your local community.  That truly is a win-win situation.  Who knows, you may even enjoy it!  Imagine if you took the next step and became a statewide or national elected officials, that would really provide the ultimate political education for you and your children alike!

It is very impressive to include in a particular business case the need to introduce peace and politics to kids. The business case for the style and process may vary but the end goal remains the same and that is to make kids more aware of how they should behave so that tolerating misbehavior, unintentional discrimination, and other culture-sensitive activities is prevented.

Another concern in which kids can be exposed at such young age is to learn how to manage their money well. Tell them how money works today. Give them scenarios in which they are challenged to choose the right option. Motivate them through positive reinforcements; appreciate how they are able to save money and how they refuse to buy things that are not really necessary and significant at the moment.

Another current concern today is the safety of children from violence and abuse. They cannot be forever ignorant of this troublesome world. However, it does not mean that at their age, they can easily understand what is going on or personally experience any traumatic event.

Thus, it is important that they must be constantly reminded to be at the right place at the right time. They should avoid going to places that pose potential threats and harm. Further, kids must learn how to surf the internet more responsibly. There must also be means of enhancing their response behavior and skills when dealing with possible emergencies.

More importantly, the surroundings must not be described to kids in a too pessimistic or too optimistic manner. Allow kids to appreciate better and assess better by showing them both negative and positive aspects of an event, perspective, or behavior.

Another important component related to peace and politics is to be logical and sensible in your discussions with the kids. If you are talking about emotionally challenging experiences or future circumstances, their age and capacity to understand must be well considered. Further, if they are very curious and adventurous, allow them enough freedom but know exactly when to interfere and how to correct them if they are quite wrong or perhaps exploring things that are unsuitable for their age.

Classroom education is also a good training ground for all kinds of kids in learning how to be social and political in their actions and values in life. Thus, educators must be fully aware of the opportunities that classroom education can offer in building future citizens who are free and responsible for what they think, say, and do.

More than ever our food is being adulterated. This is partly due to the logistical pressures of producing enough food to feed the ever growing world population. It used to be that agriculture employed one third of the world’s population. Industrialization has changed this and influenced agriculture. Food can be grown quicker by not only using fertilizers and pesticides, but also by applying conveyor belt principles to producing food.

These principles have lead to unspeakable cruelty to animals. In America people no longer ‘raise’ chickens, they now ‘grow’ chickens. Animals have been downgraded to something less then sentient. Growing chickens involves incarceration in dark warehouses, continual antibiotic sprays and a diet designed to produce bulk and fat not muscles. Turkey production is even worse. The birds are so far from their natural state they cannot even breed without human assistance. Dairy cows are similarly mistreated. It is not suitable to describe the treatment of animals in the food system as ‘inhumane’ because they are not human. It is nevertheless intolerably cruel.

It is not only the animals that suffer. Humans that consume the meat and other products from animals are also being affected. Hormone laced meat is making young girls reach pubescence unnaturally early. This is just one example of how agribusiness products are effecting people, especially young people.

We must boycott the most harmful of agribusiness products. We must do more research into the dangers of chemicals in food production, and we must do more to support initiatives to make food cleaner and healthier for young people. We should educate the young in the benefits of drinking organic coconut milk. In eating organic vegetables and fruit. In eating a variety of food stuffs. America is dominated by corn and soy. Other staples must be encouraged. This can only happen by educating the young about healthy eating. They will hopefully pass this down to their children.

Not only will people start to be healthier, but no doubt they will also be mentally healthier and less likely to fall victims of  Ritalin and the like.

Our children have the future of the world at their young hands.  If we can teach them to attain stability in their personal lives, then peace will inevitably prosper.  An important aspect of stability in one’s life is being stable financially.  We need to teach our children the importance of saving for retirement by using a 401k calculator suited to their specific situation.

Homeschooling and Online Dating
Homeschooling has become rampant in America and Canada today. Many parents feel that they are much more in control of their children education once they are homeschooling. Many people cite several challenges that come from being home schooled. The main issue about homeschooling is socializing. Many home schooled kids need friends and they may be limited to those only in the home schooled group. However, this is not much of a problem with the involvement of the various services that are found from the internet. Lack of friends is a thing of the past with the idea of online dating.

Online dating sites are available for kids and they have the required limitations for kids to find friends and dates. When alone at home, one can find other home schooled children online via forums or via Facebook. The problem for many home schooled children remains finding love and here in Montreal I recommend you start using sites de rencontre gratuit in French or free dating sites in English. These safe, sensible students’ sites and teen chat rooms are able to allow students and other home schooled people to socialize. Kids are free of lack of friends when the online chats provide various topics on which kids can participate. It is very easy to find peers who have similar interests and strong friendships are built. Various activities are also offered in these sites for kids to participate with friends while having lots of fun. Video games, movies and TV shows are incorporated in these sites to bring kids together from all over the world. It is important for parents who provide education to their children at home to have them participate in these online dating and chat rooms to help them find friends.
High school kids who are home schooled would benefit a lot from online dating. Many complain of lack of friends and this can be solved easily without having to be enrolled in an actual school. Online discussions are available and help instructions are included in the sites. Kids will not just be educated but also they will achieve social skills both online and offline. The sites are very safe and parents should counter check what services are offered before allowing their kids to join the sites. All the information will be availed and parents will have no cause to worry on their children accessing inappropriate information.
The kids who join online dating are able to create a good profile and be honest about their skills and interests. Parents can be able to supervise their kids so that they do not spend the whole day on the computer but enough time to meet and chat with friends. Kids can share education tips with their friends online and help each other with education matters. Online sites can be very beneficial to kids if used appropriately.

Social media has become increasingly popular with many young people today. It is possible to connect with friends and family through sites like Facebook. However, these sites have being misused by malicious people or kids who result to harassing others. Parents, kids, social networking sites and social dating sites have to be proactive and be aware that cyber bullying is a major problem. Various things should be put into consideration to prevent cyber bullying within the social media. The major issue is educating ourselves and understanding social networking as well as cyber bullying.

Parents should be able to learn and get acquainted with social media as well as dating sites. Knowledge on how these sites work and how kids interact with them is very important. In most cases, sites like Facebook have an age limit that kids below a certain age cannot join. If this is the case, the parent should be able to implement this rule in the home. Dating sites are mainly for the older people and therefore, parents should ensure their kids do not join these sites. These dating websites are also used by kids to harass others about their appearance and profile information. If the child does not join these sites then it is easier to bring down the bullying. A good dating site that I can recommend to university students is match4me as it has a strict member policy where bullying is not allowed. Also with online dating sites in Belgium, it is very important to respect each other as much as we can. Parents and teachers should encourage kids to make peace with one another and avoid hurting other people. If one is a parent, ensure that you are in peace with your neighbors and the kid’s friends. Monitor what kids do online just as you monitor what they do offline. It is very necessary to have your children’s password from social media sites. For university students, I would focus on joining paid online dating sites such as Match4Me to be sure there are only relationship minded people on that site. With free dating sites there can be a chance that you are singled out to bully as now everybody knows you are single and looking for love.The kids should be allowed to have an online account if they give the parent the password so that the parents monitor what the kids do online. It is important for parents to stay involved with their children and develop close relationships. In this way, children will be more open to them and approach them when they have problems in school or in social media.

For parents whose children are in dating sites must ensure that they teach kids computer etiquette and caution them against posting images or information that they would not want everyone to see. Parents should encourage their children to spend more time with their friends or family offline more than spending hours on the computer. Online dating sites such as Match 4 Me should only be allowed to be used when they go to college in order to find a equally high educated partner. Sites like Facebook should be used on a limited amount of time.

On a recent trip to wine country with my wife and son, I found my wife talking to a woman in the tasting room who had her own young children playing outside.  They were making plans for a playdate later that afternoon.

As it turns out, that woman was the winemaker’s wife where we were tasting.  Evidently they have 3 kids of their own which helps to explain why they had a BBQ area and other kid friendly activities at a winery.  We got along well enough that we now support them by giving their wine as wine gifts to all of our friends and family.

It did get me to thinking though-what would it be like to grow up at a winery? On a vineyard?  Would you have an enlightened view of social justice because of working with seasonal laborers, or would you only be interested in the bottom line?

Every kid is different in his/her own right. In the challenging world today, kids need right kind of nurturing and upbringing. Education is an important aspect of any child’s development as it teaches them to become responsible and sane citizens. However, one important subject that is life changing yet is not taught in schools is the subject of money. Kids must be taught about money from an early stage say from the age of 10. It is rather strange and perhaps a little upsetting that money in many families is not discussed openly.

Money management teaches kids to understand how it is earned and more importantly, where they must spend it. Majority of people who struggle financially are the ones who are weak at handling money. Many of these people think that having more money solves their problems but the fact of the matter is that it is lack of financial literacy that causes them to fail. If you want your kid to succeed in life then it is important to make him/her understand how money works.

The best way to approach this subject is when you’ve heaps of time on hand. Create a calm and serene atmosphere. It is good to get some snacks and juices using the latest Breville 800JEXL for something to go with the conversation. Softly break the topic and listen to what your kid thinks about the topic before burdening him/her with any kind of information. Once you know what your kid thinks then you can slowly talk about it. Kids are great learners so please mindful of what you teach them. It is always advisable to give them pocket money but also teach them to become accountable for it by keeping a track of where they spend it. Later, sit with your kid and explain why a certain expense was necessary and why some could be avoided.

Financial literacy is a wonderful tool and all champions must start early.

They say the root cause of racism is fear. It is fear of the ‘other’, the ‘alien’ that leads to hatred for other races. This fear is based upon ignorance. Because people have little true experience of another culture they tend to view that other culture as inferior and by extension the people from that other culture as worthy of contempt. As result people come up with racist terms that become common parlance and racism enters the linguistic level.

It is important to never allow your child to use such words. I won’t even write which words I mean because they are offensive and shouldn’t even be written in defense of tolerance and mutual understanding. When I was young my parents took me to India. I was shocked by the chaos and the strangeness of the place. But eventually, I learned to love the culture and the people. Even though I was only 12 years old I realized that my country was no better than India. And that Indian culture was beautiful.

Now I have a child. I want him to also appreciate the different cultures of the world, and also the different people of the world. I’m going to be a bit more gentle with my son. First we are going to Laem Set beach in Koh Samui. We will enjoy the beach, the the animals and visit the nearby temples. Then when he is acclimatized to Asian culture we are going into the heart of the chaos – Varanasi in India and we are going to watch the celebrations for divali.

My greatest hope is that my son will learn valuable lessons from this journey and will not be a racist not because he is told not to be one but because he has experienced first hand the beauty of foreign cultures and peoples.

The idea of “living mindfully” can be a difficult value to teach our kids, especially in our modern go-go world.  With so many distractions, a 24 hour news cycle and our caffeinated approach to living, it can be hard to stop “doing” and start “being.”  To help my kinds start to practice mindfulness I started with the simple ritual of drinking tea.

Drinking tea may not be the usual place to start.  Most people who teach mindfulness start with asking us to concentrate on our breathing.  But this did not resonate with my children.  They needed more for their mind to latch onto than just breathing in and out.  Perhaps they didn’t have the patience?  But when we began to be mindful one sip and a time when drinking tea, something clicked for them.  They were able to quiet the mental chatter of their minds and fully appreciate the tea and the present moment of their lives.  They had become mindful.

From there, things flowed easily.  We started a tea journey, enjoying loose leaf tea leaves from around the world.  We sipped all the tea types from green tea to oolong tea to chai tea, being mindful as we did so.  Then we started to embrace the practice of mindful eating.  Putting our fork down between each mouthful, being silent and really experiencing the flavour and texture of what we were eating.

Mindful eating has brought us into the world of gardening.  We now grow quite a lot of what we eat and what we steep.  We now cook every day.  And every day we are becoming more connected with the process of creating food.

For me (and I think now also for my children) mindfulness is about living a more sensory life.  After all, if we are able to notice the small things in life, like the delicate taste of a white tea, or the sweet burst from a ripe tangerine, then we’ll be able to notice ALL the details in our life.  And a more mindful, a richer life blooms.

To me, one of the most important aspects of bringing a child up is to instil the notion of sharing within them.  The ability to share will always inspire a peaceful atmosphere so making our children aware that sharing with one another is a vital life skill is of paramount importance.  My older sister has a son aged four and he is the only child /grand child / nephew in our family and he gets spoilt rotten.  Even though we try and install the notion of sharing into him, it can be quite a task and my sister hopes that this will improve once he has a little brother or sister of his own to look out for and share with.

Having two or more young children can be quite difficult to balance your time between and even simple things like going to the shops can be rather taxing, especially when daddy is out at work and mummy has to travel on public transport.  My sisters son will quickly understand that it is not all about him and he will have to share his mothers time with his little sibling, as well as  having to share his toys, give regular hand me downs, and probably even sharing modes of transport!  For this, double baby strollers are vital but only really work if the children are of close enough age – a problem which my sister may have to experiment with.  Here’s hoping my little nephew embraces his new found ability to share!