Mother/Son Night …

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Last night at my son’s high school, we had a “Mother/Son Night”. It was beautiful. It was all about reconnecting with our sons as they make the transition from primary school to high school. I looked around the room and saw how the speakers’ words provoked all sorts of emotions in the faces of the mums around me, who were feeling exactly the same as me. I had come to realise that this is a time of wanting to hold on so tight, but knowing that we have to start letting go, just a little bit, as our boys start to grow up into fine young men.

The kids had to bring something that would remind their mum about their childhood, but were not allowed to tell us what it was. So, my boy secretly went upstairs, hunted around until he found what it was he was looking for, and smuggled it into his backpack. Read more…

Bullying… What you can do.

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There are many different forms of bullying. Generally, bullying can be grouped into the following categories:

  • Verbal – name calling, gossiping about someone, criticising or spreading rumours
  • Emotional – threatening, intimidating someone, putting someone down
  • Exclusion – ignoring or isolating someone
  • Physical – hurting someone physically, and or destroying their property
  • Cyberbullying – using technology to hurt someone emotionally via text messages, pictures, and other social media sites.

Whatever the type of bullying, it is wrong. Bullying involves hurtful behaviour which is repeated over again. It can happen anywhere, anytime, and the consequences can be devastating. Read more…

And I always thought it would be the slippers…

Just got home from school pick up, went to the mail box to check the mail when my daughter said, “What’s that for mum?” She was pointing to my feet. I looked down and saw this:

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Ohhhh nooooo! I had gone to school with two different shoes on! I had been in such a hurry to leave, because I was running late again, that I grabbed the shoes from the shoe rack and just put them on without looking! I have always had this image of one day going to school and forgetting to change my shoes and looking down to see my slippers! I never thought it would be this! I’m still wiping away the tears from laughter! Oh well, for those of you who didn’t notice, now you have! It’s always good to have a laugh, even better when it can be at yourself!

“Car Park Mafia…”

“Car Park Mafia…”

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A few years ago, I read an article in the newspaper about the “Car Park Mafia”. If I hadn’t experienced it and seen it for myself, I would have laughed and thought,”Yeah right, how can that exist?” Instead, I grabbed the newspaper with enthusiasm and eagerly read the article, which spilled the ugly truth about this crazy epidemic sweeping through our schools at lightning speed. Read more…

“Women Behaving Badly…”

images “Women Behaving Badly…”

I grew up always seeing the good in everyone. Everyone was wonderful in my eyes. I was always worried about hurting someone else’s feelings. Why would someone want to hurt someone else on purpose, I thought, that’s insane! My husband, who is way more streetwise than me, reminded me often, “Be careful, not everyone thinks like you!” Yeah right, I thought, what a sad way to look at life. But he was right. It wasn’t until I was in my mid 30s that my perception of human nature changed forever. Read more…

“Pick on Somebody Your Own Size…”

“Pick on Somebody Your Own Size…”

A few years ago when my daughter was 4 years old and in kinder, I was putting her to bed one night. She looked at me with her beautiful big brown eyes, graced with long, thick, dark eyelashes that look like butterfly wings and said, “Mummy, I’m not beautiful because I’m not tall!” She then started to cry. Tears welled up in my eyes and I felt the sudden need to scoop her up with both arms, wrap her up in cotton wool, and protect her forever from this big, sometimes horrible world. Here we go I thought, I knew this would happen. Read more…

 

 

Bullying …

 

I started this blog after I met with a friend of mine, who shared with me her gut wrenching experience. Her daughter had been the victim of bullying for a number of years, and had tried to harm herself, twice. It broke my heart to see my beautiful friend and her beautiful girl suffer such pain, just because of someone else’s hate. Bullying has to stop. It is an evil epidemic with tragic consequences. My friend was smart enough to seek professional help, as you should when a situation like this escalates to such a point of despair and desperation. But what if we could do something before it gets to this point? Read more…

 

Paper Cranes and Cows…

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The other day my son came home from school after completing a maths test. “How was the test?” I asked him as he walked through the front door, dropping his blazer, tie, belt, socks at different intervals in a line down the corridor, like a working man eager to leave his busy day behind him. “Great”, he said, “I finished it early”. “Awesome”, I said, “Did you review it?” “Well, kind of”, he replied, “I made sure I finished every question, but I didn’t check every answer, I had just done it mum, I didn’t want to do it again! But I made a paper crane out of my working out sheet!” (See photo above). Gee, I thought, typical Year 7 kid, can’t do too much work now can we! “But”, he said, “the teacher supervising saw my paper crane, screwed it up and threw it in the bin!” I asked him what he did and he said, “I told her that it had a life to live and its legacy will live on! And then I did a “bin dive” into the bin and saved it!” He pulled the paper crane out of his school bag and showed it to me with pride. I laughed, I knew he had not been disrespectful, and I told him I was glad he had saved the crane.

On the same day, my daughter came home from school and told me that they had been asked in class, to write about their wonderings of Australia. She said a little boy had written “I wonder what would happen if cows ruled Australia!” I thought that was funny and had a giggle, but her substitute teacher thought it was not, and so he got into trouble!

Don’t you think that sometimes it would be great to see the lighter side of life and not always be so precious and proper? We get so caught up in the dos and don’ts that we forget to have fun. A child’s imagination is bursting with innocent, creative thoughts and perceptions that are yet to be suppressed. Let’s nurture that and teach them that as long as we are always respectful towards others, it’s ok to have fun and laugh, after all laughter and happiness are the keys to a healthy and happy mind and soul, am I right?

Just Listen…

 

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I woke up this morning at 4.30 with a horrible pain in my stomach. “What’s going on?” I thought, I had stuff on my mind but nothing that would cause this. When my little girl got up, she said to me “Mummy, what’s wrong?”. “Nothing”, I replied, as I ran out of the room heading for the bathroom for the fifth time!

On my return I tried to have breakfast, but this horrible pain would not settle. She looked at me and said, “I know what’s wrong, you wrote your blog now everyone knows your feelings and you are scared”. I looked at my little girl in shock and awe! How can someone so young understand so much when I didn’t even understand it myself! “Mum, you need to meditate with me”, she said. Instead of pushing her theory aside, I listened. She said, “Follow what I do, we do this in class!”

She made me sit on the edge of my chair with my back straight, lay my hands in my lap one on top of the other, and asked me to close my eyes. She then said she needed a “singing bowl”, we didn’t have one so she improvised and used a tin filled with stickers that was on the table. She struck it three times. She then asked me to repeat the word “Maranatha”, over and over in my mind, she said that they had been doing this in class and the mantra meant “God be with me” or “Our Lord Has Come”, in another language. We did this for a few minutes until she struck the “singing bowl” another three times. She then said “Open your eyes!” And I saw her beautiful, smiling face. She said to me “We meditated!” And yes, we had.

I kid you not, the pain had gone. I felt a heavy weight lift and I felt calm. I got a few cramps every now and then but the horrible pain had gone.

My little girl had looked into my soul and understood what I was feeling before I could. The fact that I had suppressed my intimate feelings about my and my son’s bullying experience for so long, had led to a very confronting, emotional backlash from my inner self once I had put it all out there for everyone to read. I see that now and I know that now, but it took my nine year old daughter, to show me.

We had a moment this morning, a moment I will never take for granted and I will never forget. “I love you”, I said as usual when I dropped her off at school, but then I added, “Today you taught me something amazing, and you changed my life forever, thank you!” Her smile said it all.

She took the “singing bowl” home from school today, (see picture above), and made us all meditate after dinner tonight! Who wanted to wash up after that! We were way too relaxed!

I learnt today that meditation connects us to our soul. I suppose I had always known this, but had never felt it before now.

Our kids are our greatest gifts. They have important, valuable things to say, what we need to do is make sure that we listen.

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