Bear Cottage Hospice for Children

Bear Cottage, located in Manly, is a children’s hospice – a very special place dedicated to caring for children with life-limiting conditions and their families. At Bear Cottage, every life, however short, is enriched, enjoyed and celebrated.

Bear Cottage is a place, where cherished moments and special memories are created – a place where life is for living. Whilst staying at Bear Cottage, families receive individual, specialised support delivered by a team of dedicated and highly skilled professionals.

A stay at this home away from home is exactly what each family needs it to be. Families do not pay for any services they receive from Bear Cottage, instead the $2.5 million required to keep the doors open each year are raised entirely by the community.

For more information visit the Bear Cottage Website

If you are interested in participating in a fundraiser for these wonderful kidsBear Cottage Go Fundraise - Click here for info

How to get more of what you want...

Positive thinking is certainly a powerful thing, but positive expression is equally important. Many people, especially marriage partners and parents of small children, seem to believe that the best way to get somebody to change for the better is to consistently point out to them what they are doing wrong.

These authority figures criticize, day in and day out. Eventually the people they are talking to become frustrated and often start to feel angry, because they see that nothing they say or do has any positive effect, and sometimes things even get worse.

Has this ever happened to you? If so, there's a principle of cognitive psychology that I teach in my seminars you'll want to know about. It's simply this: We move toward and become like what we think about. And we automatically behave in ways that match the image we have of our capabilities and ourselves.

When you focus on what is going wrong, you tend to experience more of the problem. And when you focus on the solution, you move toward it, as surely as day follows night.

So instead of telling folks what they are doing wrong, why not tell them what they are doing right? Instead of telling them what the problem is, why not tell them what the solution looks like and how it will benefit them personally?

And while you're at it, why not tell them how much you enjoy and appreciate the thoughtful or bright or funny things they say and do. Remember the behavior that you focus on and praise tends to be repeated.



Lou Tice

The Pacific Institute

Talking with Teens

What should parents do if they want their teenagers to confide in them? Dr. Joyce Vedral, author of several books on the teenager-parent relationship, asked a large number of teens to answer this question, and here is what they said.

Generally, teenagers tend to feel comfortable talking with those parents with whom they can laugh and joke, parents whose understanding they know can count on. When asked why they would choose one parent over another to confide in, they invariably say they choose the one who stays calm even when they, themselves, are emotional, and who never says things like, "That shouldn't bother you."

Here's something else that's critical. In our efforts to get our teenagers to talk to us, many of us neglect to talk to them - especially about how much we appreciate, love and admire them. Sometimes we get so caught up in our efforts to keep our kids on the right track that we forget to tell them how great they are. That is a big mistake.

Nothing can be more encouraging and more conducive to building their self-esteem than you taking the time to express confidence that they have what it takes to make it in life.

They may not tell you on the spot how much your approval matters to them, but believe me, it does.

P.S. Don't feel guilty if you haven't done these things so far. There's no time like the present to start!

article by
Lou Tice
read more or sign up for newsletters at:
The Pacific Institute
www.thepacificinstitute.com

Listening to Teens

An article by Lou Tice...
Parents of teenagers often complain that they can't get their kids to communicate. Sometimes there are good reasons why.

Teenagers really want to be able to talk to their parents. In fact, in some cases, they're dying because they can't. Most teens who commit suicide are those who feel they can't talk to either parent, and their feelings of loneliness, isolation and despair take over.

Parents, without realizing it, do things that stop their teen-aged children from confiding in them. What sorts of things? Well, they interrupt to give reprimands and lectures instead of just listening, giving support and saving the moral lesson for another time.

Or, they discount what the teen is feeling by making it seem trivial or unimportant, especially when compared to the grown-up responsibilities parents must cope with.

If you catch yourself behaving in these ways when your teenagers try to talk with you, stop and apologize. Your teenager will appreciate your efforts to change your behavior to gain a closer relationship, and he or she will give you another chance - maybe not on the spot, but soon.

If your communications have broken down completely, a few visits to a good family therapist can help get you back on track. Few things in life are as important as your relationship with your kids. Why not make it as good as it can possibly be?

by Lou Tice
Learn more or read more at:
The Pacific Institute
www.thepacificinstitute.com

people who try to belittle you

"Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great." Mark Twain

How Does Divorce Affect Teenagers

Parenting Question

"After a turbulent 18 years of marriage, I believe my husband and I will be getting a divorce soon. We've split up lots of times before (due to both his and my affairs) and we've tried counseling, but this time I think it is finally over. There is too much hurt and too much anger. Cliché of me perhaps, but I have stayed because of my kids. I just want to know, how does divorce really affect teenagers? I have two teens: a 14-year-old girl and a 16-year-old boy." --Soon-To-Be Single Mom


Positive Parenting Tip for Teenagers Dealing with Divorce

Dear Soon-To-Be Single Mom:

Bottom line--getting a divorce will rock your teens' world.
Yet chances are your children have already experienced the negative affects of your strained relationship to your husband. Yongmim Sun, assistant professor at Ohio State,conducted a National Education Longitudinal Study with over 10,000 students and concluded that: "The negative effects that we associate with divorce are actually evident in teens at least one year before the marriage has ended.... It's not accurate to say divorce doesn't matter at all, but it is true that much of the damage to adolescents has already occurred before the divorce." (Journal of Marriage and Family, August 2001).

So how will your teens react? There is no way to tell for certain, but generally teens and pre-teens dealing with their parents divorce may become:

1. Angry and highly critical of their parents' decision.

2. Depressed or withdrawn from both parents, while seeking stronger connections with peers.

3. Disillusioned with marriage and feel rejected by one or both parents.

4. Better behaved--hoping that this will save their parents' marriage.

5. Involved with risk-taking activities (i.e. skipping class, turning to drugs and alcohol, becoming sexually active, etc.)

6. Withdrawn from one parent as a form of punishment--while taking the side of the other parent.

Fortunately, you can mitigate some of these negative effects by:
1. Maintaining current family routines (as much as possible) and ensuring that your kids have quality time with both you and your husband.

2. Resisting the urge to lean on your teens for support and instead seeking counseling and the support of your own friends.

3. Taking a vow of silence whenever you feel compelled to speak ill of your husband while in the presence of your children.

4. Ensuring that your teens have support from friends and family. Research suggests that support from extended members of your family and community can make a world of difference when it comes to having your teens successfully survive a divorce.

5. Finding a counselor for your teens that they like and can confide in (school counselors are sometimes useful to consult).

6. Continuing to expect respect from your teens and maintaining your current household rules.

Divorce (and the lead up to divorce) puts a strain on everyone in the family. By striving to make your divorce as amicable as possible, by finding support for your teens and counseling for you, and by staying connected with your children you will get through this--and so will they.



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Article by: Kelly Nault, MA author of When You’re About To Go Off The Deep End, Don’t Take Your Kids With You inspires moms to put themselves first—for the sake of their children. She shares time-tested tools that motivate children to want to be well behaved, responsible and happy!
Mommy Moments.com

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Would you stop to listen?

The Setting: In Washington, a Railway Station, a cold January morning, a man with a violin played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time, approximately 2,000 people went through the station, most of them on their way to work.

He finished playing and silence took over. Of all the people walking through the station that day, very few people stopped to notice. No one knew this, but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the greatest musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written, with a violin worth $3.5 million dollars. Two days before, Joshua Bell sold-out a theater in Boston where the seats averaged $100 each to sit and listen to him play the same music.

The Experiment: Joshua Bell, playing incognito in the D.C. Metro Station, was organized by Gene Weingarten of the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste and people's priorities.

This experiment raised several questions:

*In a common-place environment, at an inappropriate hour, do we perceive beauty?

*If so, do we stop to appreciate it?

*Do we recognize talent in an unexpected context?

One possible conclusion reached from this experiment could be this:

If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world, playing some of the finest music ever written, with one of the most beautiful instruments ever made . . .

How many other things are we missing as we rush through life?

An excerpt from mountainwings.com