Raising children of character demands time and attention. Being a successful parent is much more complicated than just having them. Here are ten tips for building character in children:

1. Make parenting your priority. In a world that has so many competing demands, putting your parenting duties first is hard. Good parents deliberately plan and devote time to parenting. They make developing their children’s character a top priority.
2. Review how you spend time with your kids. Think about the amount of time you spend with your children. Consciously decide how to weave your children into your social life and conversely, knit yourself into their lives.
3. Be the best example. The key way we humans learn is through modeling. It’s impossible to not be an example to your kids, whether that be good or bad. Being a good example, then, is probably one of your most important child-rearing tasks.
4. Watch what your children are absorbing. Children are little sponges. A high percentage of what they take in is about moral values and character. Books, songs, TV, the Internet, and films are continually delivering moral and immoral messages.  To be good parents, we should control the flow of ideas and images that are influencing our children.
5. Use the right language. Children cannot develop a moral compass unless people around them use the clear, sharp language of what is right and what is wrong.
6. Punish from a sense of love. Today, using punishment gets a bad rap that results in guilty parents and self-indulgent, out-of-control children. Children need limits. They will ignore these limits on occasion. Reasonable punishment is one of the ways for children to learn what they cause has an effect and it helps them learn one of Life’s most powerful laws.
7. Listen to your children. It is easy to tune out the talk of our children. Tell yourself right now that you will be tuned into them talking to you and that you will stop what you are doing immediately to listen.
8. Be involved in your child’s school life. School is the main event in the lives of our children. School days bring triumphs and disappointments. How your kids deal with them will influence their entire lives. Helping your children be good students is another way for helping them build strong character.
9. Make a big deal of the family meal. One of the most dangerous trends today is the death of the family meal. The dinner table is not only a place of sustenance and family business but also a place for the teaching and passing on of our values. Manners and rules are subtly absorbed over the table. Family mealtime should communicate and sustain ideals which children will draw on throughout their lives.
10. Do not reduce character education only to words. Parents should help children by promoting moral action through self-discipline, good work habits, kind and considerate behavior to others, and community service. This takes practice.

We parents want our children to craft their own characters while we provide the environment and tools to help them accomplish this.  We want them to develop honesty, generosity, and a sense of justice while we build our own character through the daily blood, sweat and tears of struggling to be good parents. By everyone’s efforts in building character in children, we can produce a society that values others.

While it’s absolutely splendid to have a home that is admired for it’s beauty, it so important to be sure that home is solid and safe from the ground up, from the inside out. Basic maintenance is often much more important than having a re-designed kitchen, for example. To be sure your home is in tip-top shape year round, here is a handy home maintenance checklist by Bob Vila, of television fame.

1. Roof: Check the roof and around vents, skylights, and chimneys for leaks. Repair as necessary.
2. Attic: If there is no ridge vent, keep gable vents open year-round to ensure proper ventilation.
3. Gutters: Clean the gutters and drain pipes so leaves won’t clog them and be sure they drain away from the house. (Fall: In cold-climate areas) Drain outside faucets.
4. Fireplace: Clean the fireplace of ashes. (Fall) Check the chimney for loose or missing mortar. Have the chimney professionally cleaned. Make sure the damper closes tightly. (Spring) Leave the damper open for improved ventilation if the home is not air-conditioned.
5. Filters: Remember to clean or replace filters once a month, or as needed. Check and clean the dryer vent, air conditioner, stove hood, and room fans. Keep heating and cooling vents clean and free from furniture and draperies.
6. Safety Equipment: Ensure that all smoke detectors, carbon monoxide detectors, and fire extinguishers are in good working order. Replace batteries in appropriate devices as needed, or at least twice each year.
7. Air Conditioner: (Fall: In cold-climate areas) Remove window air-conditioners, or put weatherproof covers on them.
8. Refrigerator: Make sure your refrigerator door seals are airtight. Test them by closing the door over a dollar bill. If you can pull the bill out easily, the latch may need to be adjusted or the seal may need to be replaced. In addition, if you have a coil-back refrigerator, vacuum the coils at least twice each year. Your refrigerator will run more efficiently with clean coils. Also, stock up! A full refrigerator uses less energy than an empty one.
9. Faucets: Check for leaky faucets in the kitchen and bathroom(s). Replace washers as necessary.
10. Windows and Doors: Seal drafty doors and windows. If you added up all of the small cracks where heating and cooling escapes from a home, it would be the same as having a window open. Replace seals as needed.
11. Storm Windows and Screens: (Fall) Take down screens (if removable type) and replace with storm windows. (Spring) Remove, clean, and store storm windows (if removable). Check and patch all door and window screens. Put screens up (if removable type).
12. Siding and Paint: Look for cracks and holes in house siding or paint. Replace caulk if necessary. A carpet knife can work well for cutting away old caulking from house siding. Slice down alongside it from both directions with the hook-like blade, then use the knife to lift out the old caulk bead intact.
13. Basement: Check the basement walls and floor for dampness. Be sure to clean the dehumidifier regularly, if you have one.
14. Heating System: (Fall) Have the heating system serviced. Change filters.
15. Hot Water Heater: (Fall) Drain the hot water heater. Remove sediment from the bottom of the tank.

By carefully reviewing each item on this home maintenance checklist, you’ll insure that your home will be the “safe haven” you expect all year round.

Do you know the history of Valentine’s Day? On February 14^th, St. Valentine’s Day, there is a history celebrated that goes back to 5^th century Rome commemorating a Bishop named Valentine. While it’s become a religious tradition, it originated in a pagan ritual where young men’s rite of passage was honored by a lottery in which they would draw the names of teenage girls from a box. Far from the Valentine’s Day love we now associate with the holiday.

Through the years, Valentine became the symbol of love, because he secretly married young soldiers against the direct order of the Emperor Claudius who thought that unmarried soldiers performed the best. He was martyred for his disobedience. Today’s celebration shows history repeating itself as young men seek the affection of women by buying flowers, presents and cards as a symbol of their love.

All this is well and good if you have someone in your life who loves you, but there are many who are without this significant, gift-bearing other, for whom Valentine’s Day love presents a painful problem.  It’s for this problem that I offer a loving solution.

Love yourself this Valentine’s Day.

If you like candy, buy yourself a box of your favorites.  If you like flowers, purchase some that are your preference.  And if it’s a gift that you wish you were receiving, get one for yourself.

But that’s only the beginning of your celebration.  This is a perfect opportunity to spend some time figuring our just what is right and good about you.  Try this:

Buy yourself a Self-Love Journal and use it on Valentine’s Day (while you’re munching on candy and smelling the roses) to answer some of these questions about yourself:

1. Do I have a clear idea about reality and am I comfortable about my life?
2. How accepting am I of myself and of others?
3. What is my degree (list a percentage) of being natural and spontaneous?
4. Do I focus on the solution to my problem or only on myself, mainly how I feel?
5. What are my needs for privacy? Do I feel detached or engaged?
6. Am I self-reliant or autonomous? What can I do to unfold more self-sufficiency?
7. What is my level of appreciation for all that is in my life?  Is this my focus or am I focused on what’s problematic?
8. Do I go within myself and have I had transcendent experiences by doing this?
9. Do I identify, have sympathy and am interested in others?
10. Are my relationships with others deep and meaningful?
11. What’s my level of respect for others regardless of race, appearance, income, etc.?
12. Can I discriminate between means and ends? If not, am I willing to find the answer?
13. Is my sense of humor genuine and non-hostile?
14. Am I creative – original and inventive, expressive, perceptive, and spontaneous in everyday life?
15. Am I fully independent of my culture, belonging to it, but not complying with all its demands?

There are many things to love about your Sweet Self, and my strong hope is that you do feel the Valentine’s Day love that you deserve..

On Valentine’s Day, two ways to show love are the gifting of flowers and candy.  What else can you do to say “I love you”? Could you define your love of another in words? Could you extend your love through some actions? Could you listen attentively to the one you love to see what they’d really appreciate as a symbol of your love? Can you extend your love to embrace all in universality?

We are united in this experience called life, each of us drawn toward self-discovery, some of us niche experts, and some of us grateful learning and observing the expertise of others. A strong leader will help to make us part of a unified team.

If you’ve ever watched a flock of birds flying in formation, you will recall that it’s hard to distinguish who is doing the leading.  What you are amazed about though is how well the entire flock moves as one. What is being transmitted that evokes their actions?  I’m thinking that somewhere in that flock is a strong leader whose ability is dominant and who displays his leadership to the group which then responds by following his example.  It takes both leadership and responsiveness for any group or system to be successful.

We cannot tell in our human communities just who should be doing the leading or who should be doing the following.  In the process of unfolding our Self’s full strength, we may not have the universal vision that shows us a fuller picture at any one time, so we don’t know who might be the best leader.  There’s always a sense of competition that enters in and competition is good because it keeps us from getting stale and simply jogging in place for the rest of our lives.

But if you are in a small group that has a strong leader, and the entire group gets behind his or her ideas and promotes their accomplishment, a great deal of good can be accomplished.  Each of the group members has to agree on the goals of the group deeply within his heart, because it is this heart motivation and the agreement with the leader that allows the group to act as one.

Creating and managing teams in the workplace can lead to effective outcomes, but the success and longevity of teams depends on how its leaders understand how to extract the gains teams can provide. If leaders don’t understand the skills they need to possess, as well as the group processes that are required to create and maintain teams, there’s nothing for the team to follow.

This concept can be described as “the greatest good for the greatest number.”  Watching birds in flight formation reminds us of how a unified team can create great good by surrendering to common goals.

When the team moves as one, it takes both a strong leader to generate ideas and a team which agrees with them and moves toward their fulfillment.  Both the team members and the leader have to sublimate their own egos for the greater good in order to move quickly and with a sense of harmony toward the vision each of them shares.

On New Year’s day, a dear friend of mine reminded me about a technique she uses to let go of worry and fear.  She lives in the United States where they celebrate New Year’s Day each year with the Rose Bowl college football game and the Tournament of Roses parade.

The Rose Bowl is a 110 year tradition held in Pasadena, California and is nationally televised. She and a dear friend of hers have made watching the Tournament of Roses parade an annual tradition. Both of them have a habit that usually makes everyone smile when they hear about it, but which to them, makes total sense.

For five minutes before the parade, they sit in silence and do all their worrying for the year.

Usually, their laughter over this suggestion precludes any silence at all because, as they explain, it’s fruitless to waste any time in worrying!  “Hurrying and worrying are one of the greatest insults to all that is good and right. It’s like putting a frosting made from something that’s really yucky over the sweet cake that life really is,” says one of the ladies.  “We realize that worrying or hurrying goes against the goodness that is life’s reality, so we’ve made a joke about doing our worrying for five minutes each year before the parade begins.”

Would this technique work for you?  All you’d have to do is look back over any of the hurrying or worrying that you’ve done in your life time and see if it has accrued anything good at all.  Has it?  I’m seriously doubting that anyone can say “Oh yes, worry and fear has caused such good in my life!”  On the contrary, hurrying and worrying go against all that is good, and place a speed bump in the road of your progress.  So why not consider spending five minutes on the first day of each year to get it out of the way for the year and then move into living a rich, full life filled with possibility?

Using a Surrender Box is another technique along the same lines as the above tool.  A surrender box is a tool which allows you to surrender your concepts that stop you from moving forward. You might use a shoe box. You might find a wonderfully carved wooden box. Place it in a special place so that it becomes part of the décor and only you know what its true use is.

We all recognize that life brings to our experiences moments of overwhelm when the things we think we have to accomplish get so jumbled in our minds that we cannot see our way to any practical solution. We might think that by juggling dozens of ideas in our minds, we keep things in the forefront so they can be accomplished, but they might actually be delayed because we’re holding on to too much!

Here’s where the surrender box idea comes into play. Write down what you want to have happen and place the note into a box.  When you do this, you have actively set your intention to accomplish the task into action.  You give yourself the permission you need to quit fretting over that problem, and know that in the process of life itself, it will get done because that’s what you desire.

I want to caution you that some people think “the universe” is taking care of whatever is placed into that box.  No, dear friends, you are the universe, and it’s your intention to accomplish that gets the job done. I want each of you to be aware that it’s you and your mind that is the higher power. Putting your worry and fear into a surrender box allows you to surrender any sense of burden, hurry, worry or a push to achieve, yet allows you to remain present in each moment so that you can automatically take the steps required – now seen more clearly – toward the accomplishment of your desire.

When you realize that you are manifesting your dreams, your desires, and that life itself will create the path for their accomplishment, using a surrender box is a prop, a tool, to help you to undo your burdensome sense of worry and fear.  It allows you to step out of your own way so that what you desire that is right and good can manifest. You’ll be delighted to return to the box every few months, pull out the slips you’ve put into it, and see just how many you’ve completed!

Do you know what the core skills are for successful goal creation?  Here are some clues:

• Identifying what you want
• Create action steps for creating it
• Analyze the results you get
• Make a renewed plan based on your results

So if you were doing all that, why might you still not reaching goals on schedule? One of the main reasons folks are not reaching goals is very simple:

They don’t realize how long it takes!

Persistence (or perseverance) is one of the key elements in goal achievement.  And, luckily for us, we were born with the capability to persevere (or persist,) so I’m hoping that since you now know this, you will strongly consider how long it might take for you to achieve your goals this year.

Will you have to change strategies, adjust time frames, turn in a different direction, or even change jobs to achieve your goals?  Yes, of course!  All of those are possibilities, but because you are one heck of a persistent person, you take all those in stride.

Here are some ways to help you to persevere for all the time it may take you to achieve your goals:

1. Ease up on yourself!

Now that you know it’s going to more than likely take more time than you thought, why not give yourself so much time that you’ll surprise yourself and get it finished ahead of time?

Your goals aren’t the be-all, end-all, do-all.  They’re just a target to keep you on the path; to keep you focused on achieving; to be sure you are using all that you are capable of using. Being the fullness of what you presently understand your current self and its level of unfoldment to be is so much easier than slaving away for some arbitrary time line, don’t you think?

2. Double your time frame

We’ve led up to this one:  you aren’t giving yourself enough time which creates stress and a sense of failure.  So give yourself double the time you think, or heck, triple the time! With a sense of ease, who knows what kind of strategies might come up in your imagination?

3. Focus on Enjoyment

I believe that the quickest way to earn future rewards is to be sure you are enjoying each one of your right-now moments. And if your mind just said “nah nah,” I challenge you to spend one week focused on enjoyment. You might be pleasantly surprised to discover goal achievement while you’re having fun! Instead of focusing on not reaching goals, you’ll be enjoying goal success.

“To make an end is to make a beginning.” ~ T. S. Elliott

We spend much of our lives asking very basic life questions and searching for answers:

• Who am I?
• Why am I here?
• What is Truth?
• What am I supposed to do?
• What’s my passion?
• Am I valuable?
• What makes me truly happy?

I am confident everyone who reads that list is nodding their head in agreement, and maybe you’re thinking “Oh, I know one you missed!”  I am also confident that each of you has spent a fair amount of time thinking about what the right answers are for you, individually.  Have you discovered the answers for yourself yet?

I cannot tell you the answers for you. I can only discover the answers are for me. But what I can tell you are some general thoughts about the questions.

The questions have to be answered. They arise up within each of us and pose a problem that has to be solved if we are to experience harmony.  No individual will find peace or rest until he or she forms a settles sense about the questions…for a time…because the questions and their answers are multi-layered, and we discover the layers sequentially.

The answers to life questions cannot be found in only one place; they can be found like clues in many places, some of them rather surprising, like bumper stickers, for example.  They represent truth, and since truth is universal and infinite, it simply cannot be contained in one place, one psychology, one religion, one building, one nation….  I feel quite confident you get my sense.

The answers to the questions have to be verified from within your Self. You may be searching for the answers (one of life’s truly fun little games) and when you think you’ve got it, you go inside of yourself and ask another question “Is this right?” You listen to your Self for its answer to validate or discard what you think is the answer.  This would make you the ultimate authority on the answers.  Even your agreement with the answers from any other leaves you as the ultimate authority.

The answers change as you unfold greater understanding. The apostle, Paul, tried to explain this for us when he said “When I was a child, I used to talk as a child, think as a child, reason as a child; when I became a man, I put aside childish things.”  A toddler might think what truly makes him happy is a bright, blue ball. That changes as he unfolds an understanding of “there is more.”

There will be many distractions and diversions while you are searching for answers. Even an individual who dedicates his or her entire life to discovering what Life Itself is all about, becomes distracted by the lure of the sirens:  a show on TV, friends calling to play, a really good book. And so, while we may take these detours, if the questions remain unanswered, it will set up a level of unrest within you that will niggle and tickle you until you get back and work on them some more.

There is more found in silence than in sound. When the band is playing, the whistle is blowing, the horns are blaring and the babies are crying for our attention, we lose the silence.  In the silence is the communication between the Self and Itself Within. Muffling the external sounds so that you can participate in your own silence, is an assist to the discovery of the answers. If you are searching for answers to some very basic life questions, try listening to the silence.

It has become a general consensus that discipline – the word, and the actions involved – has a negative connotation. Discipline is thought to mean one individual (usually a parent) exercising his will against the behavior of a child.  I would like to look at the concept of teaching children discipline from a truly unconditionally loving perspective in order to afford you a new, more humane way to help your children to become the fullness of their Selfhood without your having to use strong-arm methods.

Some of the ideas intrinsic to the old method of discipline in vogue for many centuries involve setting limits, correcting misbehavior, spanking (or not,) who’s in charge, self-control, being seen as a mean mommy or daddy, consequences, temper, screaming, and the like.  I’m sure that just be reading some of these words, you began to squirm, didn’t you?

Discipline takes you as a parent out of your comfort zone, but in truth, it’s such a loving gift for your children, that it’s worth the effort. Let’s look at some new ideas.

Can you love your children unconditionally, or do they have to perform according to a set of standards you create in order for them to get your love? It’s important for your children to be taught the beneficial side of self discipline from their earliest years, so that they learn to go within themselves and honor the good that they were intrinsically born with. Like you, they have an Inner Coach who tells them the difference between right and wrong.

Which of these approaches shows more unconditional love?

1. You have made mommy very mad. You go sit in a chair for five minutes.

or

2. It must be so uncomfortable inside you right now. Is that behavior something you want to keep doing?

Number one is conditional parenting.  You will love them only if they don’t make you mad, if they perform appropriately for you. Number two is unconditional: the child has made a mistake and you point him within to recognize how he’s made himself uncomfortable.

The traditional method of discipline – spanking, yelling, time outs, etc. – truly doesn’t work nor has it turned out children who are self-governed.  If it had, we wouldn’t have to repeat the discipline, nor would we have prisons full to the brim!

We have all been pushed to succeed. It is one thing to live a rich, full, busy life because you love it, than to live a life striving to success because you have been pushed into it by your parents.

In teaching children discipline, having as a motive for it your unconditional love and support, you will keep as your goal raising children with strong self-esteem who use their own internal and good natural basis to govern what they will or will not act out in their lives. This is a much more challenging task and requires assiduousness over the many years of their childhood, over the tantrums of their baby and toddler years, and the striking out of their teen years.  But your guidance will produce a phenomenal child who understands that self discipline is a great benefit supporting his life achievement, and all that steady-as-you-go through each issue is so worth it.

Unconditional and loving discipline is spoken about in the book “Unconditional Parenting,” by Alfie Kohn.