Memorial Day: Remembering American Hero

Memorial Day Tribute:
Jeremiah Denton, Vietnam War Hero

 As a prisoner of war in Vietnam, this courageous man sent a vital message to America in a unique way. See video below. 
Also, see by the comments which follow, how much the rising generation needs to be taught history. It is ignorance and disrespect like Sebastian's which leads to such great loss of liberty.




Video Jeremiah Denton blinking Morse Code for T-O-R-T-U-R-E



Comments

Sebastian B 

Someone can decode what he is saying? If it's "torture", what does he expect giving this message?  

10GreyhoundsRule  

For goodness sake. Are you 5? He was an officer held as a POW for over 7 years experiencing torture on a daily basis and solitary confinement for most of that time. The USA needed to know what was really going on in the POW confinement areas. He took a chance to let them know. He had no way of knowing if anyone else was trying to get word out. This was a chance and he took it. War crimes. Geneva Convention. Get out a history book and start reading. 

Sebastian B reply: 

woow calm down dude!

Parenting Value: Respect vs Ego

Value of Unselfishness & Sensitivity

Richard and Linda Eyre

Parenting Value: Respect, not Ego

More respect for others, less egocentric. Becoming more extra-centered and less self-centered. Learning to feel with and for others. Empathy, tolerance, brotherhood. Sensitivity to needs in people and situations.

Methods for Teaching Children Respect vs being egocentric


Introduction

Some children have a natural and seemingly inherent sense of caring and sensitivity. Such cases are rather rare, however, and the self-centered "surrounded by mirrors" perspective of life is typical of most children, particularly adolescents. In fact most of the problems teenagers face (whether taking the form of rebellion or of extreme shyness and withdrawal) stem from their rather intense preoccupation with self. 

Nevertheless, children can begin to learn sensitivity and unselfishness at a very young age, and they should learn it as a skill and a capacity as well as a value. 

Children have difficulty empathizing and applying their own feelings to others. A child can feel crushed one day because Jimmy didn't invite him to his birthday party and the next day forget to include someone who looks lonely in the basketball game at recess. Adolescents love to borrow clothes, but many hate to lend them and often forget to return them or to "repair the damage." It takes real effort on the part of parents and sometimes a very long time for most children to realize that the world does not revolve around them, that others' feelings are crucial and that there is a great deal to be learned from giving up something they really want for the sake of someone else. 

General Guidelines
Give responsibility. Try to bring out your children's appreciation and empathy for the difficulties and challenges of others. A recent Harvard study pointed up an interesting connection between how much responsibility children were given and their tendencies to be altruistic and extra-centered. Apparently children who are given everything but responsibility not only become spoiled but actually tend to begin to lose their sense of caring and concern. 

During this month reemphasize and redefine the responsibilities you give your children and the dependability you expect of them. Discuss, whenever you get the chance, the responsibilities that others have and how we must be sensitive to the burdens other people have. 

Teach by example and active listening. Show children the attitude of empathy and the kinds of sensitivity that you want them to mirror. Try to make your own listening and caring more obvious. One way to do this is "active listening." Instead of the normal parental tendencies of directing, managing, and interrogating children, try to really hear what children say. Paraphrase back to them what they have said in a way that reassures them that you heard what they said, have understood it, and are concerned about it. This technique is sometimes also called Rogerian technique after Carl Rogers, the pioneering psychologist who found that people of any age will tell you more if you listen rather than ask. 

The practice of active listening will, in addition to encouraging your children to say more to you, set a profound example of the kind of sensitivity you hope they themselves will develop.
Say, "I'm sorry." Show your children your sensitivity and help them feel sensitive toward you. Whenever you have made a mistake or misjudgment or even been a little insensitive to a child's needs (through your own busy-ness, preoccupation, etc.), go to the child and say you're sorry for not being more in tune and sensitive to what they were worried about or needed. 

Make an effort to tell your children how the things they do make you feel. This will help children be more aware of your feelings and be more sensitive toward them. If a teenager tells you that you are weird, tell him that that hurts your feelings. Sometimes children think of parents as people on whom they can vent their feelings without making a dent. Tell them not only the hurtful things but the positive things. For example, "It makes me feel so happy when I see you cleaning things up without being asked or helping your little brother with his homework." 

Remember that unselfishness does not come naturally. Try to maintain your patience as you implement this "month." Everyone, although in varying degrees, is born with a certain amount of selfishness. There is no quick fix for learning to be unselfish. It is a process that takes thinking and practicing and a certain amount of maturity to develop. 

Praise. Reinforce -- and cause repetition of -- unselfish behavior. Heap praise on signs or symptoms or even brief glimpses of unselfishness in children of any age! Let's face it, an act of simple sharing in children -- particularly small ones -- is cause for genuine celebration. And it also calls for praise and recognition. When a child shares, or gives, or sees and responds to needs in another, praise him, pick him up and hug him, and point out what he's just done to anyone else who is around.
  "Parenting-by-Objective"
Review the activities and stories that go along with this months value. Make sure everyone in your family understands the value so they can see how they can apply it in their own lives and situations.

Talk about the Monthly Value every morning and remind your family to look for opportunities to use the value throughout the day. They may also observe how others don't understand the value. Get your children to share their experience with the value each day at the dinner table or before you go to bed. Be sure to share your experience each day as well. It will help your children know that you are thinking about the value too.

Classical Music: Legend and Acoustic Guitar

Andres Segovia plays "Legend," by Albeniz

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Stress Relief, Classical Music, and Paderewski

Paderewski Plays His Minuet in G, Op. 14, Recorded 1937

Parenting Value: Self-Control

Parenting Value: Self Control, Discipline

Self Discipline

Physical, mental, and financial self-discipline. Moderation in speaking, in eating, in exercising. The controlling and bridling of one's own appetites. Understanding the limits of body and mind. Avoiding the dangers of extreme, unbalanced viewpoints. The ability to balance self-discipline with spontaneity.

Introduction

This year, as he approaches fourteen, our most undisciplined child is beginning to show great progress. Three years ago he simply could not remember to do his homework. On occasion when he did do his work, he couldn't seem to remember whether or not he'd handed it in. His thoughts were immersed in model airplanes, snakes and gerbils, and computer games. Nothing else mattered much to him. I was constantly nagging him to clean his room and "get his act together." 

Then two fairly significant things happened to him: Our family moved to England, and he was enrolled in an extremely disciplined school for boys, complete with a school uniform that included black wool pants, black leather shoes, gray socks, a white shirt, gray V-neck sweater, school tie, and blue blazer. Any boy lacking any part of his uniform was severely reprimanded. Not only that, each boy was required to take thirteen subjects, which included physics, chemistry, classical studies, and mythology. Not a bad schedule of classes for a seventh-grader! Each boy was required to carry an assignment notebook in the left-inside pocket of his jacket. Each class and the assignment for that day were to be carefully printed inside. Any teacher could stop any boy and ask to see his notebook at any time. If the notebook was not there or was not complete, the student was doomed to detention. 

At about the same time, I decided that my relationship with this child was suffering because of my incessant reminders to practice, to clean his room, to get his homework done. I eased off, and decided that my communication and friendship with him were more important than the tidiness of his room. 

This year this boy was transformed from a caterpillar to a lovely moth. (He can't really be classified as a butterfly, because his room still looks about the same -- even though he cleans it up at least once a month now without being asked.) 

I find little homework lists in the jumbled place he calls his room, and he just became an Eagle Scout and a member of the National Honor Society. Instead of thinking of him as a thorn in my side, I now regard him as one of my favorite people. -- Linda 

Self-discipline means many things: being able to motivate and manage yourself and your time, being able to control yourself and your temper, being able to control your appetites (and here the companion word moderation comes into play). 

Self-discipline and moderation are two sides of the same coin. Self-discipline is pulling up and away from the laziness of doing too little. Moderation is pulling in and away from the excesses of trying to do or to have too much. 

Discipline and moderation are profound and universal values because their presence helps us and others and their absence inevitably causes short- or long-term hurt. 

These are values on which all parents must work personally. And it is our example, more than any other method or technique, that will teach this value to our children.

  "Parenting-by-Objective"

Review the activities and stories that go along with this months value. Make sure everyone in your family understands the value so they can see how they can apply it in their own lives and situations.

Talk about the Monthly Value every morning and remind your family to look for opportunities to use the value throughout the day. They may also observe how others don't understand the value. Get your children to share their experience with the value each day at the dinner table or before you go to bed. Be sure to share your experience each day as well. It will help your children know that you are thinking about the value too.

Stress Relief, Classical Music, and Tchaikovsky

Lift your Holiday Spirit with wonderful Tchaikovsky classics


Nutcracker


Sleeping Beauty Waltz


Serenade for Strings


Piano Concerto No. 1 in B Minor


1812 Overture
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Stress Relief, Classical Music, and Dittersdorf

Dittersdorf Harp Concerto