Archive for April 9th, 2017

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April 9, 2017

The company you keep…..

by Rod Smith
  • Embrace people who believe in you. Seek out the men and women who are in your unofficial support group and spend your effort in their direction. It is necessary and acceptable that you define your boundaries with men and women who pull you down and who try to minimize or ridicule your contribution to your family, your work-place, or your broader community. Be cordial, be kind, to such people but limit the power you give to people who denigrate you.
  • Embrace people who have a vision for their own lives. The more you can rub shoulders with people who are “going places” and are invested in building their futures, the greater the likelihood that you will get caught up in similar healthy habits. Drainers and downers and doubters are easy to spot but often harder to avoid. Disillusioned people love a target and are especially attracted to bringing happy and motivated people into their fold.
  • Invest or reinvest in a cause bigger and more meaningful than simply enhancing your family and yourself. There is so much need and suffering everywhere and you are fully capable of reducing some of both for people in your immediate environment.

Posted in Attraction, Blended families, Boundaries, Communication, Difficult Relationships, Domination, Family, Family Systems Theory, Forgiveness, Friendship, Grace, Love, Recovery, Responsive people, Space, Triangles, Voice, Womanhood | Leave a Comment »

April 9, 2017

Parenting challenge 

by Rod Smith

My daily parenting challenge which I hope you will also adopt…

  • Be the adult you’d want your child to become. 
  • Negotiate deals, resolve conflicts, compromise on disagreements, in exactly the manner you want your child to emulate when he or she is an adult. The most powerful learning happens by watching – and by much more than watching. Such living will transform you, and the transformation you undergo will transform your family. 
  • Use money, save money, leverage all your resources in exactly the manner you hope your child will one day utilize resources. Attitudes leak. How you behave becomes the norm. 
  • Treat your parents in exactly the manner you hope your children will treat you in your advancing years. Modeling endures. 
  • Love and serve your brothers and sisters so your children will have absolutely no ambiguity about what love looks like in immediate and extended families. Authenticity prevails. 
  • If you want your child to be a reader, be one yourself. It might not “take” in the immediate, but chances are it will in the future. Some things take time, not nagging. 
  • If you want your child to be well-mannered, courageous and kind, allow your every interaction with lover, friend, or foe, to be well-mannered, courageous, and kind.

Posted in Difficult Relationships | 1 Comment »

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