Tag Archives: involvement

Encourage Participation

It is one thing to garner feedback from our customers and clients and encourage them to tell us what they think of our business operations. It is quite another to get our customers and clients involved with our businesses on a participation level. The more engaged individuals are, however, the more likely they are to be good, loyal customers and help us build our business where we want to take them. What does it mean to encourage participation? It is going to depend on the exact sort of business that you are operating as to what sort of participation can … Continue reading →

Feeling Irrelevant as They Gain Independence

It is typical for parents to feel a bit of a tug as children head off and out into the world. Whether it is heading off to preschool or kindergarten, the first week of summer camp, a school trip, or even something as simple as the first overnight sleepover–these little bursts of independence for our children can trigger feelings of irrelevance and imagining ourselves out of a job for parents… According to the experts, the more wrapped up in our children as part of our identity we are, the harder their independent leaps can be for us. That is one … Continue reading →

Intervening with Grade School Problems

It may be clear to us as parents when we should step in and advocate for our child when they are younger, but as they get older it can be more challenging. Not only does it become tough for us to tell when we should intervene, but we also have the added pressure of often having a child who does NOT want us to get involved—it can be embarrassing and cause more problems for him with his peer group than it solves. It can feel like a minefield as a parent to know when to step in and intervene and … Continue reading →

Why You Should Get Involved (And Where?)

We’ve talked about volunteering and networking here in the Home Business blog, but I think that many of us have a tendency to isolate and work away solo in our small, home businesses. We forget how important it can be to get involved in our communities or even know where we can go to get involved. The truth is, involvement can really benefit our business efforts, as well as give our lives more of a sense of balance. Whether you get involved on a neighborhood or community level, or on a larger scale with your city or region—involvement gives you … Continue reading →

Don’t Lose Track of What is Going On Out in the World

One of the realities of running a home business is that we can become somewhat isolated. By being tucked away in our homes for both family life and obligations and our work, we might not be getting out there for business lunches or even the ordinary interaction with coworkers and colleagues. If we don’t make an effort to read trade publications or even the local or regional newspaper, we can lose track of what is going on out there in the “real” world… Some home business owners find that belonging to web communities or list serves helps to keep them … Continue reading →

Priorities and TLC.

TLC what does it stand for? Yesterday we saw T stands for Transformation. If our priorities need changing and we want to give our lives the right focus, then some things in our lives will need to be changed. L is for love. Christians should show love and be loving. God is love and as Christians we need to reflect godly qualities of which the greatest is love, 1 Corinthians 13:13 When assessing our lives, it is the love and the people that matter. If we look at Jesus, we see he was a people person. He cared about people, … Continue reading →

Healthy Involvement Vs. Micromanaging

The term “micromanage” is pretty popular in the work world. I haven’t really heard it in relation to parenting much but it seems to me like it can apply. And, not just to parents of grown children either (although I’m sure we all know–and might be one ourselves–grown individuals who are still being micromanaged by parents with unhealthy boundaries.) As parents of growing young children and adolescents, we might cross the line from involved and supportive parent to overbearing, controlling and micromanaging… Have you ever had the micromanaging boss or supervisor? The person who looks over your shoulder and tells … Continue reading →

It Takes Courage to Get Involved

I have written a bit here in the Single Parents blog about tending to our mental health and all the personal development things we can work on in order to make us better parents, and make sure we have happy, healthy families. I realized that sometimes it isn’t just “knowing” what we “should” do, but it takes a heaping dose of courage in order to step outside our front doors and get involved with the world as a single parent. Any time a person feels “outside” the norm for whatever reason–whether we are making our own selves feel different or … Continue reading →

Have You Heard the Term “Helicopter Parents?”

I was reading an article that referred to the role that “helicopter parents” are now playing once their “children” enter the workforce. I have to admit that I hadn’t heard the term before and I was absolutely horrified that parents of nearly-adult and adult children were actually doing these things! My own parents didn’t even help me fill out college applications or go with me to find my first apartment at the tender age of 18. While I’ve gotten used to how involved parents are now expected to be with their children while they are growing up—I guess I hadn’t … Continue reading →

Single Parents, Summer and Community

Kori touched on something in “Summer and the Single Parent” that I think needs to have more information added to it. She of course mentioned tapping you support system in the summer, which I completely agree with. She also mentioned community. Community to me is important, though it isn’t important for everyone in my community, nor is it important to a lot of communities now a days. Communities are growing further and further apart for a lot of reasons, but I digress. Most, if not all, communities offer activities for their community members to be a part of. There are … Continue reading →