Tag Archives: patience

Letting Things Happen in Your Business

We talk a great deal here in the Home Business blog about control and organization–how to build and shape and encourage growth in our business operations. In reality, sometimes even our home businesses have an organic process of their own and they need us to get out of the way so that they can develop and grow in the direction they are meant to. I know this might sound a little “new age” for some of you who have strong ideas about how to build and shape a business, but I do think there is such a thing as energy … Continue reading →

When You Haven’t Got a Single Smile Left

There are those days–fortunately for me they do not happen very often, but I admit that there are still those days where I find myself at a place where I cannot seem to find a single smile. No matter how I try to shrug off the stresses or the day’s challenges–maybe I am wrestling with a migraine or have had to cope with worries and stresses magnified. Whatever the reason, coming home to your family and kids when you cannot find a single smile can be a problem… When my kids were much younger and had a tendency to be … Continue reading →

Can We Have More Tolerance?

We have talked before here in the Parents Blog about the role and importance of patience in parenting, but we have not spent as much time talking about “tolerance.” I am not talking about tolerance on a societal or community level–but tolerance and ability to show acceptance in our own homes with our own children. Some parents can get confused about the difference between tolerance and leniency. There is a difference between healthy and reasonable tolerance and having loose boundaries. It is one thing to allow our children to misbehave and disobey rules and curfew, and another to accept their … Continue reading →

When They are the Most Unlovable–Love Harder

It really is not revolutionary parental advice to hold tight and be loving and accepting of our children even when they are at their most challenging. But it is much easier said than done. When kids are being extremely naughty, ugly, acting out, and being “unlovable”–we tend to wrack our brains trying to figure out disciplinary techniques and wonder what we should do to “fix it.” Sometimes, all we need to do is love their unlovable selves all the harder! You might be surprised, but sometimes just greeting our children’s unlovable behavior with genuine love and affection can be a … Continue reading →

Expect, and Tolerate, Experimentation

As adults, we can forget that there doesn’t always have to be a direct cause and effect to everything. We have learned to be focused on responsibility, learning life’s lessons, trying to minimize mistakes, and multi-tasking–we might forget that for children, life is about trial and error. Many lessons and things are learned through experimentation for a child and as parents we can remind ourselves to not only expect some regular experimentation, but to tolerate and encourage it. Think over your own childhood–remember all the experimenting and “messing around” that you did? Maybe you’ve forgotten all the discoveries you made … Continue reading →

Squiggles and Squirms

Yesterday while walking our two dogs, the puppy somehow managed to slip out of her harness. I grabbed hold of her before she got skittled by the cars in the car park. Then my husband proceeded to try and fit the harness back on, while I held her. She hates having her walk interrupted for anything and patience is a virtue she has not yet learned. Instead of sitting quietly she wriggled and fussed and generally made the task far harder than it should have been. It was like trying to tame a wriggling snake covered in fur. ‘For goodness … Continue reading →

What to do Instead of Jumping to Conclusions

Are you the sort of parent who weighs all the possibilities before making a decision or are you someone who has a tendency to jump to conclusions before taking in all the facts? I can be a bit impetuous but my experiences as a parent have actually been instrumental in teaching me how to focus and hold off on my conclusions until I at least have some of the facts. While parenting often requires that we make snap judgments and decisions, we can lose credibility and authority with our children if we are doing it too often and not really … Continue reading →

Have Patience or Get it Over With?

I did not used to be a naturally patient person. If truth be told, I am still not a “naturally” patient person, but I have learned more skills and have fostered the ability to remain more patient. Part of it is due to mistakes I’ve made by rushing into things and losing patience. Still, there are those times in our business when patience only takes us so far and we have to take the leap and just get something out of the way. Sometimes, patience really pays off—if we can wait for a fee to drop or wait until the … Continue reading →

How Can I NOT Let This Bother Me?

The seed for this article actually started at work—an issue with a colleague and not one of my children, but I realized that it carries over into parenting too. As parents (and people) there are just so many things that we can control and influence, and then there are going to be those things that other people do or say—personality traits—that we have absolutely no control over. When it is something that really makes us crazy, how can we let it go? How can we NOT let it bother us? I am quite certain that we have all had the … Continue reading →

The “Fulfillment” Question

We live in an age and era where the focus on personal mission and fulfillment is incredibly strong—at least in our Western culture. So many of us adults have been raised to feel like we need to expand, contribute, be all that we can be, and generally do anything and everything besides sitting back and taking life easy. As single parents, we can easily get swept up in this idea of “fulfillment”—are our lives fulfilling enough? Are we doing all that we should be? Have we got ourselves off track and lost our sense of purpose? Where does fulfillment fit … Continue reading →