What Does Well-Being Really Mean?

If You Had To Explain The Concept of Well-Being, How Would You Do It?

There are many aspects to the concept of well-being. We hope that this video helps give a little guidence to one possible perspective. Take the time to find out what your perspective on it is!

Why Finding Happiness At Work Is Crucial To Your Overall ...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/business/ 
Why Finding Happiness At Work Is Crucial To Your Overall Well-Being. The Huffington Post | By Alena Hall 

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3 Beliefs about Well-Being that Don't Work - Psych Central

There are many beliefs about well-being that get perpetuated over and over. They might show up in articles or on social media sites. They might be deeply ingrained into our society. And they totally miss the mark. This month ...

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The Way of Mindful Education: Cultivating Well-Being in Teachers and Students (Norton Books in Education)

Check out customer reviews Price:$23.50

A new educational paradigm for youth mindfulness. “If you are a teacher, or an educator, or involved in school administration and curriculum development, the book you hold in your hands has the potential to transform your life, the lives of your stud ...

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The Happiness Industry: How the Government and Big Business Sold us Well-Being

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In winter 2014, a Tibetan monk lectured the world leaders gathered at Davos on the importance of Happiness. The recent DSM-5, the manual of all diagnosable mental illnesses, for the first time included shyness and grief as treatable diseases. Happine ...

10 Steps to Teaching Your Child to Communicate Effectively - Pt 2

Background:

Effective communication is the foundation to success. When one can communicate well, they have a bigger advantage over those who don’t. If you look around at the heads of major companies, you will notice that most everyone has great communication skills. But communication starts long before adulthood. In fact, learning to communicate effectively starts even before a child can talk. Let’s continue to look at some ways to help your child learn to communicate effectively. 



4. Confirm your understanding. After the child has talked a bit and there is a lull in the conversation, confirm that you understood what was said by rephrasing what you heard. For example, "It sounds like your feelings were hurt when your friend ignored you." 

If you misunderstood something or your child wants to add more details, this is a great way to get input from your children.

5. Convey your feelings. Talk to your child about your feelings and encourage them to open up about theirs too. When doing so, start your sentences with “I” not “You”. For example; you might say “I get upset when you….” instead of “You make me mad when…”

This teaches your child how to speak directly about their feelings so others will understand. It’s a skill that will especially useful later in life when they life and work with others.   

6. Have them give presentations. The sooner you get your child talking in front of others, the more confident they will become.

Ask your child to give a presentation about something they like. This can be done at just about any age, just ensure the topic, length and difficulty of the presentation is age appropriate.  For the first couple of times, have them present it just to you. Then expand their audience to include others in the family, family friends, neighbors or even places like retirement homes.  

Ok that may be a bit much, but you get the idea!

Teaching them how to present themselves in a calm, confident manner will boost their success in adulthood. 

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10 Steps to Teaching Your Child to Communicate Effectively (Pt. 1)

Teaching Your Child to Communicate Effectively (Pt. 1)

Here is part 1 of a 3 part presentation on helping young people learn to effectively communicate in the face to face world! 
It almost seems that today children are born knowing how to communicate electronically, texting, facebook, Instagram ect., ect.... but what about communicating in person? 

Interpersonal, face to face communication, will always be an important part of being a well rounded individual. 

Effective communication is the foundation to success. When one can communicate well, they have a bigger advantage over those who don’t. If you look around at the heads of major companies, you will notice that most everyone has great communication skills. 
But communication starts long before adulthood. In fact, learning to communicate effectively starts even before a child can talk. Let’s look at some ways to help your child learn to communicate effectively. 
1. Start early. Most parents don't think about effective communication skills when their children are babies; however, that is the ideal time to start. While babies don't understand specific words, they do recognize voices and they are affected by tone of voice.
With babies, practice using different tones such as surprised, happy, sad, loud, soft, high, low, etc.  Be available to your children, regardless of their ages.
2. Teach listening skills. Good communication skills start with being a good listener. Show your child that you are interested in what they have to say.  Do this by fully facing the child, giving them eye contact & nodding affirmatively.  Smiling, changing facial expressions according to what is being said and holding comments until your child is finished talking will also show you are paying attention. These visual cues all tell your child that you are listening and what they are saying is important to you. 
In turn, when speaking to your child, ask them to repeat back to you in their own words what you said. Clarify anything they misunderstood and praise them when they get it right. This teaches them good listening skills. 
3. Ask the right questions. At times, children need you to get the ball rolling by helping them open up. The key to doing this is to ask an open-ended question, which has no right or wrong answer.
Begin with who, what, where, or how. An example would be, "What did your friend do that made you mad? “
Stick to asking one question if you can, too many questions may make children close up. Sometimes children pause to think about what they want to share next so be careful not to jump in with another question too quickly.
Thats it for now. Part 2 will be posted in the next couple of days so keep an eye out for it.
Be sure and encourage effective communication skills as an overall effort to help your child develop confidence in their ability to influence their enviornment and the out comes of the events in their lives.  Fuctional Self-Confidence is a must!
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What Is So Special About Positive Thinking?

Understanding the Psychology of Positive Thinking

You may have heard about positive thinking, but don’t really know enough about to know exactly how it works. Positive thinking can provide many benefits in your life such as improving your health, opportunities in life, the way you relate to others and the way you see yourself.

The psychology behind the power of positive thinking is that you’re more apt to take on life with a positive outlook and have more positive results than if you face the world negatively. That doesn’t mean that you should gloss over the obvious, but it does mean that a bad circumstance can be made much brighter than viewing them in a negative way.

Some psychologists view positive thinking as how you explain what happens in your life. If you have an optimistic attitude, you’re more likely to explain away bad things that happen by blaming something else for the circumstance. You’re also more apt to view a negative happening as outside the norm or a temporary circumstance.

 Abraham Lincoln once commented, “Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.” When you make up your mind to approach life’s challenges with a positive attitude, you’re not ignoring the bad stuff in the world, but it does mean that you’re attempting to see the best both in people and in situations.

Positive thinking and positive psychology are often thought to be the same, but they’re really not. With positive psychology, the focus is definitely on positive thinking, but most psychologists tend to think it’s more beneficial to think realistically.

For example, positive thinking might lead a person to take risks that he or she shouldn’t, such as investing money in a business that’s extremely risky or thinking positively that you can swim across the lake without taking into consideration the distance.

However, it is clear that thinking more positively will ensure more positive outcomes in your life. The best thing you can do is to pay attention to your self-talk and realistically assess whether it’s better to think that way – or not.

As you practice positive thinking, you’ll become more adept at culling out the positive thoughts that aren’t realistic as opposed to the thoughts that can have a positive impact on your life.

Learn more about the psychology of positive thinking by visiting online sites and/or reading the many books on the subject.

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Teach Your Child To Tie Their Own Shoes

Heres a quick and easy way that you can teach your child how to tie their own shoes. This is a great boost for their self esteem not to mention a great help to Moms, Dads, teachers, etc.

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