What exactly are we teaching them about money by simply paying them an allowance?

You are bringing up a child who will be a future husband or wife, a missionary or a volunteer worker in a foreign land, a states person. They could be someone of great influence, even a president.

A future entrepreneur?
This young man or women may one day own their own business, or they may simply end up work for someone else or in Corporate America dedicating their lives to building a giant for someone else.

Wherever they are or whatever they do MONEY will pay a big role in their lives right?

So what are your children learning about money during their young years?

• Are you equipping your child to be a successful entrepreneur or investor?
• Are they simply being taught to work hard and hope for the best?
• Are they being taught the right value of money. Valuing money above relationships can be as harmful as not placing any value on money at all (easy come, easy go syndrome).

Too many children grow up thinking that money really does grow on trees or that Mum and Dad have an endless supply.

Then they get married or set up a business (or both) and often fail because of their inability to value and handle money.

So here is a challenge for you as a parent:

• Is your child being taught how to handle money?
• Are you teaching your children the value of money?
• Are you teaching your children to EARN money?
• Are you inspiring and training young entrepreneurs?

It is never too early

to teach children about money.

Take a look at this video, and then click on the link below to learn more about different ways to teach your children about money:

Get your copy of “Teach your children about money” right now!

Secret No 1 – Faithfulness.

Secret No 2 – Communication.
I am sure you were expecting to see this word pop up sooner or later Let’s explore this a little.

What exactly is communication? I have noticed that some people have the concept that communication is a one way street. They speak and you listen. Or worse still, they talk some things over with someone else, come to a conclusion and expect you to know their latest decisions. I find this happens a lot in corporate situations.

No, real communication is a TWO WAY street. It involves sharing AND listening. Listening skills seem to be the area that most of us need to brush up on.

In this busy multi-tasking society, listening seems to be defined as having one ear open to the conversation while texting, watching TV or even reading the newspaper (on your Kindle of course).

But real listening includes paying attention. It includes FOCUS. When I am really listening to you, then my mind is totally focused on what you are saying. I am seeking to understand what you are saying.

When it comes time for me to participate in the conversation, my contribution will be in context and valuable. Would you say this is a good definition of listening?

The dictionary gives the definition of listening as “hear with intention, and hear and pay attention”.

Real communication in the home a number one priority and needs to come BEFORE out other activities.

5 Things You Can Do To Maintain Good Communication With Your Spouse.

• Make sure you schedule some one on one time with your spouse every week.
• Go out to a quiet place where you have some uninterrupted time together.
• During this time, leave the ipods, iphones and blackberries at home (they will survive ok without you for a while
• Try and clear your mind of concerns, and situations. Put those on the shelf for a hour or so. If you have both been facing difficult situations, then some refreshing time together will do you both good.
• Talk and listen with your whole heart and mind.
• And here is a sixth thing – you need to make sure that you always talk openly about money

Secret No 3 – Understanding.
When you have really learned to communicate you should find that understanding is so much easier. This is because you are REALLY listening

When your spouse senses you genuinely understand, you may well find a lot of tension and difficulties between you disappear. These tensions may have been building up over the week as life’s situations and challenges were causing strain.

Now some old fashioned communication and understanding melted the tension and each partner feels the support of the other.

How can you show understanding?

• If you are the guy, then you will need to listen more than you talk (that will be easy for you anyway Statistics declare that men speak around 2000 words and hour, while women need to speak up to 5000 words an hour. The very fact you are prepared to listen shows you are genuinely interested in understanding your wife.
• You do not have to have all the answers in order to understand. All you need to do is listen, and show support.
• Make sure your response shows you listened. This will communicate that you DID listen and you ARE intent on supporting.

Faithfulness, communication and understanding will take you a long way towards celebrating your 50th, 60th and yes even 70th wedding anniversary. Just the other day I saw a photo of a couple in celebrating their 70th anniversary!

May you enjoy a lifetime of a successful marriage, and:

May All Your Relationships be Successful!

But this is not so.

The real secret is that successful marriages are blessed in heaven and made on earth.

The day you stand before the alter to join together as husband and wife, your marriage is blessed in heaven.

Then comes the work on earth!

These are marriages where each partner CHOOSES to make their partnership work and they BOTH work at it. They also both CHOOSE to be happy. This will create a strong, successful and happy marriage.

Strong marriages make strong communities!

A friend and his wife recently celebrated their 16th wedding anniversary. As you may have guessed, I love to see long successful marriages, so of course I seized the opportunity to ask GD to share his secrets.

He gave me three great keys! In this post I am sharing the first key, and next post you will find the other two.

Secret No 1. Faithfulness.
This a major key of course in this society we live in where commitment is often a dirty word. But without commitment there is no foundation for a strong relationship, especially in marriage and the family.

The very first place you need to be committed for a sincere and geniune relationship is in your mind and heart.

We live in a society where there are images everywhere you turn that can flash into your mind in a micro second. If you don’t deal with them immediately, some of these images can cause you GREAT problems.

Faithfulness begins in the mind.

GD gave me some valuable tips that have helped him to conquer the wandering thoughts and images in his mind. These images and thoughts can zip into our minds as a result of the impressions that society so lavishly showers on us everywhere we turn.

• Take control of your mind. This is done by prayer and determination. Of course this has to begin with a decision.
• GD also said, I take notice of what I did, and FACE my faults. The enemy operates in the dark. As soon as he is exposed to the light, his power is crippled. When you FACE your faults you are exposing the battle to the light.
• Take the blame and face the weakness. Again, half the battle is won when we face our faults.
• Don’t condemn. Love NEVER condemns. Condemnation should never exist inside the home. We get enough of that outside the home.
• If you have authority at work to hire, make sure you watch the dress code.

These indeed are valuable tips. And there are 2 more keys to a successful marriage which I will share in the next post.

Meanwhile, take some time to meditate on the tips that leaped out at you as you read through this article.

• Did you see something you can apply to your life?
• Did you something you need to change?

If so – do it now! And I know you will enjoy the rewards.

I am sure you also have some excellent tips that help to maintain a strong relationship. Please share them below.

And

May All Your Relationships be Successful!

We grew up living in a town near to two of these families.

One family lived in Oamaru and the other in Dunedin and we lived not too far from either of these cities. This meant that vacation times were spent visiting one or the other. Consequently, in a sense my sister and I grew up with our cousins from both of these families.

Once we grew up, we all scattered across the world.
Then we became young adults and started to leave our homes. One cousin married a sea captain. Her brothers followed her husband’s example which resulted in them being scattered across the world. Others went over to Australia as many kiwi youngsters do, looking for greater opportunities.

And me – well I ended up in Mexico and now the USA. Of course this resulted in not having met up with any of these relatives for many years. More years than I care to count.

Plans to reconnect with extended family
A few weeks before I was due to leave for New Zealand, my sister sent me a DM on Twitter. She said “we can do a 2-3 day trip while you are here, where would you like to go?”.

I did not have to think twice, and immediately sent a reply: “Motueka to see our Aunt and cousins (the one who used to live in Dunedin)”. This aunt is a younger sister to our mother.

The years had flown by.
I had not seen her since our mother’s funeral which is now about 18 years ago now. There was some contact via phone and email across the years, but then after her husband died she moved across town and changed internet providers which resulted in a different email address. So emails sent to her were bouncing back.

Once Sandie and I had caught up with each other somewhat, we picked up the phone and called our Motueka Aunt. It was great to talk with her and she was thrilled to learn that we were planning a visit. Our cousin has a home in Kaiteriteri which is just over the hill from Motueka.

Tehiwi
When Val and Mike bought their home in Kaiteriteri it had a huge garage with a million dollar view. They quickly turned that part of the garage into a lovely apartment which they rent out to tourists.

(They named the apartment Tehiwi). We were offered the use of this apartment for the duration of our stay. What a luxury! A beautiful apartment with a million dollar view.

An aside: this is one part of New Zealand that many overseas tourists don’t get to see. If you are planning a trip to New Zealand, I highly recommend you check out! http://www.tehiwi.co.nz

Our family (even extended family) is a part of who we are.
It was so good to catch up with our aunt who is now 82 years old and looks somewhere around 70 maybe.

She is so well (and attributes that to organic food and vitamins), and takes no medication at all! I certainly am following her footsteps.

One fantastic guide to right eating I have found is a free report called “No Pain”.

One of the first things we did after greeting our aunt was to check the photos on the fridge. Some of our cousins we recognized (one is the spitting image of his father), and others we did not. Two of the boys were at sea, one lives in England and Val and Mike were off on a bicycle tour in Samoa.

Then to our delight we discovered that another cousin (from the Oamaru family) lives near Motueka. Of course we looked her up also.

How good it is to reconnect with all family members.

Perhaps you have never left the area where your family lives, so have always been close. Take time to let them know how much you appreciate them. We are all on this planet for but a fleeting moment.

Perhaps you too have family scattered across the country or even across the world. Make the effort to reconnect. It is well worth it, and it will add a new dimension to your life.

May All Your Relationships be Successful!

If you find that when your son or daughter enters teenage years your relationship with them starts to change do not be concerned. This is a new phase of their life. As a child, they may have been willing to follow your ways, your standards and your beliefs.

However now they are entering a stage of life where they will decide on and define their own beliefs, standards and ways. Some of their decisions may conflict with your perspectives, but do not be concerned. If you trained them well as a child your influence in their lives will always be there to guide them.

With the help of some young friends, I have put together a series of tips designed to help you maintain a successful relationship with your teen during these restless years and on into their adulthood.

Teenage Years, Fun or Frenzy?

We started with looking at:

Eight things you can DO to help build and maintain the relationship between you as a parent and your teen.

One of these 8 tips was:
Do discuss issues with your teen. Now I am not talking about a heated discussion, but a good discussion over a cup of coffee or an ice cream. You may of course carefully point out the consequences of the issue in question, but the final decision will be theirs. Don’t ever try to control that.

What if they make the wrong decision? This is where unconditional love comes into the picture. You will always be there to support and love no matter what happens.

Now this does not mean you have to “bail them out”. No, let them pay the consequences (this is how they will learn), but always be there to support.

Dining together as a family was another tip that my friends thought to be important. The family dinner table can be a great place to share and strengthen family bonds.

You can find more about the first 4 tips (listed below), by clicking here.

• Do discuss.
• Do point out the consequences.
• Do allow choices.
• Do dine together as a family
  (Click on the link above or here to read more).

More about the second 4 tips (listed below) can be found here:

• Do trust them (this is very important)
• Do restrain (with wisdom)
• Do involve them in the family activities (they have not left home yet)
• Do continue to believe the best (this is also VERY important.
  Click on the link above or here to read more.)

Teenage Years – Parents Adventure or Nightmare?

This depends greatly on your relationship with your teenager.

Here is a list of things to avoid doing in order to maintain a successful relationship with your teen.

You can click on the links to read the complete post about the respective topic.

Don’t Argue

Don’t Threaten Your Teenager

Don’t Punish Us, My Teenage Friends Say

Don’t Smother Your Teenager

Don’t Antagonize Your Teenager
Here I take a look at three definitions of the word “antagonize, and apply them to your relationship with your teen.

Don’t Ignore Your Teenager
(This can be a major temptation when things get difficult.)

Don’t Give Up On Your Teenager

I trust these tips will help you with your relationship with your teen. I look forward to hearing about your experiences and recommendations that will help to build a successful relationship with our teenagers.

May All Your Relationships be Successful!

Today in a celebration of Father’s Day weekend, President Barack Obama called upon fathers to be teachers and mentors. This does not mean you have to be a perfect father he stated, just one who cares and tries.

Your children will probably rate you as their perfect father if you simply do these three things:

Be involved with your children as they grow up.
Don’t leave everything to your wife. There will be times when you may need to make some sacrifices in your own agenda, but these adjustments will pay off greatly for the rest of your lives.

There are many memories that you can create in your children that they will carry into adulthood. They will become better adults just because Mum AND Dad were both involved with:

• Their needs when they were sick.
• Their sports activities.
• Their homework.
• Their field trips.
• Their school progress.

It is WELL worth any sacrifice you may need to make to be an active part of your children’s agenda as they are growing up.

Be available to your children when they need you.
Develop an “open door” policy with your children. This means building a trust relationship with them that will let them know that the door of your home office, your study or your workshop is always open for them to come and chat with you whenever they need to.

Be willing to devote personal attention to your children.
One great way to create some extra special memories in your child’s life is to spend some individual time with them as often as you can. At least once a month would be great. This will give them something special to look forward to as well.

You could take them out for a treat which would give you an opportunity to give them your undivided attention for an hour or so. It would also give Mum some time to herself which I am sure she would appreciate also

President Obama commented today: Just because your own father wasn’t there for you, that’s not an excuse for you to be absent also. It’s all the more reason for you to be present.

You have an obligation to break the cycle and to learn from those mistakes, and to rise up where your own fathers fell short and to do better than they did with your own children, Obama said. That’s what I’ve tried to do in my life.

A true teacher and mentor leads by example.
It is all about spending time with your children, learning to communicate with them and above all having fun with them. I know in my own childhood one of the the memories that stands out the most are the family activities in the back yard. Every evening when the weather was favorable our parents would play badminton, french cricket or something similar with us. These fun times left a very positive mark on our lives as we grew up.

Vice President Joe Biden gave a short comment during the Obama Father’s Day presentation, exhorting Fathers to love unconditionally. The importance of total unconditional love cannot be emphasised enough.

Unconditional love means your children do not have to earn your love nor will they ever be in fear of losing your love if they “mess up”. They will always simply KNOW that you love them.

Fathers, I know you do love your children but let them know that this weekend. Yes this Father’s Day weekend is a celebration for you. You can make this time extra special by making the effort to reinforce your love for your children and so strengthen your family bonds.

Have you told your children you love them today?

May All Your Relationships be Successful!

These tips were either suggested or approved by my teenage friends, and the seventh tip that was named is:

Don’t Give Up!
I recently asked some young friends what a successful relationship between teens and parents looks like from their perspective. We came up with a list of 8 tips for parents to do (see this list here), and then went on to think about things not to do. As we were going over a list of “donts” with a grin they added “And don’t give up on us”.

I have thought about that comment for the past week or so as I have been writing these posts about relating to your teenager.

• Are you tempted to give up on your teen?
• Have you found yourself in despair, wondering “what you did wrong”, as you see your teen taking a different path than what you had hoped they would take?
• Do you find it difficult to communicate with your teenager?

If any of these things sound remotely familiar to you, here are some things that will help you to ride these challenging years. They don’t have to be difficult, they can be years filled with fun and adventure.

Remember, your son or daughter is now developing into a young adult. This means:

1. They are finding their own feet.
2. They are checking out many things they were taught as children and will come to their own conclusions.
3. They need to face life with their own heart felt faith, their own standards.
4. They may seem to be straying from the values they were taught as children as they explore different areas of life for themselves, but don’t despair. They WILL be ok.

Remember Peter Marshall?He was an imigrant from Scotland, who ended up becoming Chaplain of the United States. During his earlier years, he took a “detour” from his faith to explore the areas of the physic much to the horror of his wife and close friends. However it was not long before his was convinced for HIMSELF, as to where this area belonged in relationship to his life and faith. His curiosity was satisfied and his faith was stronger. If you have not read “A Man Called Peter” I highly recommend that you do.

So don’t despair. Your teen will come back to the values and morals that they were taught as a child, especially if you keep the lines of communication as open as you can, and offer them a LOT of UNCONDITIONAL love. Proverbs 22:6 assures us: “Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.”

During this time of development into adulthood:

• Love unconditionally, but be firm when neccesary.
• Seek to understand, not judge.
• Seek to be their friend, but don’t intrude.
• Seek opportunities to enjoy fellowship with them over a meal, coffee and favorite restaurant.
• Take an interest in the things they are interested in.

Do these things now, and throughout their life and you WILL be able to enjoy a successful relationship with your sons and daughters.

May All Your Relationships be Successful!

The full series Embrace The Fun and Adventure With Your Teenager and Avoid the Frenzy and Nightmare can be found here