A simple but very powerful way to practice gratitude.

A handwritten, post-it, thank you note a day to all sorts of life’s often small and overlooked pleasures.

Thank you Leah.

And a great idea to steal.

Can you write a post-it note thank you to yourself, your kids, your work, your partner?

Who needs one right now?

If you’re keen, see below!

Our names are Natasha Odou and Kimberley Seear and we are conducting research as part of our Honours degree in Psychology at Monash University.

We are looking for participants for a study looking at methods for increasing well-being. Participation will involve completing anonymous questionnaires online and a short individual activity.

Participants go in the draw to win one of two double Gold Class movie passes.

If you are interested in participating, please go to:

http://spppm-cf.med.monash.edu.au/surveys2010/kimfry/

Well here’s my 5 tips for getting out of the house on time so we all start the day a little better.

1. Be realistic

You may be able to grab your bag and get out of the house within a few seconds, but your toddler will need to find his ruggie, stop to pat the cat, complain that you opened the door instead of him, and jump in the puddles instead of get in the car.

2. Promote responsibility

Your school age child may still want the star treatment, ‘Fetch my school bag, lunch box and communication book, mum. And no blue smarties!’ But teaching her a simple morning routine - get dressed, brush hair, brush teeth, and pack bag - helps you and her.

3. Stay calm

When your daughter is still playing with her ponies rather than putting on her shoes, and your son has upended a bottle of milk on the kitchen floor, it takes Mother Theresa patience not to scream and yell. Instead, breathe and think ‘I’m an absolute saint for calmly cleaning up the milk and calmly requesting my daughter to put on her shoes.’

4. Appreciate the good

In every situation, no matter how busy, stressful or frustrating, there are always pockets of good. So instead of getting irritated at your toddler for pulling off his jumper for the third time, admire, just for a moment, his tenacity.

5. Think energy not time

We all have too much to do and too little time. And there will never be enough time. But if you focus on getting out the door without feeling like you’ve been hit by a train, then that is probably more important than whether you are running 5 minutes late.

There is a lot of very useful information in this study, but I’d like to concentrate on just one issue in this article, and it relates to a BIG frustration most, if not ALL, parents experience:

How to get our kids to do what we ask them to do when we ask them to do it.

In my fantasy parent land, my kids would do what I ask when I ask without grumbling, whinging, ignoring or defying.

My fantasy parent land doesn’t exist.

Sometimes my kids do as I ask.  And sometimes they don’t. Sometimes I stay calm.  And sometimes I don’t.

But what’s interesting is how MY behaviour affects the situation.

Back to the research.  The study videotaped parents with their children aged 3 - 5 years.

In the room, there were boxes of toys (Lego, cars, trucks, dolls, a kitchen set etc).

The parents were first asked to play with their kids and the toys.

After 10 minutes, parents asked their children to tidy up the toys into the boxes. The parents weren’t allowed to help their child.

The parents of children who didn’t tidy up did three major things differently to parents of kids who did tidy up.

Indirect, vague or repeated commands

Parents were more likely to use indirect, vague or repeated commands.

An indirect or vague command is: ‘Won’t you tidy up now?’ rather than telling the child kindly but firmly, ‘It’s time to tidy up now.’

And a repeated command was: ‘Pick up that car.  And that truck.  And the doll’  without allowing time for the child to respond.

Criticism

Parents were more likely to critcise such as ‘That’s not good at all’.  Rather than praise, ‘Well done.  It’s looking much tidier.’

Overreaction

Parents were more likely to overreact by being harsh and punishing the child.

So what does this tell us?

Yelling, screaming, and overreacting doesn’t work.  But we probably already knew that.

We can’t always be the model parent.  And sometimes, even when we remain firm but calm our kids still don’t listen!

But what the study does tell us is that being firm but calm helps both us and our kids manage the situation better.

‘There are only two parenting styles’, the article retorted, ‘one that meets the child’s needs and one that meet’s the parents’ needs.’ And never the twain shall meet.

Differences of opinion

My major struggle when first becoming a parent over six years ago was the barrage of conflicting information that overwhelms inexperienced and uncertain first-time mothers. The you ‘should’ or ‘shouldn’t’ language which all too often pervades expert language, and which sabotages new mother confidence.

Differing opinions on baby care abound in bucket-loads. One stark example is sleep. Some experts tell you to ‘teach’ your baby to sleep, which involves, to varying degrees, leaving your baby to cry. Other experts on attachment parenting advocate sleeping with your baby and never letting her cry. Both tend to suggest that their method is ‘best for baby’. But since they advocate diametrically opposed approaches, how can they both be right?

Best for baby or best for parents?

I like a measure of routine, order and independence for my baby and myself, so I lean towards the teaching to sleep rather than attachment parenting. But I acknowledge that my style of parenting is not solely about what method is ‘best for baby’, nor which method is superior. Instead, my style of parenting reflects the person that I am, and what is best for me - and my baby.

In reality, what is best for parents is often closely aligned with what is ‘best for baby’. If you are uncomfortable letting your baby cry, or if you don’t like co-sleeping, following someone else’s methods won’t work. Parents decide how to care for their children based on the people that they are. This is not selfishness, or a reason to feel guilty. This is realistic.

When you love and care for your children in a way that is consistent with your philosophies and beliefs you provide your children the best possible care. And you also recognise that parenting is a combination of art and science.

Science is helpful. That is, knowing a child’s developmental abilities and limitations helps you better understand your child’s behaviour, and better manage your own expectations. But art is equally important.
The parent-child relationship is one of the deepest, most engaging and most intriguing relationships we can experience. The love for a child is unparallel. Raising a child evokes love and angst in almost equal measures. There is amazement at the child you have created, and remorse for the version of ‘you’ you have left behind. This is often not talked about because children are a gift. But it is felt.

Parenting -the right way…

There are as many ways to care for a child as there are parents on this planet. There is no one right way, and there certainly isn’t a blanket: ‘best for baby’ and therefore ‘bad for parents’ or ‘best for parents’ and therefore ‘bad for baby’ unless the parameters include neglect or abuse.

Every significant relationship in our lives is a dynamic interchange between two people. Our baby bring as much to the relationship as we do. They are not innocent observers. From day one, they are active participants. We teach them, and they teach us. We learn from them, and they learn from us. We love them, and they love us.

There is no black versus white, us versus them, my needs versus your needs. Instead, there is a unique connection which fuels a life together. A life which is rich with intense emotion, unexpected insights, and deep reciprocity.

There is no more amazing a job than being a parent. But there is also no job more difficult. We all find our way through the parenting quagmire by filtering advice, harking back to our own upbringing and going with our gut. There is no other way. Adhering to someone else’s strict view of a ‘good parent’, a ‘good child’ and a ‘good family’ is ultimately unfulfilling, unsustainable, and not ‘good’ for anyone.

Judging others

Judging other parents by their own or their child’s behaviour is commonplace, and can happen instinctively. We declare, ‘I would never let my baby cry for that long’, so we go to our baby whenever she cries. We think, ‘She gave up on breastfeeding so easily’, as we persevere with breastfeeding. We notice, ‘She speaks so calmly and patiently to her baby’, and we try to do the same.

We are all different, even though we share a common moniker, so we make different choices about how to care for our children. There is no harm in making judgements to determine what kind of parent you want to be. But harm can be done if you impose your judgements on others. If you openly criticise others, you undermine somebody else’s choices.

By keeping an open mind about how we care for our children, and how others care for theirs, we share the trials and the triumphs of parenting. When we pit ‘parent against child’ or ‘parent against parent’ or ‘child against child’, we oversimplify what is a complex, multi-dimensional, multi-layered relationship.

There are more than two styles of parenting. There are many. And both parents’ needs and children’s needs are equally valid. Because that is where the twain does meet.

Do you have a child aged between 6 months and 10 years?

If so, Dr. Anne Walsh from the School of Nursing at the Queensland University of Technology is interested in what you have to say about searching for information on child health issues, such as a rash, cut or the flu.

If you are interested in being involved in a brief online survey about how parents search for and decide which child health information to use, please follow the link:

http://tinyurl.com/chi-10

Instead, he found that we create our own good or bad fortune.

The major difference between lucky and unlucky people is that the less fortunate are more tense and uptight, and so fail to notice the unexpected and chance opportunities.

Lucky people, by contrast, create their own good luck four ways:

Principle 1: Make your luck

Lucky people create, notice and act upon the chance opportunities in their lives.

They build stronger and wider networks with others, have a relaxed attitude to life and enjoy new experiences.

Principle 2: Go with your gut

Lucky people make successful decisions by using their intuition and gut feelings.

They listen to their hunches and boost their intuition.

Principle 3: Expect the good

Lucky people’s expectations about the future help them fulfill their dreams and ambitions.

They expect good fortune, attempt their goals, and set high expectations.

Principle 4: Fix your luck

Lucky people are able to transform their bad luck into good fortune.

They see the positive, take the long view and focus on being constructive.

So luck it seems is a choice. It is a way of seeing, interacting with and interpreting your world. Luck is a state of mind.

But luck also occurs through action.  If you never set a goal and try to achieve it, you will never ‘get lucky’.

And luck is also about being optimistically open to the unexpected, the interesting, and the unusual.

We can all, therefore, create our own good luck no matter which way the cards fall.

For more information, including a free ebooklet, The Complete Guide to Luck, visit www.theluckfactor.com

Since I started my happiness project, I’ve become more and more convinced of the importance of sleep to happiness.

That’s why I proposed “Get more sleep” as the very first resolution of the 2010 Happiness Challenge.

Many researchers argue that not getting enough sleep has broad health consequences, such as raising your risk for cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and even obesity, but in addition to those, it has a profound effect on happiness and energy level.

We get accustomed to being sleep-deprived, and although at first, we notice the effect on mood and alertness, before long, we adjust to that state as normal.

So even if you insist that you feel fine, if you got more sleep, you might feel a lot better.

I usually sleep well once my head hits the pillow, but until I started my happiness project, I would often stay up late to read, answer emails, watch TV, talk to my sister on the west coast, or cruise the internet. I had to wait until my children were asleep before I could start my real leisure time.

I was fine at night, but I suffered the next morning. I feel crabby when I’m jarred out of sleep by the alarm, and I dislike racing around on weekday mornings, with no time to spare.

I realized that to have more energy and more calm, I needed to go to sleep earlier (and also to wake up earlier). I looked for ways to prod myself to turn off the light and to get better sleep:

1. Set a specific bedtime for yourself.

Many people have no idea what time they “should” go to sleep in order to feel well-rested. Be realistic! If you have to wake up at 7:00 am, staying awake until 1:30 am each night is unlikely to be sufficient.

2. Get ready for bed well before your bedtime.

Sometimes, paradoxically, I feel too tired to go to bed. I try to wash my face, take out my contact lenses, and brush my teeth well before I plan to turn off the light.

3. Make your room very dark.

Shut the blinds, block out the lights from your computer, clock, phone, etc. Even the tiny light from a digital alarm clock can disrupt a sleep cycle.

4. Stretch.

A study showed that women who were having trouble sleeping fared much better when they stretched four times a week.

5. Keep your bedroom a little chilly.

6. If your mind is racing with worry, make a list of everything you need to do the next day.

This really works for me. I can make myself crazy fretting that I’m going to forget to do something important; if I make a list, I can relax.

7. Tidy up your bedroom.

It’s not restful to be surrounded by clutter.

8. Exercise.

Studies suggest that people who exercise fall asleep faster and stay sleep longer - and this is particularly true for people who have trouble sleeping.

9. An hour before bedtime, avoid work that requires alert thinking.

I try to stop myself from checking my emails before I go to bed, because it wakes me up. I made this mistake just last night, in fact. I got some emails answered, but I was so wound up that it took me forever to go to sleep.

10. My personal sleep-inducing innovation: Slather myself with body lotion.

This feels good and also, if I’m having trouble sleeping because I’m hot, it cools me down.

11. My other sleep-inducing innovation: Put on socks if my feet are cold.

I feel frumpy, but my husband won’t let me use his legs as a foot-warmer.

12. Yawn.

13. Tell yourself, “I have to get up now.”

Imagine that you just hit the snooze alarm and in a minute, you’re going to be marching through the morning routine. Often this is an exhausting enough prospect to make me fall asleep.

14. Give up, and re-frame your sleeplessness as a welcome opportunity to snatch some extra time out of your day.

If I wake up and can’t get to sleep after 4:00 a.m, I get up and start working. Instead of starting the day feeling annoyed, I have a wonderful feeling of having accomplished a lot before my usual wake-up time of 6:00 am.

What other strategies have worked for you — to get yourself to turn off the light, or once in bed, to get more restful sleep?

This article is courtesy of Gretchen Rubin of The Happiness Project.

The obvious answer might seem yes. But money is a complex topic.

Over many decades, the field of psychology has been studying the links between money and wellbeing.

And one of the major findings is:

You need a certain amount of money for subsistence, which is important for wellbeing. But over and above subsistence, a lot more money does not correspond to a lot more happiness.

Now, we’re learning more about how spending your money can impact on your wellbeing.

If you had a spare $100, would you be better off spending it on dinner with friends or a new dress?

New research from Carter and Gilovich from Cornell University suggests the dinner with friends might win out.

That’s because buying ‘experiences’ rather than ‘things’ tends to make people happier.

Here’s why:

Decisions about material possessions seem to be more difficult to make than decisions about experiences.

When buying a new flat screen TV, we compare models, sizes and prices. When there’s so much choice, even if we’re happy with the deal, we may have lingering doubts about whether we got the best deal - which can take away some of the enjoyment of our brand new TV.

Whereas when we choosing experiences, we tend to decide on the kind of place we’d like to go and then choose the first option that fits.

When deciding where to go for dinner, we might want to eat Thai food in the city. Instead of researching every single Thai restaurant in the city, and comparing menus and pricing, we choose the first or second Thai restaurant we think of, and are generally satisfied with that.

It’s the act of comparison that can undermine wellbeing.

In general, it is easier to compare our purchase of a brand new TV - and feel like we didn’t make the best choice - than it is to compare our choice of restaurant or the experience we had at that restaurant with our friends.

And because material possessions tend to deteriorate in value over time - the new massive flat screen TV is not so massive the longer you have it - compared to the brand new even more massive TVs on the market now.

Whereas, our experiences of a lovely dinner with friends can become even more positive in our minds over time.

So how should you spend that spare $100? It can depend on how you view your purchases.

Do you agonise over whether you could have got a better dress for a better price? [The tyranny of choice]

Do you compare your dress to your friend’s dress and feel unsatisfied? [Unfavourable comparisions]

Or is the dress your ticket to go out and have fun with your friends? [An enjoyable experience]

And what about how we spend money on our kids?

Buying experiences together might be better for everyone than buying them the latest, greatest brand new must-have toy - which very soon will be superseded by some other latest, greatest brand new must-have toy.

And if your kids must have a must-have toy, then turn it into an experience and play it with them.

It is one thing to set a goal and achieve it, but how do we confidently know whether that goal is the right one?

Most of us will make a New Year resolution, yet only 12% will ever realise it. Research shows that we make more resolutions to start a new habit, than to break one.

Typical resolutions include:

Increase exercise
Be more conscientious about work or school
Develop better eating habits
Stop smoking, drinking, or using drugs (including caffeine)

Philosopher, Caroline West, of the University of Western Sydney reveals that in our quest for greater fitness, we spend more time shopping for leisure goods than engaging in leisure itself and spend more time watching sport on TV, rather than playing it ourselves.

Empirical research on leisure pursuits that deliver a healthy dose of satisfaction suggest we should refrain from typical New Year resolutions and progress some or all of the following:

Socialising
Community work
Visiting new places
Meditation or worship
Cultural activities
Being engrossed in a stimulating book or hobby
Getting a good nights sleep
Physical exercise

Because of society’s increasing expectations for dads to be actively involved parents, most of us yearn for more of what we find increasingly harder to get, TIME. This becomes a distant reality when we have kids craving our undivided attention.

So why not set a few goals for 2010 that bring you and the kid’s sustained satisfaction:

Identify a project and build it: e.g. Veggie / herb garden, a billy-cart, fishpond.
Explore. Take advantage of our multi-cultural communities, jump on some public transport and discover new food and cultures. Make it a regular event.
Share a book, either read it to the young ones or form a monthly book club.
Community work. Together you can decide who, why, where and when.
Get into a new sport. Either as spectators (e.g. Winter Olympics) or as participants, consider martial arts, yoga, tennis, jogging and walking etc…
Do a short course: art, craft, pottery, gardening, sailing, wood work etc…
Be king of the kids: Do an inspiring activity each weekend

Once you have identified your aspired outcome, it is important to create a plan that ensures you see it through. Professor Richard Wiseman, Hertfordshire University, offers the following tips for success:

Men should set specific goals
Women should tell others about their resolution
We should all avoid leaving the decision to New Year’s Eve
Deciding to revisit a past resolution sets you up for frustration and disappointment
Choose something new, or approach an old problem in a new way
Those who make vague plans were more likely to fail - for example instead of planning to go running twice a week you should plan to go running at specific times every week
Men may be more likely to adopt a macho attitude and have unrealistic expectations, and so simple goal setting helps them achieve more

Like business goals, our personal goals, should be specific, realistic, achievable, timely and measurable.

Our plans too often focus us primarily on a life of work, usually with transparent and tangible milestones. Dads would do well to develop a plan that pursues lasting joy and satisfaction with their kids.

What will you achieve with your kids by December 2010?

Article courtesy of dadsclub.com.au