Collaborative Parenting | Focused Healthy Kids

New Year: If not now, then when?

I enjoy inspirational messages.

Sometimes these messages arrive at the perfect time and it feels like the universe is speaking directly to me.

I receive a daily message from Neale Donald Walsh as well as a weekly question from Paul Clark. (Learn more about weekly question here).

Today the two messages coincided with such relevance to my life right now and for all families looking to live more consciously, connected and respectfully with their children.

Today, as I began to write this post, the stars aligned perfectly with the universe speaking to me loud and clear as Kenny Loggins, “Conviction of the Heart” played.

“If not now, then when?”

On this day of your life

Gina, I believe God wants you to know …

… that as you start the first full work week of the New

The point of your activities throughout the day is not to

make a living, but to make a life; not to ‘work’ but to

create joy. If you are doing what you are doing merely

to ‘pay the bills,’ you will have missed the major reason

for All Of Life.

The purpose of life is to know and express Who You

Are. If you do other than that during the days and times

of your life, you will have not used those days and times

in a way that profits your soul. It is soul profit we are

after here, not body profit.

This first week of the New Year is a good time to

contemplate that, yes?

If not me, than who?

Are we making a life or just a living?

I know I am working to pay the bills and I have enjoyed my work as an Occupational Therapist for the past 26 years, yet, my inner passion calls for more.

Life can be cyclical.

I found Occupational Therapy in a catalogue of careers in my high school guidance counselor’s office in 1986. I read the description and discovered a field I never knew existed an that fit with my interests of psychology, special needs and teaching.

In college, I envisioned my OT career would be working with socially and emotionally disturbed children. I had a summer job at Allentown State Hospital with the inpatient children’s program through the Occupational Therapy department and felt impassioned to help children with social and emotional issues.

In 1992, I completed my required internships, two 12 week “fieldworks” as required to complete my degree and before I could sit for the board exam. The second fieldwork was a Good Shepherd Rehabilitation Hospital in Allentown, PA. I discovered adult rehab and in particular brain injury rehab and followed that interest. It was magical, all I loved about psychology and the brain combined and amazing progress seen working in acute physical rehab. The patients began in a coma and left walking and talking!

Flash forward, 26 years later, I have realized my intention to work with socially and emotionally challenge children did come to fruition, in raising my own children. I take that comment seriously and with true intention.

Now, in my blogs, I am using my skills as an Occupational Therapist is a new way, Writing about my experiences with mental health issues in myself and my family and reaching out to help others. And this includes my work in growing a new business with my husband, Don with Focused Healthy Families and Collaborative, Conscious and Respectful Parenting.

What are your dreams?

In order to help and support our children, we need to be an example of following our own interests and passions and living the life we choose and not the one we feel “we have to do, to pay the bills”

I will leave you with those thoughts and the words of Kenny Loggins…

Where are the dreams that we once had?
This is the time to bring them back.
What were the promises caught on the tips of our tongues?
Do we forget or forgive?
There’s a whole other life waiting to be lived when…
One day we’re brave enough
To talk with Conviction of the Heart.
And down your streets I’ve walked alone,
As if my feet were not my own
Such is the path I chose, doors I have opened and closed
I’m tired of living this life,
Fooling myself, believing we’re right, when…
I’ve never given love
With any Conviction of the Heart
One with the earth, with the sky
One with everything in life
I believe we’ll survive
If we only try…
How long must we wait to change
This world bound in chains that we live in
To know what it is to forgive,
And be forgiven?
It’s been too many years of taking now.
Isn’t it time to stop somehow?
Air that’s too angry to breathe, water our children can’t drink
You’ve heard it hundreds of times
You say your aware, believe, and you care, but…
Do you care enough
To talk with Conviction of the Heart?

Reflections on a simple but miraculous evening with my family

Reflections on a simple but miraculous evening with my family

Reflections on a simple but miraculous evening with my family
— Read on ginaslifejourney.wordpress.com/2011/01/30/reflections-on-a-simple-but-miraculous-evening-with-my-family/

this is a blog I wrote in January of 2011. Until I copy it here, you can find it at the above link, to my other WordPress blog.

Things I Have Learned From My Children.

I believe the children are our future.

I wrote the following post in June.

My oldest child has just turned 21.

Rereading this post has had an impact on me, especially the last 4 lines.

Many of the things I included here are things my children have said, sometimes paraphrased and sometimes not.

No matter how old they are, they will always be our children and no matter how young they are, they are our greatest teachers, if we stop and listen.

I believe the children are our are future

Teach them well and let them lead the way

Show them all the beauty they possess inside

Give them a sense of pride to make it easier

Let the children’s laughter remind us how we used to be

I find beauty and truth in this song. I am familiar with Whitney Houston’s version yet my research found that it was written by Michael Masser and the late Linda Creed in 1976.

I believe the children are our future.

I also believe that I have learned far more from my children than I could ever teach them.

My children have reminded me of who I truly am.

Living alongside of them, I have found my way back to my true self.

It is a journey.

It is a process.

I know my children have helped me along my journey.

I believe our souls are connected.

On a spiritual level, we guide each other and have connections far beyond our current human condition.

I have learned many things from my children and I continue to learn more every day.

I have been a mother for more than 20 years and look forward to all I will continue to learn from my children throughout our current life time together.

Things I have learned from my children:

STOP, and slow down and pay attention to things around you
Reading together before bed is a good habit
Eat when you are hungry and sleep when you are tired
Hugs and kisses are good medicine
Laughter is the best medicine
Follow your passion
Be who you are and don’t apologize for it
Speak the truth, speak your truth
How we talk to people matters as much as what we say to them
Respect is a two-way street
If you love to dance, then dance as much as you can
Reading a great book is more fun when read along with a friend(s)
Satoshi Tajiri created Pokémon
Persistence is challenging to parents but is valued by employers
Hiking heals the soul
The view at the top of the mountain is worth climbing past the danger sign
The first time at the beach is the best time
Going to the beach is even more fun with children
Digging in the sand is calming and satisfying
Straws kill sea turtles
Don’t let people tell you that you can not hike 20 miles in one hike
If you love hiking, don’t allow people to convince you to be a swimmer or a biker
Learning to ride a bike is not required
School changes how you look at learning
Life experience is more meaningful than a college degree
Don’t waste your time trying to be something that you are not
Music speaks a multigenerational language
We can do anything we set our minds to
You can overcome severe anxiety and earn 2 gold medals in your first Tae Keon Do Tournament
You are more than your anxiety
You are more than your mental illness
You are more than any illness
You are not your illness
I have Bipolar Depression, I am NOT bipolar
People have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, they are NOT OCD
Mental illnesses are not adjectives
Being creative can be very messy
There is beauty is messy
Dogs love us unconditionally
Animals are people too
All lives matter
Climbing up the slide can be as much fun as going down the slide
There is always time for one more hug
Snuggle time is the best way to fall asleep and the best way to wake up
Relationships are more important than accomplishments
It is important to admit when you are wrong
Your biological age does not define who you are nor what you can do
Your biological gender does not define who you are or what you can do
Love is love
It is never too late
You are never too old
There is no set age to learn anything
We need to listen more and talk less
Our actions speak louder than our words
If we want to teach anything, than we need to be an example of what we want to teach
We teach what we most need to learn
Children are closer to God and often have far more wisdom than adults
Patience is the most important skill we need in parenting
We are energy
Our energy affects the people around us
We are creative beings
It does not matter how you hold your pencil
Not everyone draws a straight line first
You can learn to spell without any formal school and without spelling tests
You don’t need to go to school to learn to read and to write
If you force people to learn something, they might grow to hate it
If you allow people to learn what they are interested in, they will retain the information much longer than any required learning
Arielle is my daughter’s favorite Disney princess
Girls can like trucks and boys can like flowers
Children’s clothes are sadly gender stereotyping
Boys can be quiet, calm and focused and girls can be physical and tough
Children of the same gender, can be as different as children of different genders
Not all boys like to play with guns and wrestle with other boys
Some girls hate the color pink
Colors don’t have gender
The length of our hair does not define our gender but many people think that way
Theater and acting is a great way to learn many life skills
Theater brings people together
Theater thrives on diversity
Sometimes, life just sucks
Watching your father nearly die, can be as scary and frightening and troubling as having a parent who dies
When your guts tells you that your children will need support from a traumatic experience, listen to your gut
Trauma can be trapped inside of us for years and manifest different for different people
Being happy all the time is not realistic nor healthy
Being highly intelligent is as challenging in this world as having a lower than average IQ
Our children have knowledge and understanding far beyond their years
We are not born “blank slates”
Dogs are therapeutic
We can’t solve problems for our children
Our children are living their own lives
Patience is the most important skill we need as parents and in life
Take time for what is important
Decide what is important to you
Take a nap when your body is tired
You can make up your story as you go
You can change your mind about your favorite color
You can change your mind about many things
Walk barefoot sometimes
Go outside when it is snowing no matter what time of day it is
I love making snowmen
I am more committed to making a snowman than my children are
The best way to take care of my children, is to take care of myself
I am a better mother when I am writing and journaling
I am a better mother when I take time for myself, alone

I am more in touch with my true self now after being a mother for more than 20 years, then I have been in a long time. The last time I felt this in touch with myself, I was 11 or 12 years old.

Living life alongside my children and learning along with them, has been a large part of my journey back to myself.

I could write volumes on all I continue to learn from my children. I just need to remember to stop, listen, and pay attention to them.

Collaborative, Conscious, Respectful Parenting

CCR Parenting

Because I love music and well… I find the name catchy.

Have you ever seen the rain coming down on a sunny day?

R.E.M. sings as I write, “everybody hurts, sometimes”, “when you feel like you’re alone”

I became a mother over 20 years ago. When I returned to work when my baby boy was 12 weeks old, I had a new mission, to find a way to work from home.

Somewhere along the journey, as I grew into motherhood with my child, I envisioned a Conscious Parenting website, I called it, “Mommy Daddy STOP” because my son loved road signs and I saw the symbolism with road signs and parenting and messages.

I have notebooks of material and ideas for that website and I even created the site at one point.

Mommy Daddy STOP: Consciously parenting our children, our parents and ourselves

In 2010, I began my blog, Gina’s Life Journey. And a few years later, Child-led Learning.

Here I am now in 2018 and Don and I have given our first Parenting Conversations talk. The conscious parenting website idea is alive and well again and growing into a business.

Why collaborative, conscious, respectful parenting?

Collaboration

I see a family as a team. A group of people living together and therefore need to function together. Parenting is a relationship and like any relationship there needs to be give and take, a sense of doing what works best for all.

Businesses spend time on team building, good business do. Families can also learn from team building exercises. We need to learn communication skills and we also need to have fun!

Respect

Over the past 20+ years as a parent, I have decided if I had to pick one word to define the most important part of parenting, that word is respect.

I vividly remember being out at a restaurant with my husband and oldest child who was maybe 2 1/2 at the time. We were in SC and had gone to eat, I believe after attending a Unity service in Columbia, SC, near my parents house. There was a stranger, a woman, who came over to us and told us that she liked how respectfully we were talking to our young child. Before she said that, I am not sure that it had occurred to me that the manner in which we talked to our child was “respectful”. That message, her compliment, became a gauge of something I always wanted to have in our parenting relationship.

I never used “baby talk” with my kids. I spoke to them. I described what I was doing, what I saw in the world as we walked, and I shared what I was thinking. I spoke to them like I would speak to another person. As a baby, I spoke to them like a person new to this world, “those are trees, and houses and look mailboxes and the mailboxes have numbers, there is a 1 and a 4 and an 8… ”

I took walks with my oldest child with him in the stroller and had this ongoing monologue with him about the things in our neighborhood. I described all the road signs, first the name, and then the color and shape. This is where his love of sings, in particular, STOP signs, originated. He found the bright red octagon fascinating and luckily our neighbors lived on the corner and we would walk to their driveway every day to visit the STOP sign. And then I made one for him to have inside, incase it rained or weather did not permit us to visit the stop sign outside.

STOP became a reminder to me as a parent, to stop and pay attention to the world and to my son. To STOP and slow down, to look, listen, feel and experience. To be in the moment with my child.

I write about collaborative, conscious, respectful parenting as a reminder to myself. It is a journey, one I am still traveling. Always working to improve my parenting and be a better version of myself to best help my children.

I close with these beautiful words by Colbie Caillat:

Low

When you’re feeling low

And you just don’t know where to run to

Broke

If your heart’s been broke

And you feel like you’re all alone

If you need something to believe in

If you’re looking for a light to guide you home

Just look inside

You’re light a shining brighter than you know

You should know

I’m never gonna let you down

I’m always gonna build you up

And when you’re feeling lost

I will always find you love

I’m never gonna walk away

I’m always gonna have your back

And if nothing else you can always count on that

When you need me

I promise I will never let you down

Laugh

I will make you laugh

If you ever feel like crying

Close

I will hold you close

You won’t be alone anymore

If you need someone to believe in

If you’re reaching for a hand to guide you home

Just take my hand and I won’t let you go

I hope you know

I’m never gonna let you down

I’m always gonna build you up

And when you’re feeling lost

I will always find you love

I’m never gonna walk away

I’m always gonna have your back

And if nothing else you can always count on that

I’m never gonna let you down

I’m always gonna build you up

And when you’re feeling lost

I will always find you love

I’m never gonna walk away

I’m always gonna have your back

And if nothing else you can always count on that

When you need me

I promise I will never let you down

Ain’t never gonna let you down

If you need something to believe in

If you feel you’ve reached the end of the road

Don’t be afraid, I’ll always guide you home

You should know

I’m never gonna let you down

I’m always gonna build you up

And when you’re feeling lost

I will always find you love

I’m never gonna walk away

I’m always gonna have your back

And if nothing else you can always count on that

I’m never gonna let you down

I’m always gonna build you up

And when you’re feeling lost

I will always find you love

I’m never gonna walk away

I’m always gonna have your back

And if nothing else you can always count on that

When you need me

I promise I will never let you down

Ain’t never going let you down

Ain’t never going let you down