There is something to be said for the huge responsibility weighing on our shoulders as parents. What’s even more straining is being in a position to help a child’s self-esteem flourish all while knowing you may have your own challenges with esteem. It’s not surprising that so many of us have issues with our own sense of self. After all, our parents weren’t given tools to help “fill our buckets”.

Perhaps if we’re going to really take on this mission of “filling buckets” we need to start with filling our own. Of course, that’s much easier said than done. However, just being aware that becoming more fulfilled personally brings a flow of fulfillment to others could be enough.

So while we consider the best approaches (and by the way, there’s no one-best way to approach this) consider giving yourself some loving tender in the process. We may have the added responsibility of nurturing our children but we can’t forget the story of The Goose That Laid The Golden Eggs. If all of our energy is spent caring for those little eggs (our children) we’re going to run out of steam and perhaps self-esteem.

Be well to your children, Be well to yourself!

As little boys we’re like sponges just soaking up the world around us. With the guidance of our loving parents we traverse life’s obstacles and learn to find a place in our own bodies. Little boys in particular are very resistant to change and are pretty sure, most of the time, that what they know is right. Of course, parents have that responsibility to teach their children the rights and wrongs of life.

Which leads me to my next point. Perhaps many parents, in their very best effort to “do right”, actually wind up assisting their children in unlearning what is actually true. This belief rests on the principle that we are born with all the inherent qualities we have as humans. The inherent qualities I speak of include compassion, lovability, thoughtfulness, sensitivity, vulnerability, creativity, and many others. I believe one of two things happen as young children. Either we are reminded about what is already true about us (the inherent qualities) or we unlearn what is true and are taught the opposite. The opposite being not lovable, not good enough, not worthy, etc.

My wife had her phone on her and asked my son Jake (he’s two) if there was anything he wanted to say to his best friend “Connor” (who is also two). Without prompt this sweet little boy told his best friend that he loved him. My wife sent the video to Connor’s mom and he too wanted to send Jake a message back. Of course, his message was just as touching as I think you’d agree.

Jake and Connor were both born loving, lovable, tender, sweet, thoughtful, sensitive, vulnerable, creative, and sensitive. These qualities are clearly present in the video. Yet for the average “Jake” and “Connor” at 18 or 28 or 48 for that matter they would not be described that way. Men aren’t typically described as sweet, tender, vulnerable, sensitive or loving. So where does this get lost?

For now, I think it’s best that we’re all reminded what’s true about these two boys and every other boy. No matter what they unlearn down the road they’re all sweet, loving, lovable, tender,and sensitive among hundreds of qualities. They don’t have to win anything, do anything better, faster, or harder. They’re already everything they should be. So if you’re a parent reading this I invite you to consider that perhaps as, if not more, important than what our children have to learn is what they need to be reminded of. Those same things are what we can remind ourselves about. After all, we may not be children anymore but we still have all of those qualities we see in these two little boys.

What are some of your favorite ways to remind your son or daughter what’s true about them? How about yourself?

It’s amazing what our children can teach us. We spend so much effort in helping them to understand the world around them. Sometimes, the most important things we learn are simply reminders…even those from our children.

This past Sunday  morning O and I were at the table where she was drawing me a great picture for Father’s Day. As she was drawing each little picture she’d describe for me what she was drawing.

This is a sweetheart for me and dad.

This is wife Jake.

This is wife Dad.

This is a house party for Mina (imaginary friend)…and so on…

What an imagination this little being of sweetness is! It was hard to make out exactly what this 4-year old was drawing but she had descriptions and she certainly knew what it was. So I would remember, I wrote down (with an arrow pointing) next to each little picture what the drawing was. I knew in a year, heck even a week, I’d forget that the swirly line she drew was supposed to be a cup drinker fire band, and no, I don’t have a clue what that is!

What an imagination this little princess has!

Then she asked me a question, “Daddy, What do you want to be when you grow up?”. At first I just thought this was a cute and sweet question that a little 4-year old asks. Then I sat with it for a moment and thought about exactly who I am in my life. Completely out of habit I thought about what I do for a living. Then I realized the question was about who I want to be, who I am.

Most of my life I defined who I was by things I did or things that existed outside of Josh. I quickly reminded myself that whether or not I like work, whether or not I’m athletic, whether or not I fall under any external label that identifies performance driven roles I am who I am. I’ve spent the last year of my life in deep reflection and personal growth.

That question posed while at first sweet, innocent, and cute was a reminder that we don’t have to do things to become who we are. Being who we are is nothing more than an awareness of what’s been there our whole lives. No, not outside of us, inside of us.

It was also a reminder from this little creative genius that it’s never too late to become aware of “who we want to be” when we grow up. Unlike obtaining a PhD, a Law Degree or the title of Vice President, becoming the unique, worthy, lovable, good enough people is as simple as turning on the lights.

Everything you ever wanted to be, everything you ever wanted to see in your children is a matter of awareness.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

This morning while laying in bed…What? Wait!! I was laying in bed! Thanks to my beautiful wife, even though the kids were up at their usual 6′ish (Yes, as in 6am on the weekend!) she let me sleep in.

So we were laying there and she reminded me that this was my 4th Father’s Day! I sat there for a moment recalling the last 3 of them and just noticing how grateful I felt. Having experienced 4 years of infertility we both only dreamed about celebrating Mother’s and Father’s Day. It’s almost like a second birthday for sure!

I haven’t really spoken about being grateful much in the past and thought now would be a perfect time. Just recently I made a conscious decision to be mindfully grateful.

What is Mindfully Grateful?

Basically my definition of this is that you are very intentional to be aware of what you’re grateful for. There are different ways of doing this. For me, I actually use an app on my iPhone called Gratitude Journal to write down specifically what I’m grateful for.

I can’t go any further without telling the whole truth…I got the idea of writing down things I’m grateful for from Oprah.

Okay, now that we got that out of the way I thought it’d be best for me to use an app. I’m a little geeky that way and I like the idea of having my list on me throughout the day. I need to do a better job of my consistency but basically right before I go to bed I’ll write out 5 quick things I am grateful for. Most of them are relevant to the the day I just had. Normally they are things that are very simple such as a glass of wine, the sun, a hug, etc. The point is in appreciating what I do have and what is in my life. Giving attention to what I have not only keeps me mindful of the positive things in my life but keeps me in the present (the now). I’m not thinking about the future and I’m not really thinking about the past. Everything I’m grateful for is happening right now and I do my best to live in the right now. So you can see how something so simple that takes literally minutes a day can have such an impact on your life and self awareness.

Below is a screenshot from the list I made tonight. I put my wife first on the list because I very literally wouldn’t be a Father without her. She was amazing through all of our Infertility and I owe all of this to her.

I had an amazing day filled with plenty of time with the wife and kids, even a little “me time”. It was so nice to hear from so many friends and family today as well. Special days like this make it easy to find so many things I’m grateful for. What’s even more special is that I know tomorrow night before I go to bed I’ll have my list and I’ll be celebrating all over again.

Are you mindfully grateful? Do you keep a list or take mental note on a regular basis?

When our children are first born we look at them in awe. We’ll sit and stare at them, falling deep into their eyes. For many of us it’s hard to put these moments into words. Often times we don’t know what we see but we know it’s the best feeling in the world. As our children grow up there are less opportunities for that type of lengthy gazing. Heck my kids won’t sit still long enough to eat some food let alone for me to ponder their souls. However, that same feeling we had when we were able to sit and stare is still there.

While in those moments we were seeing with our eyes we were actually aware on a much deeper level. That awareness allowed us to see their inherent qualities and all that is good and true about them. Some of the inherent qualities I talk about are lovable, valuable, worthy, precious, creative, beautiful, and many others. These qualities look familiar to us because even though sometimes we question their validity they are all true about us as well. Inherent qualities may be dismissed or denied but they are with us at birth and never leave.

As our children get older there are plenty of reminders about what is “wrong” with them or how they need to perform or do things beyond just being themselves to gain attention, affection, acceptance, and appreciation. This sets the stage for them as they get older to go find ways to feel loved, lovable, etc. Perhaps if we appreciated those inherent qualities in them a little more often they would know that they don’t need to search past themselves to find love. Just maybe when they received messages from others like they’re stupid, or ugly, or unworthy, etc. they would question them instead of learning to accept them.

In the very least, I can’t think of many better ways to honor your child and help them to establish a sense of self than giving them appreciations. Appreciations can be kept very simple and would probably work best when they are not in the middle of “doing something”. I advocate this approach only because you may not want to associate them having to do something (ie; painting, cleaning, performing) in order to be appreciated for who they are. This is a time for them to be reminded of what’s true about them regardless of what they do. Again, this deeper level of awareness is a reflection of their “being” not their “doing”. Just before they go to bed at night would be a great time to let them know that you appreciate how creative, loving, lovable, valuable, precious, curious, and smart they are. These are just a few examples of what you might appreciate about them. When they are old enough you might want to write a few out and have them read them to themselves. Hearing themselves remind them can resonate even deeper.

In a world where we can guarantee we’ll be hearing a lot of false things about ourselves isn’t it nice to know that a simple reminder of what is true can go a long way? What are some ways you’ve found to remind your children what’s true about them?

Anyway, I was about to just toss the suckers (they were under $10) but realized I can do one better. So, I grabbed my iPhone opened up my eBay app and in 3 simple steps <insert Special Agent OSO music here> I had the blades listed while sitting on the couch.

Step 1

When you first launch the app you’re asked if you want to view the tutorial. There is a text tutorial that is really great. It even shows you how to search for items like yours which helps expedite the entire process! If you want to watch a video tutorial instead you can do that as well.

So your first step is going to be searching for the item you’re selling. You can either enter in the keyword of the item you’re selling or scan the barcode using the camera on the phone. I typed in the model number of the blades and it quickly showed other blades for sale. I tapped on one in the list and clicked on the “Sell one like this” button. The beauty of this is that it enters all the pertinent data into fields you’d otherwise have to fill out manually.

Step 2

Now that we’ve searched for the item we’re going to sell, we’re ready to create our posting. The following screen shots show how detailed you can be with your listing. Most fields are already filled out as a result of clicking that “Sell one like this” button in the previous step. However, you can go in and change any field you’d like simply by tapping on it. The layout is super simple and very intuitive.

Step 3

The third and final step is to submit your post! Once you do, you’ll be presented with the fees your posting will incur and that’s it! In literally minutes you can post anything you want to sell right from your phone!

I am a member of the eBay Parent Panel which is a paid sponsorship between eBay and DadStreet. The views and opinions expressed on this site are mine and cannot be bought. However, I may want to buy yours if I run out of my own.

Unless you’ve been completely offline today you’ve surely heard and/or seen the controversial cover on Time Magazine. There’s been plenty of talk about how old the child in this picture is – he’s 3 – and whether or not women should be breastfeeding a child this age. It seems all the controversy online today (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) has been around the topic of breastfeeding. Of course, this is an important topic and one that will be debated for years to come. I am very much in support of breastfeeding. Having said that, this post is actually going to talk about something much more important. It’s going to cover a topic that I’m not hearing anyone talk about and yet is, in many ways, killing millions of women and men alike.

Shame.

The cover of this photo states, “Are You Mom Enough?” Has our society become so used to being shamed, put down, questioned that we don’t even see shame when it’s staring us in the face? We wonder why so many of us have self-esteem issues and yet we don’t see some of the causes. One of the most common questions I hear women asking is (in one variation or another) “Am I enough?”. Whether it’s in the form of weight, beauty, intelligence, career, financial, caregiving…and the list goes on and on.

The bottom line is that every women who is blessed to have a baby is ENOUGH from the moment she gives birth to that beautiful child. No woman can ever be MORE THAN or LESS THAN enough of a Mom.

There is no judgement in truth.

“More than” and “Less than” statements are judgements and there’s only one truth. All Moms are enough all the time!

Why must our society/media put into question something as basic as this? Why must they keep our Moms doubting themselves? As if there isn’t enough things to call into question about our performance and even our inherent nature. The sad truth is that this is so common. What’s even more sad is that so many Women and Men alike don’t even recognize that this is abuse and it’s called, Shame.

Someone(s) at Time Magazine has a warped sense of what’s “Real”. Don’t let them fool you into thinking you ever have to meet some condition as a women and a mother in order to be enough. This is a complete fallacy and says much more about the owners and content creators at Time Magazine than it ever does about our Mothers.

On this Mother’s Day I want you to remember one thing Moms. You were, are, and will always be enough.

With May already upon us it’s not hard to remember that Mom is on our mind! There are so many resources out there for us to turn to and I wanted to remind you about my friends at eBay. You might not think that eBay would have anything to do with your upcoming Mother’s Day but I’m going to invite you to see what they have in store.

Since we’re all on some form of Social Media on a daily basis I thought I’d share about how they’re contributing. They are hosting a number of Social Media Giveaways including a Twitter Party for Moms on May 1st (from 12 – 2 PST) as well as compiling a gift guide of items that the Mother’s in your life might like.

Check out these different eBay channels to celebrate the Mom in your life and win some great prizes while you’re at it.

• Memorable Moments – Facebook photo Sweepstakes with daily winners. Check out the site!

• Keep an eye for giveaways on Twitter (#ebaymom) and Pinterest.

• Fashion Vault – The Watchery – Mother’s day luxury watches up to 70% off – 4/30 to 5/7. View the sale here!

• eBay Flowers Promotion – Buy ProFlowers through eBay and get $10 to spend on eBay running until 5/12. Check it out here!

I am a member of the eBay Parent Panel which is a paid sponsorship between eBay and DadStreet. The views and opinions expressed on this site are mine and cannot be bought. However, I may want to buy yours if I run out of my own.

Our daughter, O, will be 4 years old in just under two weeks. She’s got a great vocabulary and I know we’ve done a great job ensuring she’s not exposed to words we’d likely use around other adults. However, she’s now in Pre-School and of course have no control over what other children are going to say. Recently she’s been picking up some words and one in particular.

About a week ago, O came home and completely out of nowhere says, “Daddy, we don’t say stupid.”. I was shocked at first as I’d never heard her use that word. Apparently, one of the other girls she plays with picked it up. So I replied, “That’s right honey, no one is stupid and we don’t use that word.”. That was the last I heard of it until the next day.

The conversation went like this:

O: “Daddy, we don’t say Stupid.”
Me: “That’s right honey, we don’t say that word.”
O: “Stupid is a bad word.”
Me: “That’s right honey and we don’t say it, good job!”
O: “Right, we don’t say Stupid.”
Me: “Right…”

This exact same conversation has occurred every day this week. I’m beginning to notice a pattern and am quickly catching on to this little genius 3 year old. She’s found a way to say Stupid all the while confirming that she shouldn’t say it!

Darn her!!!! LOL This is her at 3?? I am in so much trouble!