Thursday, September 12, 2013

MONEY SPOILS WELLNESS

FWR says: Money and Wellness Don’t Mix

We live in a money world. It is hard to think of anything that is not seriously influenced by money.

Our lives are chained to the banks because we borrow rather than save. Business sells lots of useless stuff and suddenly lays off 200 people. The media feed us a tsunami of half truths because they always have one eye on the profits.

All this means slavery to the dollar for families. This happens while their first job is supposed to be the wellness of their children. The family has sole responsibility for wellness in children.

The Family Wellness Rainbow identifies the six big ingredients in family and child wellness. Here is what money is doing to our wellness:

Fitness: We are so smothered by commercial wellness gimmicks we neglect the basics of wellness like regular exercise

Relationships: Let money in and relationships become deals, competition for power and stuff

Knowledge: The avalanche of information from the new technologies spin half truths to meet media financial goals

Family: When money is the driving force, family life becomes a competition that destroys the vital bonds - hence, fragmentation

Values: Money determines jobs and careers that pursue income rather than service and callings

Faith: Money is destroying the churches because they have allowed their expenses to overshadow their mission


FWR says: Money is the bad elephant in the living room

Monday, September 02, 2013

KIDS NEED RULES

FWR Asks: Our rules for Children - Good or Bad?

We are in an enlightened age when we know that children learn more from experience than from teaching. Our children learn mainly by doing rather than by telling.

This means that we must ensure that children experience life as it goes. Hence the big emphasis on child participation – at home and at school. It also means that children need to learn early the lessons of responsibility – duties, risks, rewards and consequences.

As with any trend we are overdoing things. In our efforts to grant freedoms to learn by experience, we forget the older lessons that children can handle freedoms only a bit at a time. More often than not, our children now have more freedom than they can handle. The results are children without the discipline of chores, children out of control at home, in the community and in the schools.

This problem has grown beyond our control for another reason. The issue of abuse has been blown out of all proportion. A public attitude of suspicion now questions one of the helpful ways to show children our love – hugs.

This has been greatly increased by public efforts to deal with abuse through the legal systems. This is a very dumb idea. It gives lawyers a heyday that sets children against their parent and their schools. It sets families against schools. How much more destructive can we get?

This all also comes from an ill informed view of the nature of constructive discipline. For example, slapping children by caring parents really helps. Parents have lost one of their key abilities to help kids. Both parents and kids know when slapping is the right thing.

The naive view of abuse is that it is mainly violent and is mainly a man’s problem. Clinical experience and research shows the opposite to be true. The most hurtful forms of abuse come covertly and subtly in the homes from women. The main reason for this is that mother love is the most powerful element in child rearing and therefore the most hurtful when misused.

The best solution for all this is for families to work together to retake control of their children. It takes at least one man and one woman to raise a child. In fact, it takes all the men and all the women in the wider family to do the job right.

FWR Says: It is time for families to take charge of all the rules for their children.