Five Life Lessons from my Father

There have been lots of mentions of dads online and on LinkedIn today I saw the title of an article "lessons I have learned from my Dad" which sparked some thoughts for me.

This is my Dad, he passed away four years ago from oesophageal cancer. I miss him hugely and I guess I always will. Dad wasn't perfect, but he didn't pretend to be either. He had a great sense of humour and shared it liberally. He had a lot of love to give and worked hard to give us the life we had. I know I am lucky to have had the time I did with my Dad. Even though he is not here he is never far from my mind. Here are some of the lessons I have taken from him:

If it is broke, fix it... or at least have a go! 
Dad came from a generation of can-do kind of people. He turned his hand to all sorts of home handyman tasks and because of that we were self sufficient in a lot of ways. He had an amazing veggie garden, redecorated our homes, ensured our houses were well maintained and he even made his own cheese at one stage.

When something broke down, Dad would have a go at fixing it or ask a neighbour/friend if they were more skilled. I remember our toaster disappeared to one of our clever neighbours for a good wee while at one stage. Dad kept a small supply of broken reading glasses, he had a terrible habit of sitting on them and breaking them! This meant that he was able to do running repairs as yet another pair got damaged!
He didn't throw away things, or people, if they were broken... he valued the relationships he had with others and worked to keep them alive.

I really respect the do-it-yourself attitude, and where I can I do my best, like when my husband and I did up our kitchen from recycled materials mostly. Unfortunately I don't have the skills that Dad had as yet. This year we will start planting veggies again. I wish I knew the recipe for Dad's special fertiliser that he mixed up every year for the best tasting tomatoes ever. Note to anyone out there who still has a special person with special skills, work with them and learn from them while you can!

Everyone has a story to tell, if you listen 
I remember going for drives and Dad would stop to get petrol and start talking to the attendant there. As the car was filling with the fumes of the petrol station Dad would be happily chatting away to this complete stranger like they were an old friend, all the while I was wishing he would hurry up! Dad could strike up a conversation with just about anyone and people seemed comfortable around him and would chat away happily.

This is something that I use a lot of the time and despite my misery as a child at the petrol station it is a gift that I truly appreciate now. I have heard fascinating stories of people's lives, and made interesting connections. The world is full of interesting people, who become more interesting because someone listened to them. I have even made good friends from a random conversation so I thoroughly recommend having a go at striking up a conversation with someone new this week.

Learn to love the people you care about the way they need to be loved 
Dad did have a gift and I didn't really appreciate it until he passed away. He worked out how we needed to be loved and gave us what he could. I was lucky in the fact that no matter how bad things got I knew I could always go to Dad and he would do what he could to help me get through the stuff that was blocking me... sometimes just knowing that helped me get through! He would sometimes give me a hug, sometimes he would get me laughing at myself or the situation, other times he would listen while I ranted and raved until I had talked myself out, and on occasion he would tell me to pull my head in.

There is a wonderful lady called Allison Mooney (if you ever get a chance to hear her speak, grab it!) who talks about personality preferences and suggests that we treat people the way they want to be treated as opposed to the way we want to be treated. It is an interesting suggestion but can make the difference, I know it made a difference for me.

If you are able to help someone then help them 
Dad was often helping others. When his friends were ill he would do things around their homes that they were no longer able to do. He would give away veggies. With one young family who had moved into our town, Dad got chatting to them and ended up helping them set up with household items like kitchen appliances etc. If he had something spare and someone else had a need then he had no issues with giving it away even if we didn't always agree.

We all have skills and there are numerous opportunities for us to use them to help someone else. Think about what it is that you can do and ask yourself if that might be helpful for someone else. I have found this year that some of my management and leadership skills have been really useful with my volunteer work with our local playcentre for example.

Enjoy the life you have while you can
Do as much of what you love as you can (as long as it doesn't harm others I guess) while you can. Live as big a life as you can, don't wait too long for things to come to you and take some risks along the way.
Things weren't always easy in Dad's life but he maintained a sense of fun and humour. Sometimes I share the funny things he did or said with other people and so I guess he is still helping people see the lighter side of life?

I know I still get hung up on what is coming next or what I still have to do and every so often have regrets or hurts from the past that I allow to ruin the joy of a moment. There is so much joy to be had right here and right now... why would anyone in their right mind deny themselves it? Another gift my Dad left me is a greater sense of perspective. When things go wrong, as they sometimes do, I just have to ask myself "is this as bad as losing your dad?" and the answer to date is always a resounding "no!", it helps me cut through the drama and keep moving forward.

Four gifts from five generations

One of my previous posts was focused on modern teenagers and technology whilst drawing some parallels between generations as well. Moving on from that I figured that this was an opportunity to put some thoughts down on paper about strengths of generational age groups as we go forward in the technological age that we are living in.
We all have something to offer and for each of us it is important that we embrace the strengths of our own and other age groups. The five very general age groups I am looking at are: preschoolers, primary (elementary) aged children, teenagers/adolescents, adults and senior citizens.
These are some ideas to start a conversation about what each generation can offer and they come from my experience. I am writing from the perspective of an adult, a mother and a teacher... you may see it very differently and that is fantastic, please feel free to share your thoughts so we can learn from each other.

Preschoolers
I know being a mother of a preschooler I am reminded daily of how incredible the world is. When we go for a walk, we stop to marvel at tiny flowers or tall buildings, we don't rush. I will never forget watching my little boy learning to roll over, his determination through repeated failed attempts and his satisfaction when he mastered the skill just blew me away. When I feel like I am overwhelmed by all that needs to be done I find that he helps me to focus on what is important (usually him!) and reminds me of what being mindful is really about.

Strengths of our Preschoolers:

• they are born into this age, it is the only world they know so the adults in their lives can give them the confidence to explore and learn alongside them as they discover the wonders of their world
• they can show us about learning through failure and persistence
• they can teach us about living in the moment 
• they are one of the best representations of hope 

Primary (Elementary) School Children
I am a primary teacher by trade and have spent a lot of my adult life focused on the needs of this age group. As a general rule they are motivated learners. They come into our classrooms and want to please, they want to do well and we need to create risk-positive environments where mistakes are celebrated attempts on the way to success not just wrong or plain failures. There is opportunity to reinforce the values held by our communities. These children are more than capable of taking on responsibility and thrive from being trusted.

Strengths of  our Primary (Elementary) School Children:

• adults in their lives can walk alongside them, offering guidance to them and learning from them
• they are open to learning and we have the opportunity to reinforce positive/healthy mindsets  
• they have a strong sense of fairness so can help adults in their life stay true to their values  
• they have the potential to take positive action for their communities, especially when supported and trusted by adults in their lives 

Teenagers/Adolescents
As I spoke about in a previous post, this age group has enormous potential for impacting on our world. They have energy, enthusiasm and with encouragement can be incredibly creative. They are going through huge change (not only physiologically) and the support from positive friends, role models and adults in their lives can have a great impact on how well they negotiate all the changes they are faced with. They need to know that they have people in their corner whilst at the same time taking responsibility for their actions- positive and negative. They have a tendency to expand the possible potential benefits of a course of action and minimise the negative so need to have relationships with people who can help them unpack their choices and make more thoughtful decisions about the stuff that matters.

Strengths of our Teenagers/Adolescents:

• they are able to engage with the world in a whole variety of ways 
• they more likely to be daring, to take risks, and it is up to the adults and peers in their lives to help channel this enthusiasm towards healthy/responsible risks  
• they see the world in really interesting ways- adults can learn so much from them if they are able to bridge the gap through respect and genuine interest
• they have an innate desire to belong, creating and valuing opportunities to connect with others is important 

Adults
Adults are leaders within our nuclear families, our communities, and in the workforce (as a general rule). They can enable growth and change or block it, they can empower by responding positively to the needs of our children and youth. In our schools the adults are usually the decision makers and have the opportunity to be lead learners. Adults have an enormous responsibility to walk the talk and live their values, not only because it is the right thing to do but also because you never know who is watching and learning from what you do.

Strengths of our Adults:

• they can share important values by living them, they can create an environment of acceptance for our young and old 
• they are aware of the shifts and changes happening in our world and can help support others as they learn to cope with change 
• they are in a great position to offer guidance to our young people to help them navigate their world 
• they are often leaders of families and communities so are in a prime position to ensure that the voices of our youth and elders are heard 

Senior Citizens
In some western cultures, like in New Zealand, I don't think we always honour the gifts that our senior citizens offer us. Some of our elders have seen the best and worst of humanity over our recent history, they have seen enormous change, they know the stories of our past... they can teach us so much about where we come from so we can relate that to where we might be going. They are able to teach us about the values that are important to our communities.

Strengths of our Senior Citizens:

• they have wisdom to share (so do our children) 
• they have seen change and turmoil, they have a valuable perspective 
• they can help us uphold important community/cultural values 
• they can mentor our young by embracing their energy and enthusiasm and demonstrating a willingness to keep on learning