Thinking about thinking. Feeling about feeling

Clients asked what are the best ways to tackle anxieties and frustration. I don't know about others. I use "thinking about thinking" and "feeling about feeling" to counter whatever situations where I feel frustrated and confused. These tools instantly give me space that helps evaluating what state of mind I make myself into. " Make myself into frustration and anger" - no joke, we make oursleves miserable and become victim of our own making.

Commitment and Action

Have you ever wondered why we often make commitment that we deeply regret when the moment to fulfill them arrives?. We all do that. We agree to volunteer reading to kids and we look forward to that obligation even as we jot it in our diary. then when it actually comes time to gather books, plan the content for the event and ignore the fact there is a highly attractive hike on schedule, We wonder what we were thinking when we said yes. Well, here's what we were thinking; when we said yes we were thing about reading to kids in terms of why instead of how, in terms of causes and consequences instead of execution. and we failed to consider the detail part of the event. Reading to kids next month is "an act of love" and reading to kids on the day is "an act of lunch". It happens to me often that the commitment I put in diary a month ago has created anxiety when it comes to the actual execution of that commitment , which reminds me to be careful not to over commit for things that appears to be charitable but later could cause grieve.

From tween to teen

Wife is returning this Friday from excursion in Tibet. In past 3 weeks I was playing dual roles as dad and mom. I must say it's a wonderful experience. After all being "a mom" is not as bad I thought. In fact, it's quite an enjoyable experience once I let kids determine their plan of actions. Observing as a coach, most kids have their routines, which form part of their lives. I must admit I would not concur some of them. Nonetheless, it's their life and I have confidence as long as we model as parents positively, most kids will find their ways to ride through most turbulent times from tween to teen.

What a day for hiking!

Yesterday was one the hottest days for hiker. I scheduled a hike on Mac Trail 3 almost a month ago. It turned out only three hikers joining the trail. Not only that, two of them dropped in the midst of exhausting heat. Nevertheless, I finished the trail by myself and almost got killed with the sun beaming down from the top. I noticed visibility in Hong Kong has improved a bit lately. I could see clearly almost as far as Taipo from Saikung. That's something worth celebrating.

PTA

First time in Hong Kong history the church denominated school has invited volunteers to seat in newly created parent-teacher association. I intend to volunteer myself as pta member in my daughter's school. It's a new experience to me giving her school been established over 150 years. I imagine it takes a great of time and patience for teachers and parents to work as a team for the good of students, which is often perceived differenly, very challenging indeed.

Today is a big day for parents if they have kids who just graduated primary school. Parents will rush here and there to fill the spaces of secondary one. My son has got registered months ago and I was playing chicken not to wait till the selection of central lottery system which is devastating for many parents. Education to me is a life long passion, underline passion. If one doesn't have to passion and enjoyment of doing thing (anything), he won't feel energized to get up and do what he promises to do.I look at education like playing ball, computer games, all these gadgets that are so popular amongst kids. I wish someone would invent a game where kids are so attracted to it and be able to learn language, mathematics, and science. Today's education is so out of touch for the interest of learning, particularly for kids, only a small percentage of lucky parents whose children are curious and driven to learn in traditional ways.

End of life care

Death is an inevitable part of life. When death occurs, everyone associated with the death are affected. Attending today's symposium allows me to look at death from different views. Studies have found most people lack of preparation leading to their own death. Perhaps, being Chinese we don't like to talk about it, although it's changing. Older people begin to accept the nature process of dying and many plan according to their needs much better than previous generations. Thanks to a group of professionals working in hospice, counseling, hospitalized care, death is no longer a taboo we avoid to talk about. In fact the more we talk about it the more we're prepared to face the inevitability. The fact we all die one day.

There are several areas worth mentioning in dealing with impending death, the spirituality, support and self-esteem. These factors affect the acceptability of death, past related regret and future related regret. There are also clinical implication for family who could join patients quest for spiritual and existential meaning and self-determined life closure, or affirm the integrity and promotion of forgiveness.

Learned Helplessness

Still want to talk about the 'learned helplessness". The more I think about it the more I realize it is a dreadful disease affecting many of us, kids and adults. The symposium I attended, Dr Chiang has demonstrated a way to consciously attack learned helplessness so that one could maintain relatively positive view in life. This is how he did it.A(Adversity)= think about an adverse situation that you feel either rejected or something that made you upsetB(Belief)= interpretation or belief that you assign to that situation has made you disappointed and you become helpless.C(Commitment)= commit for a change of view that thing could be interpreted differentlyD(Disputation)= dispute the situation or the intention behind that caused feeling of being rejected or dejectedE(Energize)= energize your new-found interpretation that could provide a more positive emotion in relation to the fact.

Ethnic Minorities Students

Helped to screen out ethnic minorities students this morning for IVE of Vocational Training Council. My impression Hong Kong is not doing enough to provide chance for these students who are mostly from ten to eleven schools that provide schooling for South Asians. Hong Kong has about 300,000 ethnic minorities who have been in Hong Kong for many years who are HK residents. Over the years, sons and daughters of ethnic minorites have been educated and adapted local circulumn. Somehow these kids have not adapted the Chinese languages thereby reducing their chances to get to local universities. As resulted, most become the laborers that you may notice from time to time in road and construction sites.

I work with a couple agencies who help ethnic minorities and just heard a story this morning two brothers committed suicide within a week and left five orphans at hand of their mother. The grand mom , being an Indian has now burdened to deal with five youngsters aging from 2 to 7. Tragic or not, the fact we heard a great deal pain and suffering from ethnic Chinese, we may also ignore the fact there are large ethnic minorities population whose origins from countries like Indian, Pakistan, Nepal, Thai, Vietnam, etc.... that we are not doing enough.

What is enough? I don't know.

4th HK Palliative Care Symposium

Just chaired a sub-conference of the 4th HK Palliative Care Symposium in HKU yesterday. Dr John Chiang who is from Taiwan introduced therapeutic recreation skills to help kids to reduce anxieties on radio and scan treatments, a standard procedure for brain tumors. This young doctor has been spending his life to design games for young patients to detract them from normal hospitalized nightmares (rules, food, pain, loneliness, etc..) which cause much sufferings for kids as well as adults. Never seen an energy-filled young doctor as passionate Dr. Chiang. A couple of his methods could be used for adults in a dreadful disease called "learned helplessness" which becomes normal ways of life for people who couldn't look things on the flip side. As resulted, life becomes a drag.

Graduation

Another milestone! My youngest son graduated today as p6 student, officially only steps away to become a teenager. It's hard to imagine I have three teens under the same roof. Guarantee things will become very interesting. Today's parents have to catch-up with teens' gadgets inorder to appreciate why kids are so drawn to them, wii, ipod, camera, iphone(not yet), and play-station 3, not to mention their secretly hide-out online games. The more we familiarize with these games the more I find they are not all bad. In fact, many of these games are educational such as Runscape, a online game that allows player to practice different roles as in the real world. Players get a chance to decide what they like to do, as a warrior, a carpenter, a caretaker... so on. By how you manage your wealth, trade your tools, and interact with your friends and foes to determine whether you win or not. Interesting!

Habit

It's fun to write a bit everyday regardless how little. Rain has stalled my hiking activities past a couple of weeks. I still manage to run 8 kilo everyday, again another habit in making. It's tough in under condition of rain and shine. Nevertheless, it gives me ecstasy and energy fills me all day. Good grief!

Revolutionary Wealth by Toffler

I was fascinated by the depth of this book. It put me off guard as I go by my business without knowing the world has changed so fast, too fast for me to do catching up. My children's future is no longer the same. How wealth created is beyond my imagination. The flow of money and information that revolutionize the world will speed up. Those who maintain "old way" of thinking will be thrown off the train, a very frightening experience. Some of kinky morale issues that are difficult to accept as parents will remain the struggles between generations. That is something really bothering parents at one end to accept the reality our children are greatly influenced by these info-dynamic cultures, very little thing that we can do but change our views that hopefully place us in a better light in dealing with kids.



Nevertheless a wonderful book for those who want to be rudely awaken to a new world.

Get a chance with my three teenage sons and daughter for 21 days

Wife hikes Tibet and I got the chance to take care my teenage kids next 21 days, all by myself. In fact to certain degree, they are taking care of or entertaining me. There is no such thing nowaday as parenting for teenagers who usually are not fond of being taken care anyway. Nowadays when doing workshops, comments from parents that kids not respond no matter how hard parents want to create a dialogue, perhaps a word here and there in reply; that's it. The more the parents want their kids to talk, the more mutes received in return. Talk about frustration!

Judith Harris on her book " Nurture Assumption" put forward her points that parents have far less influence with their kids than they think. Most kids are influenced by peers far more than parents. On the surface, it holds truth if you look at communications between kids and parents. Thinking further, aren't we all the same when we were kids? It could take years to find out how much care and love that parents gave out of good intention but weren't communicated properly by both parties. Luckily parents nowadays have mind of continuously educating themselves when talking to kids. It's comforting to see young parents to learn parental skills to prepare themselves for challenges in the future. I also see the surge of enquires about coaching skills - the use of it as parents.

Great stuff!