Consistent Parenting Radio Show

Join Stash and Michele as they chat with Helen Williams, parent counselor, family educator and international trainer on consistent parenting.

A native New Zealander, Helen will be joining us from Dubai where she is giving parenting workshops. Helen has also been a teacher of yoga and meditation which has had a profound impact on her way of being. Helen explains that consistent parenting is a vital key to family harmony and to raising responsible children.

To play the consistent parenting radio show just click on the black arrow button to the middle left of the screen below.

January 5 2009

Today's show featured international parenting teacher Helen Williams, a Native New Zealander who phoned into our show live from Dubai.

On our show we talked about how many of us were raised in an authoritarian style and have not wanted to duplicate that style with our children . As a result the pendulum may have swung too far when our children are running the house. Helen points out that when parents are not in control, and children know this, it can create a feeling of uneasiness for the child. It doesn't feel safe. They are not getting the message that it is ok to be a child, but that they must think like an adult in order to handle all the choices that they are given.

Helen advocates an authoritative parenting style- one that is responsive to a child's needs in a warm and loving way, but at the same time sets clear consistent expectations of age appropriate responsible behaviors. Michele added that for a child to have a sense of confidence, they must have mastery experiences of accomplishing age appropriate tasks that are meaningful for them.

The key to Helen's approach is clear, consistent parenting. This is achieved when a parent is aware of their values and how their behavior conveys those values to their child. Listening to this show is a good first step in raising awareness about this vitally important life task of raising children.

For more information visit Helen's websites:
www.consistent-parenting-advice.com and www.authentic-self.com

Meet Blog Talk Radio Hosts:

Michele Gentile

I encourage you to visit Michele's website and to purchase her book -

Special Treasures

Special Treasures is a powerful tool which inspires readers of all ages to find, use and share their strengths and natural abilities.
Explore the hidden meaning behind each animal character and discover how those meanings are clues to creating a whole and happy life.

Stash Serafin

Stash introduces himself as a blind man with a vision. He is a figure skater, with 40 years of skating experience and continues to perfect his skating skills as a sensitive energy coach and still performs in skating shows.

Recommending Stash's newest book:
You Can't Get It 'Cause You've Already Got It!

What can a visionary writer and a blind figure skater teach YOU about getting everything YOU want by moving with ease, joy and passion through life? Meet Stash Serafin, who has performed, worked with and taught Olympic and world-class figure skaters for over 30 years. How did he do it? Through Serafin Sensitivity Skating Skills. Stash s coauthor Ruth Anne Wood is a playwright and the founder of Scripting for Success, a coaching process that has helped her clients use body awareness and inspirational stories to experience romance, financial abundance and personal fulfillment in their lives. Together Ruth and Stash teach the joy of scripting and skating through life.

I also recomend this fascinating article by Stash Serafin called:

Palpate the Present

My separation happened when I went off to a school for the blind. I was five when I started kindergarten. Within two years, all of my energy began to change. I could no longer catch fireflies by myself. I started bumping into trees and other objects, and tripping over things in the yard like fallen tree branches. And uneven ground would make my feet tremble for fear I would fall down and get hurt.

Several years later, I was using a white cane and thought I had adjusted without too much trouble. However, something was missing. Something big was gone from my life -- But what was it?

In 1968, I put on my first pair of ice skates and I felt a sensation that thrilled me inside out. By 1975, I was invited to skate in the Jimmy Fund Show, which is a very prestigious show that raises money for children suffering with cancer. Many more shows followed.

I skated with the likes of Peggy Fleming, Dorothy Hamell, the late John Curry, and all the figure skaters that are currently on tour. My parents were always supportive about my skating though they felt uncomfortable that I was the only blind skater in the world with little support from any organizations. They were always proud of me. I passed figure tests, dance, and free style tests -- All with flying colors and high marks.

Everyone who would come to see my performances, and witnessed my skating moves; jumping, spinning, stretching and spiraling, performing spread eagles, would marvel at the smoothness and fluidity that I demonstrated. I interpreted music well and I skated from my heart.

My skating teachers were terrific. Many of them are past world champions and Olympic medal winners. But the teacher-student relationship was challenged in every way. No one had ever taught a blind skater before. I was the first of a kind.

In 1983, I started taking massage courses, studied Therapeutic Touch, got my second degree in Reiki, was certified in Hypnosis, Reflexology, and began studying A Course in Miracles.

The Course states quite clearly that none of us are victims and there are no accidents. This began making sense. For so many years, I tried to learn skating the way sighted people learned. Also, I began to apply 'Course' lessons to my skating now. And I became acutely aware that somehow everything is connected. So now, how can I improve my skating, my jumps, and my massages? Could I ever be as sensitive as some of my teachers who taught me such treasured lessons as touching with sensitivity, intuition, trusting what I felt.

Back to Braille, I thought. Braille, to me, is the most sensitive of all touches. It is just like palpating an organ or muscle. I began to apply this sense of light touch to my blades as I skated. The depth of touch one needs to differentiate the dots within a cell of Braille is overwhelming. The same applied for me when I first began my courses in bodywork.

Somehow I began to sense an energy inside of myself and all around. Yes, it was the familiar energy I felt as a child. Only now I have the understanding, in my body, my mind and soul. Now, I know what to do with it. And yet, with such a gentle touch as though palpating my muscles and reading Braille. Presently, I use this energy for my skating. My blades are extremely sensitive and I feel as if I can .see. with my blades as well as with other parts of my body. This is more of a sensing kind of seeing, but still I am seeing.

Recently, I palpated my Honi’s last breath as she lay dying underneath our lilac bush in the side yard. And I knew she was lifting into the light. Our eight and a half year old Golden Retriever was leaving. I internally saw the flash of light, felt her start on her journey upwardAnd she began to be everywhere. The mockingbird sang, the sun shone brighter, there was an ever so gentle breeze and a hint of spring in the air. And she was gone.

I went through all the emotions of grieving quite quickly. Oh, I had moments of almost hysteria yet something interesting happened a day after Honi died. I was so upset that without realizing, I began to be still. Still, only for an instant. I Will Be Still an Instant and Go Home. Only for an instant, but that instant made all the difference in my world. My perception of what had just happened to Honi had changed -- Or as they say, it shifted!

How could something so gentle change my sadness into something that I could live with? Into something I could actually move through and not stay stuck in. It is because of the gentleness. The palpating, the Braille now coming from within me, rather than my finger tips. My entire body had become aware of this gentleness, this palpating!

So now it is time for me to palpate the moment, the present, every feeling I experienced can be felt so gently that I get to the depth of it without stress or strain on anything. There is a way to feel all of our 'stuff' at the same time as if we are sensing our stuff --- The sadness, the happiness, the joy, the pain, all simultaneously.

For me, this takes the charge off of my emotions without denying them. Feeling everything so gently without drowning in my drama is very healing for me during this cycle., With the war, the economy, and loss of pets, two-footed friends as well, I now have a remarkable tool I can use if I pay attention and palpate the present.

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Stanley (Stash) Serafin
Sensitive Energy Coach and A Course in Miracles facilitator since 1983.
Facilitated ACIM group at the Discovery Bookstore in Lansdale, PA.
1989-1996 Special consultant to figure skaters needing or desiring assistance with Center of Gravity Development and Sensitivity Training.
http://www.stashskate.com/ www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2gTyHKIHOk

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