The goodness virtue explained to the children. - 31/05/2010 Goodness is the quality of the good, the inclination we all have to do something good, the essence of life, the way in which we treat others, the spine of greatness, the door that gives form to friendship, to our home and our society. Practicing the good is shown every day in coexisting with our ch... |
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Where can I hide you from the sun? - 15/05/2010 In one way or another, we have all experienced a phenomenon that is being repeated more and more lately: the “overprotected children”. I am talking about those kids whose parents keep them almost living as plants in a greenhouse.
Motivated by a wrong way of loving their children, these parents a... |
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I want it now! - 27/04/2010 Today’s society demands us a frenetic rhythm. Mass media constantly sends us messages to get what we want immediately: a car, a trip, a job… And this is the message got by our kids. The little ones do not know about waiting. If we have not come with the right solution, our children will become small... |
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Educating in justice. - 31/03/2010 Definition of this value
An individual who tries to experience this value makes a continuous effort to give the others what he should, according to the fulfillment of their duties and rights –as people (to life, cultural, moral and material goods), as parents, as children, as citizens, as profes... |
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This is what teenagers are expecting to listen. - 15/03/2010 Here are five messages teenagers are expecting to listen. Do we mention these messages in our relationship with them?
When we speak with our teenager child, what do we talk about? Maybe, the first thing we remember is when we shout because he showed us a bunch of bad grades. Maybe, we remember t... |
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Helping him to grow as a human being. - 28/02/2010 In today’s world, it is proven that having a high IQ or being an expert in a specific subject, does not translate automatically into having professional success or assuring a happy life.
Our society values more and more each time those people who know themselves well, who have a strong sense of s... |
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Educating free individuals. - 15/02/2010 Without a doubt, parents want their children to be free. Fear comes to us when we think we could limit their freedom by making mistakes in the process of educating them, and that is why we hesitate when we have to establish limits and set rules. Ironically, this is a mistake.
This is why we need... |
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Is my son an insecure person? - 31/01/2010 Having security in ourselves is not an inborn quality that some people have. It is more a consequence of the self-esteem level we reach. What factors should be taken in consideration for knowing the self-esteem a kid has? How can parents increase the level of self-esteem of their children?
You mi... |
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The conquest of our own will. - 15/01/2010 Perseverance means tenacity without discourage
Perseverance is one of the main pillars that form our will. Once we are determined about something, perseverance guides us to not give up despite the internal or external difficulties we might need to face as our initial motivation is descending. T... |
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Tell me the way in which you sanction and I will tell you who you are. - 23/12/2009 Experts say that, between children are 7 years-old to the start of the adolescence, parents face calm moments. It is definitely the best opportunity to seed. That is why this period has been called “the golden age of education”. Anyhow, the kid is not born educated but with “the right to be educated... |
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Gratitude: a sign of individual growth. - 15/10/2009 One of the human qualities that shows in a greater way maturity and psychological health is the tendency of a person to be grateful. The human being needs the rest of people. To make things happen in life it is necessary to get support from others. Coexisting is defined as living with others, and we... |
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The pedagogy of tolerance. - 14/11/2009 Tolerance has become a fundamental value in the open societies. A subject like Education for Citizenship and the human rights contemplate it as a fundamental virtue that should be transmitted to the future generations. But, even beyond the suspicion that a subject like this could generate, there is ... |
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Reaching sobriety by their own will. - 30/10/2009 Nowadays, in almost all environments and for different reasons, we find a generation that received everything they wished, putting a very small effort. Parents have been too permissive and this has allowed the kids to consume all products, putting in jeopardy these adolescents’ essence, because for ... |
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Frustration in children and how to overcome it. - 15/10/2009 The conduct of human nature does not only focus on achieving personal goals (those things a man aspires to), but also in avoiding the things that are negative and a person feels threatened by them. It is impossible to always obtain what we want (reaching a goal or running away from something), becau... |
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Overcoming selfishness. - 16/09/2009 When a person dives deep inside himself, looking for the best of him, he finds a clear call to give himself to the others unselfishly. To be educated or to educate ourselves in this generous push of serving other people without expecting anything in return is decisive to develop a truly human existe... |
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If it does not form, it deforms. - 24/07/2009 I remember than in physics there was a principle that said something like: “the body that is not formed gets deformed by the actions of the different forces that subject it”.
Maybe it was not exactly like that, but the message is clear: “What happens if consciences are not formed?”
From the ti... |
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Summer, a time to collaborate. - 30/06/2009 Educating in family coexistence could be defined as a true art. Its main purpose is to show kids and adolescents that everything we do or fail to do affect others, and that generosity does not mean only serving, but also giving recognition to those who serve us.
Assignments or small home tasks a... |
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“The Emperor’s Syndrome”, when children mistreat their parents. - 15/06/2009 They have not turned 18 yet, but they are the true family chiefs. They are not common criminals, but they hit, threaten, steal and attack psychologically… They are the main characters of what we can call the emperor’s syndrome - a phenomenon that quickly has established itself in our society in whic... |
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Children’s accountability. - 31/05/2009 Teaching children how to be accountable requires a special environment at home and at school. It is about developing an environment that offers them information about the options they might choose from and the consequences each of them have. It also requires offering the children the tools and the r... |
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Definition of an immature person. - 14/05/2009 The personality is the culmination of all the current and potential behaviors that are determined by: heritage (the genetic background we have: what we received from our parents), environment and our life experiences (each individual’s own story). The personality marks the specific and unique footpr... |
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Happiness could be also taught. - 25/04/2009 The task of “learning to be a happy person” should be a consistent goal for every family. Nobody finds happiness around the corner, reaching it should be a daily effort. We can easily say that happiness is the value of values.
When you try to be accountable, generous, a hard worker… happiness wi... |
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Ten convictions for a teacher's practice. - 02/04/2009 I am very close from reaching my 50th anniversary of teaching: 15 years at middle school and 35 at the university level. Maybe my counterparts in teaching have thought sometimes about in what they believe, in what are their convictions when programming a subject. Thinking it over, 10 convictions com... |
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Allow the student to suffer the consequences of his mistakes so he can learn from them. - 15/03/2009 An isolated mistake provides us with a solid basement: Through our mistakes we grow continuously in the treasure of truth. F. Rückert.
One of the most intelligent alternatives to punishment is to allow our children to suffer the consequences of their mistakes and bad behaviour, so they can learn ... |
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Playing to win or teaching how to compete. - 28/02/2009 Talking about development related to basketball, we should not misunderstand concepts. Unfortunately, there are plenty of children’s teams coached as professionals. Winning is the only goal, and this influences the direction taken by the coach in both games and practice.
There is another way of... |
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The defiant pupil: daily discipline problems - 15/02/2009 Some time ago, I was giving a lecture for 35 teachers from first to fifth grade about how to solve conflicts in the classroom. We did an exercise in which each person present had to detail a discipline problem that had occurred in the last few months. I would not have got more answers if I had asked... |
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Keys to talk to our adolescent sons or daughters. - 31/01/2009 In the relationship between parents and their children, the key is dialogue. Talking about a problem, would mean it is half-solved. Trying to educate without looking for dialogue is like building a house without a basement. We know it, but it is very tough to talk with our adolescent children, isn’t... |
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The effort culture: a key to succeed in the development of our children. - 13/01/2009 How can we teach our children the value of effort?.
First of all, we could think effort is basically taught at school, but the best place for learning it is at home, with the family. All the virtues required to succeed in life (having professional achievements, having your own family, developin... |
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Learning from failure and not being afraid of taking risks. - 23/12/2008 If you want your children to feel the joy of success in the activities they embrace, you should motivate them to accept failure. They have to learn that, generally, before reaching a certain goal there should be several attempts that ultimately end in failure. Therefore it is very important to learn... |
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Conflict can also be positive (if we know how to manage it). - 30/11/2008 Conflict is a part of our lives. It can happen at work, in our family environment or in the relationships we might have with some friends. Human beings are complex and we tend to have conflict with one and other.
If we focus on family life, where we also have to deal with personal and work aspec... |
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The Rights of Children in competitive sports. - 12/11/2008 The children we will see at the Olympic Games have spent years practicing only for Beijing. If a child were to work no less than five hours a day six days a week, it would be reported as child cruelty. However, if they dedicate the same amount of hours to intensive training at an elite sports academ... |
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Without fear of educating. Who knows them best ? - 18/10/2008
The parents, not the so-called ‘specialists’, are those who are best equipped to educate their children but to do it, they need to shed any fear they may have.
This is a book full of common sense. In other words, it is provocative. It was written by a mother (Betsy Hart) who basically wants to... |
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Sincerity and communication between parents and their adolescent children. - 04/10/2008
Communication among family members is based on mutual trust and the basis of that trust is sincerity. It is he/she who follows the words of St Paul that lives sincerity; “May your ‘yes’ mean yes, your ‘no’ mean no”.
At times, being sincere requires courage. Nowadays, ‘being sincere’ is talked... |
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Giving and giving of yourself. The value which improves us as people - 23/10/2007 In these times of ours which exalt material wealth, convenience and personal success, generosity seems to be the only worthwhile thing in life. Selfishness leads to unhappiness even though today’s society tries to persuade us otherwise. Those who have done something genuinely worthwhile throughout... |
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Accept mistakes - 10/07/2007 In a world governed by rules and regulations, your child needs someone to guide them towards occupying the place which corresponds to them. When doing this, bear in mind that shaming them or making them feel guilty will not make them change their conduct, nor will it make them behave properly.
As... |
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Understanding - 25/05/2007 “I wish you could understand me!” How many times have we felt the need to find someone who will listen to and share our thoughts and feelings at a certain moment? When we feel that we are understood, we enter into a state of relief, calm and inner peace. But are we capable of understanding others? O... |
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Friendship and Loyalty - 09/03/2007 Friendship is the value which helps a person (a sociable being by nature) to communicate and improve himself in the company of his friends. It is a reciprocal relationship in which trust plays an especially important role. It is a value which helps us to be better and it is from this perspective tha... |
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Sport and the rights of the person - 05/03/2007 I. Sport and the rights of the person
A person’s rights are attributes which permit the development of man as a social creature, with the principle of rights themselves regarded as of major importance. Through these rights, man realizes himself, develops, integrates and lives life in peace and ... |
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Forgiveness - 15/02/2007 Resentments prevent us from living life to the full without knowing that a simple act of the heart can change our lives and those of people around us.
At times when friendship or coexistence is ruptured for whatever reason, it is common for negative feelings to emerge; envy, resentment, hate, or ... |
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The work ethic - 03/02/2007 A while ago, a comic said “Work is so awful, they even pay you to do it!” However, work is a fundamental value.
When someone refers to us as being “very hard-working” we feel distinguished and flattered: others see in us the capacity to spend hours and hours at school, at home or in the office do... |
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Values start at home - 01/02/2007 The essential pairing
The start of a new school year gives us the opportunity to reflect a little on our education system. Perhaps the title of this article seems a little daring, especially given that there is nothing left to invent in education. I agree. I am not attempting to innovate, merely... |
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Patience - 18/01/2007 If our age had a name it would be called “hurry”. How can we expect our life to have more good sense and be more pleasant to others when we want everything “yesterday”?
Our life takes place at a breakneck speed: too much in a hurry to do, arrive, sort out personal and work issues, daily friction... |
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Doping in sport - 18/12/2006 1. Drugs:
Are more than just a problem. In fact, we could talk of the beginning of a drama. For the sporting student we are faced with two fronts. The first, we could call “social” drugs and the second, doping itself – drugs designed to improve performance and increase sporting success.
10 y... |
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Winning is not always the most important thing - 02/11/2006 Every day, we read stories in the media about sporting competitions where the winner is praised to the Gods, while the loser is at best forgotten, if not humiliated.
Younger practitioners of sport are not isolated from this situation. Children, by nature, are competitive and are always striving f... |
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Preventing Rebellion - 29/09/2006 Some children can be especially difficult to deal with. Despite being at an uneventful age – “second infancy”, as some specialists call it – they disobey us, they are obstinate, they do not listen…Little rebels, with the danger of becoming future problem boys or young men. However, they still have a... |
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Performance in competition - 20/09/2006 José Antonio Marina tells the story of a girl who needed to do exercise. She decided to run for a while a couple of days a week. She didn’t fancy the idea of competing with others so she started running alone. One day, a trainer who she knew said: “You ought to run a marathon”. She thought he was jo... |
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Changing passiveness - 30/06/2006 Combatting passiveness
Adolescence has always been a period of grand ideals. The Three Musketeers, Romeo and Juliet, Joan of Arc; none of them were more than 15 years old and all fought for romantic ideals. Today that has changed and many 15-year-olds go through life with an attitude of studied ... |
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The demotivated student - 13/06/2006 We have selected this article which deals principally with demotivation in studies. Sport is mentioned as a motivational tool for children which helps them in their studies.
We feel that many of the ideas mentioned in this article are also valid for motivation in sport.
“(S)he doesn’t feel lik... |
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Homily of John Paul II during the celebration of the Jubilee of Sports People – 29th October 2000 - - 12/06/2006 1. "Do you not know that in a race all the runners compete, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it!" (1 Cor 9: 24). In Corinth, where Paul had brought the message of the Gospel, there was a very important stadium where the "Isthmian Games" were held. It was appropriate, the... |
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Positive Discipline : A way of combining firmness with affection - 15/05/2006 Article written by Lorena Elguera Pajares. Published in Educared Perú
How do we educate and above all, implement norms and rules? In the face of bad behaviour, shouting, insults and physical violence are options which harm relationships and also wear everyone down equally.
As your children gr... |
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Aggressive Behaviour and sport - 25/04/2006 This article briefly describes possible areas for intervention which may provide solutions in order to minimize transgressions and violent acts in the field of sport which are being transmitted to young people, who “copy” such behaviour as a means to achieving victory.
In this sense, a possible f... |
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FAIR PLAY - 28/03/2006 Sport is a game but this game, with its chance and its struggles, its rules and regulations which alter and limit the will to win, is a mirror image of life. Why not see in sporting fair play a specific case of generalized fair play, in which respect for the adversary outweighs hatred and prejudice?... |
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SINCERITY - 28/03/2006 In many areas of society you can hear the cry for sincerity; entrepreneurs, employees, politicians, citizens, friends, parents, children, students, teachers, lawyers, advertising executives and engineers. They all hear the plea to show themselves as true in what they say, think and do.
“Clean” is... |
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About Obesity - 20/03/2006 At present, the rate of obese children is growing alarmingly due to the convenience lifestyle of our society. Children have substituted playing football in the streets for video consoles, they no longer walk from one place to another because their parents give them a lift and they tend to eat indust... |
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AM I A GOOD TRAINER? INDICATORS OF SPORTING QUALITY - 28/12/2005 In this course we will review some of the indicators of sporting quality which will determine the success of our activities as trainers.
1. ESTABLISH GENERAL AND SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES
Setting objectives is essential if they are to be achieved. Firstly, we should set group goals which will the... |
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Education in values and children’s sport - 28/07/2005 Author: Lic. Liliana Elsa Grabin lgrabin@fibertel.com.ar “Make an early start without being in a hurry” (Chinese proverb)
There is a certain amount of concern at present surrounding the development of children’s sport at a world level. There are widespread sports championships which have ... |
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WHAT IS DOPING? - 14/06/2005 According to the International Olympic Committee (IOC), doping is the administration or use by an athlete of any foreign or physiological substance taken in abnormal quantities or via abnormal channels with the sole intention of artificially and dishonestly increasing performance capacity in competi... |
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SHORT COURSE ON THE INTEGRATION OF PARENTS IN COMPETITION - 21/04/2005 Source: Escuela Deportiva Brafa
In this course we will review the criteria to bear in mind when dealing with parents with a view to integrating them in competitions. Competition is the last link in the chain. Parents will only become integrated in our project if they are in agreement with our ob... |
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