I will be closing this site very soon.
I am now taking orders for Christmas. Please visit my new web site
www.throughourchildrenseyes.com.au
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Friday, September 24, 2010
Here's the cover of the book!
I am very excited to be able to post the cover!
This is another step closer to making my dream real. It is very exciting.
I love the cover and I would love to know what your thoughts are too.
So, what do you think?
Draw Winners!
I am so excited to post the winners of the draw!
The age groups and prizes were drawn from separate containers by my children – they had a lot of fun doing this activity.
There were no entries above the age of 12 years. Therefore there were no prizes for the age groups between 13 – 15 years.
Here are the winners
Zoe from Capalaba Copy of the book
Jordan from Thornlands Copy of the book
Noah from Capalaba $20 Angus and Robertson Voucher
Lleyton from Capalaba Copy of the book
Shine Lee from Birkdale Copy of the book
Robert from Eight Mile Plans Copy of the book
Maddison from Capalaba Office works Cannon printer
Kylie from Capalaba Copy of the book
Jadene from Capalaba $20 Target Voucher
The age groups and prizes were drawn from separate containers by my children – they had a lot of fun doing this activity.
There were no entries above the age of 12 years. Therefore there were no prizes for the age groups between 13 – 15 years.
Here are the winners
Zoe from Capalaba Copy of the book
Jordan from Thornlands Copy of the book
Noah from Capalaba $20 Angus and Robertson Voucher
Lleyton from Capalaba Copy of the book
Shine Lee from Birkdale Copy of the book
Robert from Eight Mile Plans Copy of the book
Maddison from Capalaba Office works Cannon printer
Kylie from Capalaba Copy of the book
Jadene from Capalaba $20 Target Voucher
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Sharing joy with our children
I would like to define joy as I understand it. Joy is an emotional state where you are living in the moment. It does not have to be loud, entertaining or purposeful. It is a state of being that prevents us from feeling stressed and focusing on the negative.
Experiencing feelings of joy comes from within you – from your heart. It does not come from an external event for example, if my child is behaving well, if they clean their rooms or get good grades.
For me, when I am feeling joy with my child I am living in the moment. Joy for me is when my child looks deeply in my eyes and says “I love you Mummy” or when I see them having a big belly laugh or when I enter their play world, get down on their level and let them lead the play.
When we are in a state of joy it benefits our bodies, mental health and our relationship with others.
Joy is something that adults can lose along the way. As a child we had the ability to experience joy on a daily basis – we still have that innate ability. Sometimes, with life perceived struggles and occurrences we lose this ability. When we lose this we can disconnect from ourselves.
As adults I believe that somewhere along the line we have replaced joy with external happiness. For example, when I achieve that goal I am happy; when I have completed that task I am happy.
I question myself regularly if my behaviour is teaching my children to experience joy and live joyously or if I am teaching them to disconnect from experiencing joy and associate happiness to completed tasks.
An example comes to mind. I was participating in an under 5 year old disco. This was a fantastic disco with all the trimmings that come with a disco. Disco ball, streamers, flashing lights, music, balloons. The children’s faces as they arrived said it all – lots of smiles, excitement and giggles.
Some children needed time to adjust to the environment while others danced and ran around immediately – it was lovely to see them all experiencing joy in their own time and way.
As a parent how do you behave and what level of participation do you take whilst attending these functions with your child? Would you get up and dance with them or would you sit and watch your children?
How can we confirm to our kids that it is ok to ‘let go’ and be joyous if we do not do it with them?
I realise that dancing may not be your thing and my example is not intended to tell you to show your moves if you are not comfortable. My example is only an example. Maybe there are other activities where you can let your own inner child out and experience joy in its true form with your children.
Teaching them and showing them that you too can have fun and let go is confirming that it is good to experience joy. There is no attachment to the outcome or a goal / task to be completed or accomplished.
So the next time you attend a child’s function will you experience joy with them and let the inner child come out for a play? I hope you do – you will feel much better for it!
How can you implement joy in your daily life with your children?
Write down all the things that bring you joy with your children and try to implement these consistently in your daily lives.
Another thing you could do is ask your children the best thing they like doing with Mummy and Daddy and while you’re at it collect the answers e-mail me their responses so I can include them in my book.
One reason why I am writing this book is to give children a voice and to give us (parents) ideas on how we can do simple, fun things with our kids that bring them joy. By sharing all of our experiences we can gather ideas, learn from each other and implement joy into our daily lives.
I’d like to share with you one more example of how I shared a moment of joy with my son.
I was playing with him and I cannot even remember what it was. I was enjoying the experience – I was experiencing joy. I am glad I noticed that moment immediately and I said to him “Jacob, I really like playing this with you” He looked up with a big smile and said “Aww, thank you Mummy” Jacob is 4 years old. My heart was filled with love.
Experiencing feelings of joy comes from within you – from your heart. It does not come from an external event for example, if my child is behaving well, if they clean their rooms or get good grades.
For me, when I am feeling joy with my child I am living in the moment. Joy for me is when my child looks deeply in my eyes and says “I love you Mummy” or when I see them having a big belly laugh or when I enter their play world, get down on their level and let them lead the play.
When we are in a state of joy it benefits our bodies, mental health and our relationship with others.
Joy is something that adults can lose along the way. As a child we had the ability to experience joy on a daily basis – we still have that innate ability. Sometimes, with life perceived struggles and occurrences we lose this ability. When we lose this we can disconnect from ourselves.
As adults I believe that somewhere along the line we have replaced joy with external happiness. For example, when I achieve that goal I am happy; when I have completed that task I am happy.
I question myself regularly if my behaviour is teaching my children to experience joy and live joyously or if I am teaching them to disconnect from experiencing joy and associate happiness to completed tasks.
An example comes to mind. I was participating in an under 5 year old disco. This was a fantastic disco with all the trimmings that come with a disco. Disco ball, streamers, flashing lights, music, balloons. The children’s faces as they arrived said it all – lots of smiles, excitement and giggles.
Some children needed time to adjust to the environment while others danced and ran around immediately – it was lovely to see them all experiencing joy in their own time and way.
As a parent how do you behave and what level of participation do you take whilst attending these functions with your child? Would you get up and dance with them or would you sit and watch your children?
How can we confirm to our kids that it is ok to ‘let go’ and be joyous if we do not do it with them?
I realise that dancing may not be your thing and my example is not intended to tell you to show your moves if you are not comfortable. My example is only an example. Maybe there are other activities where you can let your own inner child out and experience joy in its true form with your children.
Teaching them and showing them that you too can have fun and let go is confirming that it is good to experience joy. There is no attachment to the outcome or a goal / task to be completed or accomplished.
So the next time you attend a child’s function will you experience joy with them and let the inner child come out for a play? I hope you do – you will feel much better for it!
How can you implement joy in your daily life with your children?
Write down all the things that bring you joy with your children and try to implement these consistently in your daily lives.
Another thing you could do is ask your children the best thing they like doing with Mummy and Daddy and while you’re at it collect the answers e-mail me their responses so I can include them in my book.
One reason why I am writing this book is to give children a voice and to give us (parents) ideas on how we can do simple, fun things with our kids that bring them joy. By sharing all of our experiences we can gather ideas, learn from each other and implement joy into our daily lives.
I’d like to share with you one more example of how I shared a moment of joy with my son.
I was playing with him and I cannot even remember what it was. I was enjoying the experience – I was experiencing joy. I am glad I noticed that moment immediately and I said to him “Jacob, I really like playing this with you” He looked up with a big smile and said “Aww, thank you Mummy” Jacob is 4 years old. My heart was filled with love.
Thursday, August 12, 2010
How the idea of creating this book arose
The idea of this book started one morning when my children were momentarily content and I was able to connect to spirit and spend some time day dreaming.
I was thinking about how beneficial it would be to me if I could discover what was important to my children. For example, what they enjoy doing with me, their father and as a family.
As a mother I have at times become a victim of daily routines, keeping the house in order and duties that I feel can be full of responsibility. At times this perception has prevented me from living in the moment with my children and coming from a space of pure joy and ‘through the eyes of children’. I thought if I could read other children’s perspective on what is important to them I would be better able to implement the behaviour of living in the moment in my daily life and therefore with my children.
I had been listening to a presentation by Mary Morrissey and she mentioned that her hope for humanity was when children from future generations come home from school and say “Oh, mum guess what we learned today? That people use to kill each other – how could they do that?”
Isn’t that a beautiful thought?
I believe that if I can demonstrate to my children by living in the moment and providing experiences that they believe are important to them they will become more joyous, trusting and balanced. I believe this is my role as a mother.
Of cause there are times as parents that we must get on with daily duties and this is part of life. I just like to check in with myself occasionally and strive for more balance.
With this new thought I went in search of such a book. Surely someone has already done this. Apparently for what I could find this has not been done. There were many books on how parents perceive their children, quotes on the funny things children say and perceptions of children on many worldly matters.
I could not find quotes on thoughts of how children perceive their parents and what is important to them.
After discussing this with a friend and with her encouragement I decided to create the book.
I wanted to share with you how this all began. I believe this is an example of when we take the opportunity to listen to the quiet voice inside ourselves we receive inspiration and ideas that possibly can benefit and bring joy to many people.
To find out more about Mary Morrissey go to www.MaryMorrissey.com
I was thinking about how beneficial it would be to me if I could discover what was important to my children. For example, what they enjoy doing with me, their father and as a family.
As a mother I have at times become a victim of daily routines, keeping the house in order and duties that I feel can be full of responsibility. At times this perception has prevented me from living in the moment with my children and coming from a space of pure joy and ‘through the eyes of children’. I thought if I could read other children’s perspective on what is important to them I would be better able to implement the behaviour of living in the moment in my daily life and therefore with my children.
I had been listening to a presentation by Mary Morrissey and she mentioned that her hope for humanity was when children from future generations come home from school and say “Oh, mum guess what we learned today? That people use to kill each other – how could they do that?”
Isn’t that a beautiful thought?
I believe that if I can demonstrate to my children by living in the moment and providing experiences that they believe are important to them they will become more joyous, trusting and balanced. I believe this is my role as a mother.
Of cause there are times as parents that we must get on with daily duties and this is part of life. I just like to check in with myself occasionally and strive for more balance.
With this new thought I went in search of such a book. Surely someone has already done this. Apparently for what I could find this has not been done. There were many books on how parents perceive their children, quotes on the funny things children say and perceptions of children on many worldly matters.
I could not find quotes on thoughts of how children perceive their parents and what is important to them.
After discussing this with a friend and with her encouragement I decided to create the book.
I wanted to share with you how this all began. I believe this is an example of when we take the opportunity to listen to the quiet voice inside ourselves we receive inspiration and ideas that possibly can benefit and bring joy to many people.
To find out more about Mary Morrissey go to www.MaryMorrissey.com
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
I now have a Graphic Designer & Book Artist
I have just hired a Book Artist. Her name is Carmel Glover and her company is Off The Shelf Book Desing. She has been most helpful with answering my questions.
So, the first stage (which is very exciting) is for me to gather some quotes and pictures so she can get to work on the book cover and complete a sample chapter of the book.
When this is complete I will post on the blog and you can get a look at what the book will look like.
So, watch this space. When I post the cover I would love to receive feedback on your thoughts / suggestions.
Carmel's web site is
http://offtheshelfbookdesign.wordpress.com
So, the first stage (which is very exciting) is for me to gather some quotes and pictures so she can get to work on the book cover and complete a sample chapter of the book.
When this is complete I will post on the blog and you can get a look at what the book will look like.
So, watch this space. When I post the cover I would love to receive feedback on your thoughts / suggestions.
Carmel's web site is
http://offtheshelfbookdesign.wordpress.com
Saturday, August 7, 2010
While waiting for postal responses
OK, I have interviewed many children and now waiting to receive more postal responses.
With a bit of extra time now, I have been researching what are my best options for self publishing and if it is as scary as some people perceive it to be.
I may be missing something because, to me, it doesn't appear that scary. It is just a process and you tick the boxes one at a time until you have your printed book.
However, what is on my mind at the moment is the way to market my book. Geez there is so much information out there.
I am starting to think that I will need to get a project manager to organise all the marketing material *laughing*
I have pushed through so many comfort zones to get this far. I think I will just keep pushing through the fear / self doubt and follow my nose.
Of cause I can do this! Of cause I can project manage my marketing strategies for my book!
I am a mother of two small children - they say parenting is the hardest job in the world. Well then, of cause I can do this.
With a bit of extra time now, I have been researching what are my best options for self publishing and if it is as scary as some people perceive it to be.
I may be missing something because, to me, it doesn't appear that scary. It is just a process and you tick the boxes one at a time until you have your printed book.
However, what is on my mind at the moment is the way to market my book. Geez there is so much information out there.
I am starting to think that I will need to get a project manager to organise all the marketing material *laughing*
I have pushed through so many comfort zones to get this far. I think I will just keep pushing through the fear / self doubt and follow my nose.
Of cause I can do this! Of cause I can project manage my marketing strategies for my book!
I am a mother of two small children - they say parenting is the hardest job in the world. Well then, of cause I can do this.
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