This one is easy. I'm a pretty passionate person. If I take an interest in something it is pretty easy for me to become really involved really fast, and form really specific opinions on it. The problem here is narrowing it down to only 5. I did narrow it down, but these are not in order of importance at all, they are just the ones that are on my mind right now.
1. Empowering Children. This means teaching self esteem, how not to be bullied, how to protect themselves from all kinds of abuse, and how to help protect others. I certainly don't want to raise bratty children, but I think sometimes as we are trying to teach our kids to be nice we are unknowingly teaching them that they aren't important and they don't deserve respect. I think it is possible to teach respecting others AND respecting yourself at the same time, I just don't think it happens most of the time. I could actually go on and on about this for AGES, but I won't, if you want more info let me know. ;)
2. Reading. I am a reading fiend. I have taken the amount of time I used to spend reading text books and have applied it to reading books that I actually LIKE, and it's amazing how I'm flying through books left and right. I feel like I'm cleaning out the library, I'm reading all kinds of different genres - still pretty sure I like the kinds of books I always have and DON'T like the books I always haven't- sorry Harry Potter and Vampire people, you just aren't interesting to me.
3. Writing. I'm finding a lot of different ways to express myself through words right now. I'm blogging more, journaling, even working on my book. I'm finding it to be fun and exciting. I forgot how much I loved writing things that don't have to do with mental illness or child abuse or behavior issues. It is therapeutic and healing and really really good for me.
4. State History. Because of our Fun Friday and Junior Passport project my kids and I are starting to learn more about the history of this area, as well as Utah in general. It's been pretty interesting to find out what happened in the early days of this area. We are learning about the Native Americans, original settlers, pioneers, the pony express, the land, and surviving in it, the list goes on and on. It's pretty exciting!
5. Healthy Communication! I feel like my little family doesn't always communicate very well lately. It's true that we have some communication barriers that can be hard to work around, but that isn't an excuse. We aren't expressing ourselves and our needs and wants very well. We aren't venting our frustrations in a very helpful manner. We aren't "talking nice" all the time. And that makes me sad. So we are working on communicating. Saying what we really mean, talking instead of yelling, positives more than negatives, talking things out BEFORE we explode about it, etc. It's harder than you might think because we have been in survival mode for so long that we have let our basic communication skill lax. But I know it will help us be a stronger family, so we are going to keep working on it!
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