My Own Picasso

I have a funny, fun, awesome story to share about my little one today.

So, yesterday we made a trip to Wal-mart. I was over in the craft section grabbing up their clearanced stuff since they're rearranging the store right now and putting just about anything on clearance in order to make more room. I found a lot of good things: $1 rolls of ribbon, $6 Glue Gun, $3 bolts of cloth for my next project... Lots of good stuff. I was really happy with it.

Anyway, while I was in the neighborhood I noticed the acrylics were only $1 each as well. So I got to thinking... I wanted to paint designs on the fan-blades of Rune's new ceiling fan. I'd bought spray paints and was going to do a swirled pattern of pink, purple and blue. But when I sat down to draw the pattern out on the blades, I got a little carried away/creative/excited... and I ended up with a more detailed set of images.
I liked them a lot... but spray paints wouldn't do. So I looked at the acrylics and decided to grab a pack of brushes and the colors I needed.
Rune, in the cart, picked up each color as I tossed it in and said "What's this??"
So I explained "Those are paints."
"Paints? WHY?"
"Because I'm going to paint your fan."
"You're gonna paint my fan? Oooh..."
She played happily in the cart of course with ribbons and paints and such to arrange.

This morning I woke up to a hilarious ordeal. The kind that really challenges your parenting instincts.
I woke up and Rohan had gotten up with Rune a bit earlier... set her up a movie, then laid on the couch to rest a bit more... and apparently he dozed off and she.... got creative.

So you can imagine our bemused smiles and barely contained laughter when she came and got us, dragged us back to the bedroom and proudly  showed us this:

She explained, calmly, happily: "I painted the fan!" Then, grabbing the pink paint with a brush stuck into it, she went on to explain, "I tried to paint the handle but my brush is done." The bristles were worn off the brush completely. 

So the question was raised... how do we handle this? How can we possibly punish her for getting creative and doing something she thought was exactly what the paints were intended for?

Instead, we laughed. We laughed and smiled and congratulated her on her work. The last thing I would ever want to do is crush my child's creative tendencies. So we told her how much we loved the fan... And then we sat down and explained that paints are not something she is allowed to play with all alone and that she should get us if she wants to paint so we can help her. She was happy. We were happy. No harm done. The paint was water-solluable so it came out of the carpet easily where she'd dripped. 

So my lesson is learned: Don't leave the paints on the table even if they are still plastic sealed... it won't stop her. Water-solluable is your friend... And a pretty fan never hurt anyone.

But most of all: 

Anything you say to your toddler can and will be interpretted creatively given the chance!

I love my life!

Arsh

Respect is Earned

Healthy Parenting: Respect is Earned

by Arsiei Darksbane

(An article from my unpublished blog at www.healthyparentingway.com)

What is respect?
How can we gain our children's respect? How does respect make our lives easier? Respect among all members of a household equals harmony in the home. So realizing that respect can never be demanded, only earned, is a vital step in acquiring harmony in the household.

Parents: Get over yourselves.
One of the first things I had to do as a parent was learn to get over myself. What does this mean? We as parents can sometimes take ourselves too seriously. We forget what we are and who we are and where we came from and let the power of control over another person take us in the wrong direction. We don't mean to do this. It is a natural human tendency. However with proper education and a bit of self-control, we can learn to be a leader in our home rather than a dictator.  The first thing you have to do is remember being a child, how you were treated, how you reacted to it and what would have made it better. Remember the people in your life at your child's age, and remember which ones you liked and did not like. Did you obey the ones you liked better? Did you feel happier and more peaceful with the people you respected?

Don't let self-importance tear you down. You are a beautiful person to your child. If you want to remain beautiful in their hearts and minds, you must never let yourself feel more important than them. Their wishes, their hopes, their desires are every bit as important as yours. This means that their wishes, hopes and desires are also every bit as important as your work, your phone calls, your busy schedules! Never let yourself feel that you are greater than your child. You have strengths they do not yet have: Wisdom, experience, knowledge. They also have strengths that you do not have anymore: innocence, imagination, freedom. If you're lucky, you haven't lost these traits entirely, but if you look deeply you will realize your child has a wisdom you have lost to some degree. Being carefree and dreaming big is a power all of its own.
So first, respect your child for who and what they are. They are a beautiful individual, full of lessons for you as well. So respect them and guide them and love them. Now the next step...

Be Respectable
Be careful when you go to define that word. "Respectable" picked up a social standard in and around the Renaissance and it gained force through the Victorian age and onward. People have taken a set of social statistics and deemed that "Respectable" and those types of terms tend to stick in our minds... However don't be fooled. What is respectable to your children?
For me it was a grandfather. He was kind, peaceful, patient and funny. Most of all of the things that made him respectable however was this: He treated me like a person of equal worth. I remember this man as the one I respected more than anyone in my childhood years because of his actions. He talked softly to me, listened intently, cared about the content of my thoughts, remembered what I'd said, acted upon his promises, and taught me the joy of making other people happy. I never respected anyone as much as my grandfather in my childhood. So when I became a parent, my first promise to myself was this: I will train myself to raise my child like my grandfather raised me. I wanted to be respected by my child like my grandfather was respected by me, but mostly I wanted my child to be as happy with me and as enchanted by me as I was by my grandfather.

When my parents or my grandmother wanted to punish me, they'd yell, spank me, set me in a corner, take something away or ground me. I remember their punishments making me angry. I remember hating their actions and feeling they were not such great people at the time. It didn't discourage me from doing what I'd done wrong. It discouraged me from showing them my actions, from trusting them.
When my grandfather saw me acting out, he would never yell or spank me or take things away. He would look at me with sad eyes, acknowledge what I just did by telling me gently that what I did was wrong, and then shake his head in disappointment and walk away, leaving me to think. I respected him deeply... and so his disappointment was devastating to me. I would cry. I would break down and cry because I knew what I had done was wrong. Then I would think about what I had done, ask myself what I could do better, go and talk with my grandfather and get his help in understanding... In the end, I would know better than to repeat this misdeed. I would avoid it because I truly did not want to be a bad person, and I wanted my grandfather to respect me. I trusted that he could teach me to be a good person, where I did not trust my parents or my grandmother. Respect is key to a harmonious relationship with a child. Respect will allow you to guide a child gently and they will love you for being who you are.

Never Try to Force It
The worst mistakes my father always made in trying to make me behave were losing his temper and trying to force respect. He would demand it verbally. He would insist that I respect him because he was the parent and I was the child and that meant I had to respect him. This made me hate him. He was trying to force my emotions. He was trying to make me believe in something I did not believe in. He was hurting me. While he never understood that, he was forcing me to respect him less, not more. Be careful never to make the mistake of demanding respect from your children. You'll find that whether you try to demand respect or not, the respect you actually get will  never depend upon your empty threats or ill-tempered demands, but rather upon your performance as a parent. This is parenting discipline at its most basic, but it is a fundamental element in healthy parenting in general.
Good luck.


Arsh out.

Parenting Discipline

Parenting Discipline
A term I often use that is just as often misunderstood is "Parenting Discipline" .
I figured it was time to define this as I mean it.
When I say "Parenting Discipline" I'm not talking about disciplining your children. I'm talking about disciplining yourself. Why do you need disciplining? Well, let's start with what the word "discipline" actually means.  For that, we'll go to my favorite online dictionary: Dictionary.com:

dis·ci·pline

 [dis-uh-plin]  Show IPA noun, verb,-plined,-plin·ing.
–noun

1. training to act in accordance with rules; drill: military discipline.

2. activity, exercise, or a regimen that develops or improves a skill; training: A daily stint at the typewriter is excellent discipline for a writer.

3. punishment inflicted by way of correction and training.

4. the rigor or training effect of experience, adversity, etc.: the harsh discipline of poverty.

5. behavior in accord with rules of conduct; behavior and order maintained by training and control: good discipline in an army.

6. a set or system of rules and regulations.

Okay so now we'll put this into context with our topic:

1. Training to act in accordance with the rules:

Whose rules? YOUR rules. But why do you need training to act in accordance with your own rules?

Have you ever seen a mother trying desperately to get her child to agree to put a toy back on the shelf? How often does the parent win this battle? What is wrong with this scene?

The parent is failing to act in accordance with her own rules! It is the parent's place to decide which items are purchased in a store and thus, the parent should have her own rules for deciding what is bought and what is not. So when the child demands an item that the parent does not agree to purchase, the parent must act in accordance with her own rules and stick to her own reasoning.

The alternative? Bending to the will of the child.

This is unacceptable behavior from a parent because it leads to constant behavioral distortions as the child begins to wrest power from the adult. Now the child, who needs your guidance and discipline of her own, has taken the wheel and will quickly drive the family into chaos. If you do not discipline yourself to stick to your own rules and your own decisions, you are not properly training your child; you're letting her train you.

2. Activity, exercise, or a regimen that develops or improves a skill:

So how do you train to be a good parent? That depends on how hard you find it to stick to your guns in the first place. Do you have trouble when your little one gives you a sweet face and puppy eyes? Then you need to train yourself to hold to your own rules better. How can you do this? For one, you can agree with your spouse to help each other remember to hold to your rules. If you're a single parent, I understand this isn't an option, but being a single parent is tough any way you look at it. You just have to keep on telling yourself absolutely that the better you hold to your virtues, the better your child's life will be in the end, even if it's not easy to keep it up right now. Honestly? Meditation helps improve your willpower and concentration. It also helps with the cycle of Healthy Parenting: Patience, Acceptance and Harmony. So if you find that you have trouble holding to your own rules, try training yourself to be more willful and assertive. I recommend meditation and Yoga or T'ai Chi.

3. Punishment inflicted by way of correction and training:

In truth, punishment was never an original definition for discipline. We arrived at this meaning of the word through social usage of the word which comes from a Latin root discipulus, which means "student or pupil" and which relates quite directly to "learning". Over time, the meaning of the word has morphed through use in our society, coming to mean training and a quality of character in which a person has been well-trained, and finally to mean "punishment" which bares no resemblance to the original meaning of the word. It is important when we think of discipline that we remember the original meaning of the word and do not assign merit to punishment which is beyond that which is due. We have all heard phrases of ancient wisdom which instruct us regarding "discipline" and our children... but have we taken those words of wisdom completely incorrectly, defining "discipline" as punishment rather than guidance?

4. The rigor or training effect of experience, adversity:

This is closer to our meaning when we consider that discipline means "guidance, teaching, learning" and not "punishment". So what does this say about us as parents? Experience and adversity lead us to being properly trained. That is, experience and adversity will guide us to being better parents. Well that makes sense, doesn't it? In time, we will all get better at what we're doing, but only if we're headed in the right direction to begin with!

5. Behavior in accord with rules of conduct; behavior and order maintained by training and control:

So good parenting discipline means you have taught yourself to behave in accord with your own rules of conduct. You have learned to maintain this behavior and order by training and control.

6. A set or system of rules and regulations:

Every parent needs one. This does not mean you have to have it all figured out ahead of time. If you do, I can only say, "Wow!". What this means is that you need to set up systems for yourself as the need arises so that you have a framework of behavior to fall into when times get tough. This is very much what I was doing when I set up defined parameters for my little one's nutrition before birth. This system adapted over time as she grew, but I always held to the system when I had to make a tough choice and wanted to make sure I didn't buckle under the pressure and hurt her in the long run by doing so! The first time we went to the store and she begged for a toy, we realized it was time to make a system for handling toy purchases so we could react properly every time. We didn't have that one figured out ahead of time, so we dealt with it as best as we could that one time, then discussed it and decided how to handle future actions. This will be a system of systems. In the end you will adapt it over and over again as new needs arise. And that is just fine.

Disciplining yourself (Remember: Guiding, or teaching yourself!) on how to handle these affairs will make for smoother sailing in the long run.

Parenting Discipline is fundamental to healthy parenting!

So when I talk about parenting discipline, remember that I'm not talking about how you handle your children, but rather, how you handle yourself!

Good luck!

Arsh

My Top Five Favorites

This is just to tell some of you a little more about me.

My Top Five Favorite Movies:

• Avatar
• Fight Club
• Moulin Rouge
• Stardust
• Serenity

My Top Five Favorite Bands:

• Vast
• Disturbed
• A Perfect Circle
• Sequentia
• Rammstein

My Top Five Favorite Songs:

• "Temptation" by Vast
• "Dead Girl" By Acid Bath
• "Remember" by Disturbed
• "3 Libras" by A Perfect Circle
• "Forever" by Papa Roach

My Top Five Favorite Actors:

• Johnny Depp
• Alan Rickman
• Sean Connery
• Anthony Hopkins
• Christopher Walkin (bite me)

My Top Five Favorite Actresses:

• Helena Bonham Carter
• Nicole Kidman
• Megan Fox (Fuck you. She's hot...)
• Summer Glau
• Michele Rodriguez (Even though seeing her in a movie automatically labels that character as "going to die" :( Which always sucks).

My Top Five Favorite Authors:

• Jim Butcher
• Kelly McCullough
• R.A. Salvatore
• J.R.R. Tolkein
• Edred Thorsson (A large part of my collection is non-fiction c_c)

My Top Five Favorite Books (or series):

• The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher
• Web Mage (series) by Kelly McCullough
• The Codex Alera by Jim Butcher
• The Dark Elf Trilogy by R.A. Salvatore
• The Stone Prince by Fionna Patton (because it's gay and awesome. So bite me.)

My Top Five Favorite Artists:

• John Su
• Feimo
• Len-Yan
• Vyrl
• Page Sherman  

My Top Five Favorite Works of Art:

W..what just 5?? O_O Are you insane?

(Arsh, you wrote the questions. Just pick some art you like.) 

...omg... well here's a few. c____c

(Please click the links for the artist's full posted pic. I'm just posting thumbs so you can get an idea of which ones you like to see bigger. All credit is given to the artists who created these works!)

Butterfly Precipice by Len-Yan

Sadness by Len-Yan

Better Than Chocolate by Len-Yan

Rock'n'Roll Quee...ing by Len-Yan

Rat Prince by Len-Yan

The Workstation 2 by Jujika 

The Naiads by Damascus5

Nocturne by Blackeri

Dynasty Declining by Feimo

Boundary by Feimo

Lucifer by Feimo

Hollow Jacks by JohnSu

Home and the Fairies by Zancan

Nine of Spades by Mincedniku

A Touch of Magic by Luches

Moment of Life and Beauty by Syrrhaal

The Color of Our Love by Me-Jane

Harpy Nest by Aikurisu

...

I guess that's all for now.

As a huge important note... if you are any of the artists portrayed above and you don't want your work featured here, please just email me at arsieiuni at gmail.com and I'll be happy to remove them.

I only posted them here to let the world know how beautiful your work is, and I have done my best to fully credit and attribute these works to you, the artist, and only you. Still, if you'd rather I not feature them here, I'll happily remove them at your request, in greatest respect.

-------

So maybe this gives all of you who read my blog a better idea of who I am. 

I hope so.

Arsh