
It's the taste that matters, right?!
Alister Cameron is an accomplished web designer and internet marketing consultant who turns established subject-matter experts into expert bloggers. Alister's clients are using blogging and social media to leverage their offline expertise in the online world, and engage Alister to build their blogging platform or social network; to train them in writing and online marketing strategy; and to help them stay up with the latest developments in blogging and online marketing.
Sherryl and I were down at Chadstone for her birthday, a couple of weeks back. That place is ridiculously huge, by the way. So, we wandered into a shop and saw this totally MAD collection of Doc Martins (I think they were Docs...). It got me to thinking that we're all different. We really are! If I lined up 100 teenage girls and walked them into a shoe shop, they'd all have different opinions on which shoes/boots suited whom the best. Imagine the noise levels of that discussion :) But that's what I love about social media. I love that people's individuality comes out for all to see. Sometimes good, sometimes bad... usually unexpected. Humanity is a richer and more colourful tapestry than most of us give it credit for. So today. Let someone you know well be unexpected. Don't box them in. Especially if it's one of your children. Let them be unexpected. They may not choose the same pair of Docs you think they would. Serendipity is a cool word - it means to discover something unexpectedly that turns out to be wonderful. Today's as good a day as any to let serendipity happen in one of your special relationships :)
The whole family has been getting over the flu. I keep coughing up the ugliest stuff and Kaz has been spending half of most days just lying on the couch. Ali is not herself. In other words she isn't trashing the house! Tori is back in town for a while. We were going to go down and visit here new place down on the Mornington Peninsula, but we were all too diseased.
I am really impressed with the new Pyra project management toolset. It's only in beta, and it will have blogger built into it... all up a very neat package. I am testing it for work stuff... let me know if you like it too.
It is a perfect day today. Not a cloud in the sky. Would be a good day for a picnic. I'll get back to this if I have time... after getting some more work done. Ciao."There is ample evidence to suggest that how parents interact with a child will have a lasting effect on the kind of person that child grows up to be. In one of our studies conducted at the University of Chicago, for example, Kevin Rathunde observed that teenagers who had certain types of relationship with their parents were significantly more happy, satisfied, and b in most life situations than their peers who did not have such a relationship. The family context promoting optimal experience could be described as having five characteristics.
"Clarity. The teenagers feel that they know what their parents expect of them - goals and feedback in the family interaction are unambiguous. "Centering. The children have a perception that their parents are interested in what they are doing in the present, in their concrete feelings and experiences, rather than being preoccupied with whether they will be getting into a good college or obtaining a well-paying job."Choice. Children feel that they have a variety of possibilities from which to choose, including that of breaking parental rules - as long as they are prepared to face the consequences.
"Commitment. The trust that allows the child to feel comfortable enough to set aside the shield of his defences, and become unselfconsciously involve in whatever he is interested in.
"Challenge The parent's dedication to provide increasingly complex opportunities for action to their children."
From... Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Happiness (London: Rider Books, 1992), 88-89