Scoundrels put flowers on our doorstep

Today I had an amusing experience with some of the kids in our neighborhood.


A couple of days ago someone left flowers on our doorstep and my wife and I thought it was our children. But today it was revealed that the flowers had been left there by someone else. Someone unexpected. We were in the kitchen getting ready for lunch (today is a holiday in Denmark) and the door bell sounded. Out the window we could see some girls running behind a wooden fence to hide. They were about 13-14 years old and we knew they had to be the ones who rang the door bell.


Now, I could´ve gotten angry and told them never to do such a thing again. To be honest: if I´d been in a bad mood, that might just have been my chosen course of action. But really, what would that have accomplished for anyone?

So, instead I did something they certainly didn´t expect as far as their faces could tell. I swooped the door open and ran out yelling at them: "I´ll get you for this!" and coming round the fence, I saw three surprised teenage girls, when I said in a kind manner: "You didn´t expect this, did you?" At first, they were speechless, which in itself is quite the accomplishment when dealing with giggly teenage girls in my experience. But then one of them looked at me with a smile and said: "Did you like the flowers?" Flowers? I had rushed so fast out the door that I actually hadn´t seen the flowers they´d put on our doorstep and now it was my turn to be surprised. "Oh, you are the ones who are putting flowers on our doorstep. Sorry, I didn´t see them. But hey, if you´re going to be mischievous, this is the way to do it! Thanks for the flowers, you scoundrels!"


I had a big smile on my face and so did the girls. What a great way to start a holiday!

How did you start your holiday?

Building blocks of a human being - Definitions

This post is a follow up on my previous posts on how you can raise your children without spanking them and do a much better job at it!


In a way, I am skipping a step, but this is necessary for me to make a very important point regarding some of the terms I´ll be using in coming posts. These terms are:


#1: Self Awareness
#2: Self Esteem
#3: Self Confidence


These three are the building blocks of any human being and have tremendous influence on your behavior as a person. But quite often we mix them together.


Quite often I hear people speak of Self Esteem and Self Confidence as if they were two words explaining the same thing. This is a mistake. These two are to some extent intertwined, but if you want your children to grow up as strong and kind adults, you need to get the difference between them.


I´ll be going deeper into these three terms in some of the coming posts, but for now I´ll define them like this:

#1 Self Awareness
Being self aware is an ability that separates human beings from animals. Self Awareness is a necessity for us to know who we are. It´s what makes us understand how we are like other people and how we are different from other people. Without Self Awareness we will separate us from ourselves and never be able to be anything else than biological machines. Our existence depends on our self awareness, because without it we are like robots not choosing anything, but just following the crowd.


#2 Self Esteem

Self Esteem is often confused for Self Confidence, but Self Esteem is much more important than that. Self Esteem is basically built on our Self Awareness our surroundings being the builders. Your mum and dad are the primary Self Esteem builders and how they act can either build up your Self Esteem or tare it down. Self Esteem is high when you understand that you have a basic right to be who you are. Self Esteem is built when others acknowledge and confirm your emotions. I´ll be going much deeper into this in another post, because it very important to understand the difference between acknowledging your emotions on one hand and accepting your actions on the other. These two: acknowledgement and accept are NOT the same!

#3: Self Confidence is a picture of the moment
Self Confidence is closely connected to your most recent past. Your successes and failures not too long ago has a major impact on your Self Confidence. This means that while a strong feeling of Self Confidence is important when you need to perform, such as priming an exam or hooking a major client for your company, Self Confidence is very fragile and the smallest failure can brake it down easily if there is nothing else to hold you up. The reason for this is that Self Confidence has to do with your skills. What you have recently achieved or failed at determines your Self Confidence.

Your turn. Share, ask, comment. Do you feel self confident?