Kindness

People who know me and my regular followers will know that I often talk about kindness and its value in today’s society. I also encourage parents to recognise all the skills their children have rather than just focus on their academic success.

I am so thrilled that the younger generation of our Royal family are getting involved with charities and organisations that help people with mental health issues and are pro-active in promoting acts of kindness.

The Duchess of Cambridge yesterday was quoted as recognising kindness and respect as well as academic achievements.

Our teens today are struggling with all sorts of pressures and many suffer in isolation and modern media is of no comfort or substitute for real genuine friendships.

Help and support our youngsters they are a generation in trouble.

 

The Little book of Kisses

 

My kindle book  The Little Book of Kisses’ is available to download from Amazon. Written in my pen name Dolly Christmas giving a comical insight into the magical world of kissing.

little-book-of-kisses

What the world needs now is more humour and definitely more kissing!

At £3.50 a great Valentine’s gift or fun time read…life get’s just too serious.

Following dreams

Had an interesting chat today with a young man in a supermarket who had decided not to go on to university but to have some fun for a while whilst he decided what to do.

I hear this a lot, and I am mindful that so much pressure is put on our teenagers to decide their chosen career path long before they are really ready. It’s of course great for those students who have always known what it is they want to do, have the ability and apply themselves well to follow that dream.

As I often say not all children can be academic but that doesn’t mean they should be written off, they are of course beautiful in their own way..so nurture and encourage until they do identify their dream. Meanwhile they can get on enhancing those all too valuable social skills.

It’s never ever too late to learn, speaking as a mature student I know that’s true.

Making the right choices

Sometimes in life we are faced with making a difficult decision and after a lot of soul searching and balancing up the negatives and positive we may still be left in a bit of a quandary as to what to do. Are we making the wrong choices for the right reasons and is our reason big enough?

Discussing weighing up the benefits of ‘getting experience’ with a colleague earlier today we touched on how certain sectors are quite unprofessional and small minded in their approach and maybe without realising can be quite offensive in questioning one’s skills and abilities.

We both agreed that the minute one starts to justify one’s skills the battle is lost, though of course we have to make allowance for ‘the other man’ maybe not fully understanding the high calibre of staff they are talking to nor respecting their CV and qualifications quite as much as they should do.

This situation and the question on being ‘ over qualified’ and whether one should dumb down one’s CV is one often run past me by colleagues wondering what to do for the best in searching for that dream job/project in their advancing years.

There are a lot of people who truly do not value self-development as much as those of us mature students who spend many hours gaining extra qualifications with a continual hunger for learning.

This week I am faced with making a few myself..and I am deliberating..time for cuppa and a choccy digestive – easy decision for me!

 

Working for experience

Over the past few weeks I have had several chats with fellow professionals about the value of experience and what to encourage our children to get on their CV.

I am still working on projects for experience for my own newly acquired skills and this never ends if you have a hunger for learning. Whilst we don’t want our children to be exploited there is no getting away from the fact that they do need to do voluntary/community work and preferable within the chosen field of their proposed career.

Recently I met and chatted to somebody from a national charity who agreed volunteers often go on to be offered permanent position. Reverting to the subject of students; they of course need to be able to impress their selected universities that they are right for their course and an excellent candidate for their university.. So that personal statement needs to demonstrate good social skills -remember it’s not just about the exam results.

Please visit Innovate My School’s website and view my articles on tips for writing personal statements and developing social skills:-

http://www.innovatemyschool.com/ideas/item/1617-seven-tips-for-writing-your-personal-statement

http://www.innovatemyschool.com/ideas/developing-social-skills-and-being-community-minded

Personal statements

I know many students depending on their chosen career may have already submitted their personal statements. However I know there are many of you out there planning and even struggling to work on yours now.

My following articles on Innovate My School’s website hopefully offer some useful advice to students and teachers alike.

http://www.innovatemyschool.com/industry-expert-articles/item/1617-seven-tips-for-writing-your-personal-statement.html

http://www.innovatemyschool.com/ideas/developing-social-skills-and-being-community-minded

Good luck with the process and future studying towards those exams.

Developing social skills

School holidays are here and there is no better time for students to add things to their CV.

Please see my latest piece on Innovate My School’s website on developing social skills and being community spirited. Link follows:-

http://www.innovatemyschool.com/ideas/developing-social-skills-and-being-community-minded

Once again thanks to the editor for supporting my views on encouraging today’s youth to gain experience and improve their confidence.

Remember volunteering may well help you secure a paid role in the future.