Home, Health & Style

Be a Good Communicator

Have you ever said something that was misunderstood by the person you were talking to? Do you know anyone who sometimes says things in a way that seems rude and abrupt? It is not always the words used, but the way in which they are used.
Good communication is very important. Carolyn Ward explains what it is and how to be a better communicator.

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Food and Recipes

Tween Chef – Simple Solo Cooking for Kids

tween chef

Simple solo cooking  –  learn how to make these dishes with minimal assistance from adults.
We recently noticed that there are LOADS of  “cooking with kids” videos on YouTube but not many of them feature kids doing all the cooking. Often they are only allowed to stir things, or decorate the cakes. Most tweens are capable of cooking the entire meal, but often they lack confidence, or are worried about burning themselves, or spilling things.
You will learn basic cooking techniques, and how to stay safe in the kitchen, and as time goes on we will do more complicated dishes.

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Home, Health & Style, Popular

Good Relationships – Healthy Relationships – Tips for Kids

Relationships are hard at any age. Remember that we don’t just talk about relationships when we mean a boyfriend or a girlfriend – it’s about how you get on with your parents, your friends and other people important to you.
There are certain basic ideas that are important to developing good relationships; you master these and life suddenly becomes a lot less stressful! Alice Hoyle has some ideas that may help you have better relationships with the people in your life.

 

Communication

Image by Robert Collins on Unsplash

Communication is the most important aspect of any relationship. Sharing things with people in your life is important. We do this mostly by speaking and listening. It is important to share how you feel about things and to listen and try to understand how others feel about things (this is called empathy).

How good are you at both talking AND listening? If you favour doing only one of them in a relationship then this isn’t as balanced as it could be- you probably need to work on doing both and so should the other person.

Also sometimes people might say something but their body language (how someone uses their body or their facial expression) maybe saying something different. Take some time to consider what is your body language saying when you talk? What is their body language saying? Do you make eye contact when you talk?

A key to successful communication is to use “I” statements instead of “you” statements- eg. “I feel sad when you call me silly” is better than “You calling me silly makes me sad” because the second one can put the person on the defensive straight away and the conversation can go badly after that.

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Written By You

When I Met Mary Robinson – Written By You

Me and my mum went to hear this lady talk, her name is Mary Robinson, Mary was the President of Ireland, but she was not just any kind of President of Ireland,she was the first woman President of Ireland. She got a Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Obama in 2009. And was the first President of Ireland to visit  the Queen.

 

Growing up 

Mary grew up in a small town in Ireland, her mum and dad where doctors and  her gran died when she was about 10 years old… When Mary was 17 she went to a finishing school in Paris while deciding if she wanted to become a nun…   In that finishing school  she was the only non-French speaking student there.

 

little light 

Mary Robinson famously put a light in her kitchen window to guide the people that have left Ireland to live a country abroad back home.

 

my question

If you had a chance of asking Mary Robinson a question in front of 600 people, would you do it? I would, and I did. Here’s what I said and what Mary replied:

 

 

 

 

Afterwards Mary signed a copy of her book for me

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