I'm currently writing up the final part of the Amazing Dads book. And I need your help.
The stories are of 'ordinary', everyday dads who have wonderful relationships with their child(ren). The book is a collection of stories to help inspire our readers of looking at the different ways fathers are building engaging relationships with their children. The book is in the genre of the Chicken Soup Series of books.
It's being written as a way to help give strategies to dads to build their confidence and ways to give their children the best foundation of development from childhood through to adulthood. The book is primarily aimed at dads between 16 and 16 years of age.
* Each story is between 600 and 2000 words (approx).
* The story will be about a specific event that shows an example how that dad truly connected with their child at the highest level.
* The story could be from the perspective of a child, wife, friend and even the dad.
* The dad could be anyone from an 'ordinary Joe', a leader, a celebrity. The wider the range of backgrounds, the better.
So how can you help?There are three specific ways you can help me....
1. Share YOUR story
2. Tell the story of another dad and their child/children
3. Refer 3-5 people who would make great candidates for this book.
Please know that there is no such thing as an ordinary dad. Everybody has a story to tell. So what's yours? I know you have a dad, too!!!
How do you tell the story?
1. Either write the story about the dad you wish to share about. If you take this option, ideally, I would love to get the story on 'Word' within 10 days.
2. I interview the heroes of the story or the story-teller myself over the telephone, Skype or MSN Messenger. I would do this within 7 days of agreeing on the story.
Your story will be checked by our copywriter and then our editor.
I hope the fact that you are transforming the lives of fathers and their children worldwide is a sufficient enough incentive. It sure is for me.
Please note that there will be a simple agreement form to sign should you wish to share your story. This book is something that is long overdue and is something that I am very passionate about. If you're ready to go ahead, just say 'yes'. I will then get the ball rolling.
Thank you for your support no matter how big or how humble.
To your success!
Harun Rabbani
PS My deadline to collect over 100 stories is the February 28th 2009. So please hurry!!!
Saturday, 31 January 2009
Tuesday, 27 January 2009
The New Story, Part Two: Shame
I was real excited. My favourite teacher who was also the head of the school, Mr Matthews, was going to be presiding over our class for the mental arithmetic test. We were 10 years old and we thought our Head Teacher was cool. I liked Mr Matthews because he was good at his (stressful) job AND yet he still managed to keep a smile. He also liked me because he could see my potential, expecting me to be nothing less than a doctor when I grew up.
After the test was completed, Mr Matthews went through all the questions and answers with the class. We all did fine except for question 12. That question stumped everyone. Well, everyone bar one clever clogs. Me! When I gave the correct answer, Mr Matthews walked towards my desk with a Cheshire Cat grin and took my workbook to the front of the room to show the class the great example I set. But as quickly his face changed from a smile to bright read with anger. He threw my exercise book halfway across the room towards me...I got the answer right but my method of working out was not what he expected.
In that moment, I went from being joyful with my victory to feeling total humiliation. I hung my head down low in shame and just wished the earth would swallow me up. I couldn't bare to think what the other kids would be thinking or how they'd tease me afterwards.
Although this experience has not left me seeking psychiatric help for the rest of my life, the cumulative effect of feeling shame can be severely traumatic. In order to motivate children, many are told of the various punishments they could receive if they don't behave in a certain way. For example, they would become an outcast; be the black sheep; be damned to hell for behaving a certain way.
The trouble with parents and teachers using shame as a way to motivate their children is that the child develops the victim mentality. They feel their life is being hampered by other people, circumstances and the environment for the much of their adult life. I've seen people stress over 'what other people will say' so much so that they fall ill from shame. And I'm sure you've heard of people have heart attacks from such shame. Honour killings are more than rife in certain communities just because the young adult (often young women and girls) brought shame to their family by dating or eloping against the family's will.
Could I over-emphasise the negative impact of using 'shame' to get your child to take action or stop misbehaving? The consequences of which are usually dire. Needless to say, there are much more empowering ways to motivate your child.
Stay tuned to find out what your alternatives are in the New Story series of blogs.
To your parenting success!
Harun Rabbani
After the test was completed, Mr Matthews went through all the questions and answers with the class. We all did fine except for question 12. That question stumped everyone. Well, everyone bar one clever clogs. Me! When I gave the correct answer, Mr Matthews walked towards my desk with a Cheshire Cat grin and took my workbook to the front of the room to show the class the great example I set. But as quickly his face changed from a smile to bright read with anger. He threw my exercise book halfway across the room towards me...I got the answer right but my method of working out was not what he expected.
In that moment, I went from being joyful with my victory to feeling total humiliation. I hung my head down low in shame and just wished the earth would swallow me up. I couldn't bare to think what the other kids would be thinking or how they'd tease me afterwards.
Although this experience has not left me seeking psychiatric help for the rest of my life, the cumulative effect of feeling shame can be severely traumatic. In order to motivate children, many are told of the various punishments they could receive if they don't behave in a certain way. For example, they would become an outcast; be the black sheep; be damned to hell for behaving a certain way.
The trouble with parents and teachers using shame as a way to motivate their children is that the child develops the victim mentality. They feel their life is being hampered by other people, circumstances and the environment for the much of their adult life. I've seen people stress over 'what other people will say' so much so that they fall ill from shame. And I'm sure you've heard of people have heart attacks from such shame. Honour killings are more than rife in certain communities just because the young adult (often young women and girls) brought shame to their family by dating or eloping against the family's will.
Could I over-emphasise the negative impact of using 'shame' to get your child to take action or stop misbehaving? The consequences of which are usually dire. Needless to say, there are much more empowering ways to motivate your child.
Stay tuned to find out what your alternatives are in the New Story series of blogs.
To your parenting success!
Harun Rabbani
Monday, 12 January 2009
The New Story, Part One: Fear
In this next series of blogs, I want to talk about something hugely transformational that is taking place. It's the creation of the New Story. It is here to stay. The New Story will be the unfolding of a higher level of consciousness at a global level. It is the very thing that will bring nations closer together, cross-cultural communities working in harmony with each other and children achieving a much higher level of personal consciousness, i.e. a much more awakened state. Fathers will be playing a much greater role in the unfolding of the New Story. They will be setting the foundations of this better world.
However, there is a sabotaging mechanism that has been installed into most people that needs to be managed right now before we can even start realistically building the foundations of higher conscious children. That sabotaging mechanism is the 'old program'. It's like a software which has long past its shelf-life.
In the next series of blogs, I will be sharing with you about the old program and, later on, the new story and how dads play a vital role in its unfolding. First of all, I want to begin with the mother of the old program - fear, shame and guilt.
As a child, growing up in an urban neighbourhood in Birmingham probably toughened me up for many of life's challenges that would lay ahead for me. But, as much as I see some of the benefits, I would not wish for any child to live in such conditions that I endured.
In order to prepare me for life 'on the streets', my dad ruled his family with an iron rod...sometimes literally. The end result was that all of his six children lived in fear of being on the receiving end of his wrath. We all knew what the consequences would be if we said or did anything that caught his attention in the wrong way.
Living in fear left a lot of collateral damage. We'd moved to Sunderland in 1982 when I was 12. My father had a business that was on the brink of collapse and needed his family's help. So we moved lock, stock and barrel 200 miles north from cosmopolitan Birmingham to a almost white only neighbourhood. Unfortunately, Sunderland was under economic collapse in those days due to the loss of thousands of jobs in coal-mining and ship-building. Much of the population of Sunderland was affected by the high unemployment. Couple that with a low level of education, moving to Sunderland was a recipe for disaster for people of colour.
Now, not only was working with my father and in fear. I was on the receiving end of racial abuse and violent threats at school. As I was the only one of two people of colour (the other guy was Chinese), I was a curiosity shop for the thousand strong population of my secondary school.
Everyday was about going to school and keeping an eye out for who may potentially attack me or make racist remarks. It truly felt like I was surviving by the skin of my teeth. Then I would reach home, quickly get my homework done and get myself downstairs to open the doors to our Indian take-away. Once again, my family were living in fear of racist attacks and I was living in fear of my father's anger.
The result of such negative emotion turned me from being an outgoing young man to an introverted boy who would only have one word answers to any questions anyone asked him. I was in survival mode. I locked myself up in a shell, which I only began to break out of after 3-4 years of Martial Arts training and escaping from the environment I was living in.
The wierd thing is that I never doubted my father's love for me. He just did what he knew best, i.e. survival.
When I look back at those days now, I don't resent my personal experience. Instead, I realise I could be one of many people to voice the conditions others live. In today's current economic climate, whilst everybody is worried about their jobs and having enough cash to live on, let us be reminded that thousands of children are being effected by the stress that their parents are bringing home.
Many children are living in fear of isolation, violence, neglect and abuse. The victims (the children) will absorb it into their psyche and may even carry it on into the next generation of children. Fortunately, not all become rapists, wife-beaters, murderers or dictators. But how do we know who will become what? Is it worth taking the risk?
Ultimately, we live in a global society where the few powers that be control the masses through the use of fear...the fear of job loss, the fear of attack from another nation, the fear of not being loved because your too fat, too thin, etc; the fear of defeat, the fear of death, the fear of ill health, and much, much more. 2009 in Britain is predicted to produce the biggest economic slump since the Second World War. How's that for making you feel paranoid about your job security or your business cash flow?
By playing to your fears, the corporate giants, politicians, governments and institutions (including religious) manipulate your thinking and behaviour to the way they wish for you to act. That is the nature of low consciousness. And, that's how most politicians come to power. This effect cascades right down to the grass-roots level to the individual and families.
No matter how much effort you put into changing the outside world, nothing happens until you change yourself. By changing how you think and behave towards your child, you change the world. Imagine if every father (and mother) nurtured their children without having to resort to the use of fear. How much more empowered could our children be?
Just to clarify, fear isn't just about fear of violence. Any kind of threat that will create this negative emotion, such as making the child feel you won't love them if they behave in a certain way, is a strong fear-creator.
Later on, you'll hear more about what options dads are left with.
All the best,
Harun Rabbani
PS Don't forget to visit the new Amazing Dads website by clicking here
However, there is a sabotaging mechanism that has been installed into most people that needs to be managed right now before we can even start realistically building the foundations of higher conscious children. That sabotaging mechanism is the 'old program'. It's like a software which has long past its shelf-life.
In the next series of blogs, I will be sharing with you about the old program and, later on, the new story and how dads play a vital role in its unfolding. First of all, I want to begin with the mother of the old program - fear, shame and guilt.
As a child, growing up in an urban neighbourhood in Birmingham probably toughened me up for many of life's challenges that would lay ahead for me. But, as much as I see some of the benefits, I would not wish for any child to live in such conditions that I endured.
In order to prepare me for life 'on the streets', my dad ruled his family with an iron rod...sometimes literally. The end result was that all of his six children lived in fear of being on the receiving end of his wrath. We all knew what the consequences would be if we said or did anything that caught his attention in the wrong way.
Living in fear left a lot of collateral damage. We'd moved to Sunderland in 1982 when I was 12. My father had a business that was on the brink of collapse and needed his family's help. So we moved lock, stock and barrel 200 miles north from cosmopolitan Birmingham to a almost white only neighbourhood. Unfortunately, Sunderland was under economic collapse in those days due to the loss of thousands of jobs in coal-mining and ship-building. Much of the population of Sunderland was affected by the high unemployment. Couple that with a low level of education, moving to Sunderland was a recipe for disaster for people of colour.
Now, not only was working with my father and in fear. I was on the receiving end of racial abuse and violent threats at school. As I was the only one of two people of colour (the other guy was Chinese), I was a curiosity shop for the thousand strong population of my secondary school.
Everyday was about going to school and keeping an eye out for who may potentially attack me or make racist remarks. It truly felt like I was surviving by the skin of my teeth. Then I would reach home, quickly get my homework done and get myself downstairs to open the doors to our Indian take-away. Once again, my family were living in fear of racist attacks and I was living in fear of my father's anger.
The result of such negative emotion turned me from being an outgoing young man to an introverted boy who would only have one word answers to any questions anyone asked him. I was in survival mode. I locked myself up in a shell, which I only began to break out of after 3-4 years of Martial Arts training and escaping from the environment I was living in.
The wierd thing is that I never doubted my father's love for me. He just did what he knew best, i.e. survival.
When I look back at those days now, I don't resent my personal experience. Instead, I realise I could be one of many people to voice the conditions others live. In today's current economic climate, whilst everybody is worried about their jobs and having enough cash to live on, let us be reminded that thousands of children are being effected by the stress that their parents are bringing home.
Many children are living in fear of isolation, violence, neglect and abuse. The victims (the children) will absorb it into their psyche and may even carry it on into the next generation of children. Fortunately, not all become rapists, wife-beaters, murderers or dictators. But how do we know who will become what? Is it worth taking the risk?
Ultimately, we live in a global society where the few powers that be control the masses through the use of fear...the fear of job loss, the fear of attack from another nation, the fear of not being loved because your too fat, too thin, etc; the fear of defeat, the fear of death, the fear of ill health, and much, much more. 2009 in Britain is predicted to produce the biggest economic slump since the Second World War. How's that for making you feel paranoid about your job security or your business cash flow?
By playing to your fears, the corporate giants, politicians, governments and institutions (including religious) manipulate your thinking and behaviour to the way they wish for you to act. That is the nature of low consciousness. And, that's how most politicians come to power. This effect cascades right down to the grass-roots level to the individual and families.
No matter how much effort you put into changing the outside world, nothing happens until you change yourself. By changing how you think and behave towards your child, you change the world. Imagine if every father (and mother) nurtured their children without having to resort to the use of fear. How much more empowered could our children be?
Just to clarify, fear isn't just about fear of violence. Any kind of threat that will create this negative emotion, such as making the child feel you won't love them if they behave in a certain way, is a strong fear-creator.
Later on, you'll hear more about what options dads are left with.
All the best,
Harun Rabbani
PS Don't forget to visit the new Amazing Dads website by clicking here
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