The Life Skills Village

🔮 Sometimes I wish I could see into the future, and see my child in five, ten, fifteen years from now.

🏆 More than fame and fortune, I want my child to be healthy, happy and successful in life's adventures.

❓What do our children need to be healthy, happy and successful?

💰Money ?
📚High academics ?
📆Multiple hobbies and interests ?
🎾 Be super Athletic ?
✈️ Travel opportunities ?
👩‍👧‍👦A supportive family ?
👯‍♀️Lots of friends ?

Sure, these can all develop skills for success, health and happiness, but the "missing ingredient" that all children need is:

✨✨✨✨✨ LIFE SKILLS!!! ✨✨✨✨✨✨

⏰ So parents, there is no time like the present to help your child develop essential life skills!!

🎯 It will help them to flourish and be the best versions of themselves now and in their future!

😁 Lets help our children create a solid foundation for health, success and happiness in life!

🫵 If you are a parent and interested in teaching your child LIFE SKILLS, come join our village 🥰

Link in the comments below 👇🏻

Let’s walk and talk ….

✔️As a parent I want my kids to be kind, friendly, have a healthy relationships and get on well with others.

✔️ As a parent I want my kids to have a healthy self esteem and be able to set healthy boundaries with their friends, peers and adults in their life

❌ But I don’t want my kids to be so focused being compliant, on fitting in and pleasing other people, at the expense of their own individual wants and needs, compromising their own values and not able to be their true authentic selves.

😮 my child was confusing selfishness with healthy boundaries
😮 my child was struggling to stand up for what's right
😮 my child was feeling responsible for other people's feelings
😮 my child was misinterpreting people pleasing as being kind

⭐️Truths we need our kids to know and believe! ⭐️

💯 You can be a good friend and say no!
💯 You can be a good friend and stand up for yourself!
💯 You can be a good friend and be your unique individual self!
💯 You can be a good friend and not be responsible for your friends feelings and actions

😋 Our 14 yo cooked our family dinner last night

Our Aussie 🇦🇺 American 🇺🇸 Brit 🇬🇧 kid ❤️‘s his Indian 🇮🇳 food !!

🥘 He cooked and served butter chicken with rice and it’s smelled so delicious

🌶 He is told us all about the spices he was including in this Punjabi cuisine

✔️Cumin
✔️Red chili
✔️ Cardamom
✔️ Bay leaf

🥘 Teaching our kids how to cook, is a LIFE SKILL!

🥘 Teaching our kids how to cook healthy food is a LIFE SKILL!

🥘 Teaching our kids how to cook food they enjoy eating is a LIFE SKILL!

🥘 Cooking is a life skill EVERYONE should learn!

🥘 Being able to cook and feed yourself is a basic necessity, and there is no gender role for that!

❓How do we teach our children life skills so they thrive in tomorrow’s world?

😢 Humanity is facing huge major global challenge right now

😢 Our children and young adults will inherit a world with so many challenges

😢 A global pandemic has disrupted the world, and has completely transformed how we live and work

😢 Our children in the future will need to adapt not just enough to survive, but more so if we want them to thrive!

❤️ Life skills training will present a huge advantage to our children in the future

❤️ Today’s young adults and children, will need to discover and invent creative, sustainable solutions of the future of our world

💯 WE can prepare our children with life skills training now, not wait until they transition into adulthood

💯 WE can equip them with tools that enable them to navigate these future challenges with positivity and confidence

💯 WE can do this through opportunities to build and master essential life skills, which will make our children strong, resilient, confident, and independent individuals.

💯 WE can help our children to navigate learning life skills with a sense of personal confidence, social conscience, and professional competence

💯 WE can do this!! Our children, us parents, and with our village of other families, together WE can prepare our children for tomorrow’s world!

🤩🤗😁💖😜🙃🤩🤗😁💖😜🙃🤩🤗😁💖

The life skills our children learn, they can take with them wherever they go on their adventures in life!!

🤩🤗😁💖😜🙃🤩🤗😁💖😜🙃🤩🤗😁💖

🥗 Little Miss loves her salads!

She’s made some progress on her “salad bowl”planter and planted some of her favorites;

🍅 cherry tomatoes
🌿parsley
🌱basil
🥬 she’s growing some lettuce from seed that she will add to it soon

😋 she’s looking forward to taste testing it!

What are your kids growing?

To all the “local to me” school based staff, therapy, parent and teacher friends we made it to the finish line and our summer has begun!!

You know who you are, celebrate with me!

👏 👏 👏 👏 👏 👏 👏 👏 👏 👏 👏 👏 👏

😭 The last few years have been a struggle professionally, I felt so emotionally, mentally and physically burnt out, and disheartened

😭 It felt like no matter how hard I tried, everything I was doing to support my clients and their families wasn’t enough

❌ I can’t meet ALL the growing needs of my clients directly, in person and be available for my OWN kids and family’s needs

❌ There isn’t enough hours in the day! When you exchange time for direct services there never will be!

BUT I do still:

❤️ being a pediatric therapist
❤️ working with children, parents and families
❤️ all things life skills

🤗 So I’m spending my summer learning, building on our “The Life Skills Village”

🤗 “The Life Skills Village” will empower parents and caregivers to teach their children the life skills they need to be happy, healthy, independent and successful humans !

WHY???

🤩 We are parents too, teaching our own three children life skills everyday!

🤩 We want our own children, and your children to love learning life skills!

🤩 We want to “find our people” and continue to build a village of like minded parents and caregivers, we know you are out there!

🤩 We want to build on our passion for life learning and teaching life skills, this brings us joy and purpose

🤩 We have a bigger impact to reach more children and their families, beyond our local community

🤩 We want to work along side our own children, in a way that’s inclusive of our family and our needs, not time away from or separate to our kids

🤩 For the first summer EVER, we are enjoying the flexibility of our own schedules of working around our family fun and adventures with our kids

🌅🌅🌅🌅🌅🌅🌅🌅🌅🌅🌅🌅🌅🌅🌅🌅

❤️ these Florida summer sunrises!

“Opportunities are like sunrises, if you wait too long, you miss them “ William Arthur Ward

🤩 We have lots of opportunities to have a great summer of fun and learning life skills with our own kids

🤩 We want to share our passion for teaching kids life skills with our village too!

💕Thank you to all the amazing people in our village who help us see our opportunities in every sunrise, and who support us to continue learn and grow, personally and in business every everyday

🤗 Hope everyone has a wonderful summer, full of fun, family adventures and life skill learning

Our team 🥰😍❤️🤩😁

The faces behind the scenes of The Life Skills Village

🤩 Learning new skills together!
😁 Embracing the journey!
🥰 Spending more time together!

Making friendship bracelets today, supporting social emotional development, learning how to be a good friend.

Building our friendship skills means working on developing;

💖 empathy
💖 acceptance
💖 sharing
💖 listening
💖 asking questions / being interested
💖 helping others
💖 responding to social situations
💖 turn taking
💖 cooperating
💖 problem solving
💖 perseverance
💖 being supportive
💖 being trustworthy

We got to order and eat a yummy lunch from one of our favorite family’s new food truck at the weekend 🤩🥰

We ❤️ Tobo's Franks!!
The food is delicious 😋

We tried the classic frank, chilli frank, Chicago frank, loaded frank and plain ol’ meatball sandwich and a Tobo style meatball sandwich and they were all super yummy!

These parents are truly amazing, the life skills they are teaching their kids, (teen and tween) with their new family owned and operated food truck venture;

🤩 entrepreneurial
🤩 business
🤩 food prep and cooking
🤩 communication
🤩 money / payment handling
🤩 interpersonal
🤩 teamwork
and the list goes on!!

Thank you Rachel Frank with Tobo's Franks for the yummy food, friendship and inspiration!

It was a great opportunity for our own kids to practice some food ordering life skills too!!

Blackberries galore! Everyday there’s plenty to fill a bowl with delicious berries, maybe a couple will make it to the table !! She’s wants to make a blackberry crumble with them, but she needs to stop eating them all first!! 🤣😜😋

Little Miss said the blackberries are a superfood so they give her superpowers!

She’s right!

Blackberry = superfood = superberry = superpower = supergirl 🦸🏼‍♀️

Jeffery’s are baking (and eating) and remembering why

Lest We Forget 🇦🇺❤️

Happy Easter everyone, from all of us at the The Life Skills Village

When Dad is out of town and big brothers volunteer to step in because they know how much Little Miss enjoys her “Project Days”
🤩❤️🤗🥰🙃

☀️ Happy Spring!

🌱 What seeds are you planting today in your child, for their future?

“I’m Feeling Unstoppable Today!” Liam, aged 10

Little Miss ran through the woods searching for and found Bigfoot 👣

Children have the energy, and motivation to run run run! The more physical based skills they masters, the more their confidence grows.

Taking care of their bodies; building strong muscles and bones, building endurance, exercising the heart, and living an active life!

And another plus benefit, after a day of running, adventures and exploring they should sleep well too!

Some children have a hard time transitioning, leaving and saying goodbye to people, and places, so why not try to make it fun 😁

Which one do you like best / use with your child?

Meet my Dream Team 🤩🤗

Team work makes the Dream work 😁😜

Feeling stressed or overwhelmed? 😬
I can certainly relate to this feeling! 🤪

Learning to manage stress is an important life skill, but its not just relevant to us adults! Children struggle with managing their stress too!

We want our our children to lead healthy, happy and successful lives, so we need to teach them to learn how to manage their stress

But why? 🤔

After all not all stress is bad, and when managed effectively, stress can lead to enhanced performance. 🧠 💪

But when stress levels exceed our ability to cope, it leads to decreased performance, exhaustion, and illness 🥺😟

So when children are overwhelmed and stressed out, they struggle to learn and perform. 👎🏻👎🏻

When my own children are showing signs of stress and overwhelm, I get them outdoors in nature.

I let them let them play, skip, run, shout, climb a tree, ride a bike, roll down the hill.

🌳 🌲 🌳 🌲 🌳 🌲 🌳 🌲 🌳 🌲 🌳 🌲 🌳

So get outdoors and in nature with your kids!!

It increases our resistance to stress and is one of the ways you can manage stress in you and your child!

🤩 Free range kids !

😜 Kids can’t bounce off the walls when there are no walls !

Being outside in nature really is the answer to most things, if our kids are saying they are;

✔️bored
✔️have lots of energy
✔️feel sad
✔️are unmotivated
✔️feel stressed
✔️feel anxious

🤗 This is why being outside and in nature is so awesome for kids, parents and families !!

😃 Ready for the fun run!
💪 Ready to run their own race!

🤩 They are showing up, staying on their path, putting their best effort forward and being better than yesterday!









Little Miss “Mum I’m hungry, do you have a snack?”
Me “I have a banana”
Little Miss “Is it going to make me run faster?”
Me “Sure, it has lots of glucose, that your muscles can use for energy, to run”
Little Miss “If I’m running a mile, how many bananas do I need?”
Me “this sounds like a math question!”
Little Miss “I think I’m going to need a bunch”
🍌 🍌 🍌 🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌

😜 A fun memory popped up today

😋 We were teaching these hungry humans how to grow their own veggies 🥕 🥦

I ❤️ the happy smiles they have when they feel the sense of achievement

I ❤️ the confidence they have in their own abilities

I ❤️ the assurance they have knowing that with practice and guidance, they can learn how to do anything

I ❤️ how these strengthen their feelings of self-worth

When you are teaching your child something, such as;
😃 How to plant seeds
😃 Make a sandwich
😃 Do their own laundry
😃 How to write their name

You’re not just teaching them a practical life skill; you’re teaching them to BELIEVE in their own ability to learn new things!!!

You must first teach children they are LOVED
❤️
Only then are they ready to learn everything else

Childhood is where we start creating our unique life stories. Lets help our children write the best life book ever! 🤩

What is your earliest happy childhood memory ?

😁 10 things you maybe didn’t know about me

1. I love trying different types of foods 😋 I enjoy eating sushi, but I’m the only one in our family who does 🍱

2. I was born and grew up in the UK, as a young adult lived in Australia for 6 years and the USA now for 10 years! I wonder where will be next 🌍

3. Growing up, I wanted to be a veterinarian, until I realized I was super squeamish and faint at the sight of blood 🩸 😵‍💫 I am now a pediatric occupational therapist by trade

4. My favorite animals live in the ocean, dolphins, sea turtles, maniteees, I love how graceful and free they swim in the worlds oceans 🐬 🌊

5. My ultimate desire is to be location independent and travel the world with my family 🗺️

6. I found my soulmate and now have three amazing souls that call me mummy on earth B14, B12, G6, and an angel baby 👼

7. My safe and happy space is in nature, amongst the trees, rolling hills, or the ocean. It is here that I feel connected and at peace 🌳🌊

8. I’m passionate about children’s advocacy and children’s rights, and have a strong mama bear instinct for my own children (and often other peoples too) 🐻

9. I’m sensitive to ‘vibes and energy’ and have a discerning spirit, and I’m learning to trust my own intuition, and to protect my own peace from people who are not authentic or genuine ☮️

10. I dream of my future passion project to be in supporting children with disabilities with learning the life skills they need to be able to live their lives to the fullest and improve their quality of life 👩‍🦼👩‍🦯🧍‍♀️

Feel free to ask me a question below if you want to know more about me 🙃

🥰 As parents of three wonderful souls, our biggest desire is that they have happy, healthy, independent, successful and fulfilled lives

😳 How do we make this happen??!!!

😁 As our children grow and develop, they need to learn many essential life skills, so they can thrive as adults!!

👏 The good news is these life skills, can be taught!! Yay!!

🙏🏻 As a family, we need a supportive village of awesome people, family, friends, and friends who have become our family

🤩 Like the famous African proverb says “It takes a village to raise a child”

❤️ Thank Goodness for our village!! You all know who you are 😉 and we are forever thankful for you all

🌏 No matter where you are, or where we are in this world, the beauty is our village has no geographical boundaries

🌟 Welcome to our village too, a village of parents teaching their children essential life skills!

“I’m stronger than I look” Cadence age 6
💪🤩😄

⭐️We are born with perseverance 🙌🏻

⭐️As babies learning to roll, crawl and walk, we never thought ‘I can’t do this’ and just gave up. 👶🏼

⭐️ As we get older, sometimes fear and self doubt stop us 👎🏻

⭐️ In a society conditioned for instant gratification, it’s valuable for our children to appreciate the value of persevering toward their goals and dreams! 💭

⭐️ Little Miss is strong willed, determined, and perseveres 🤪

⭐️ She tells me one day she will climb the mountain in Disney’s The Lion King 🦁

⭐️ She was excited to hear that Mount Kilimanjaro does exist in real life and is in Tanzania🏔

⭐️ So watch out world, she’s practicing her climbing skills and saving her $$$ for the plane ticket ✈️ 😉

⭐️ Perseverance will help your child to learn, develop, make progress, fail, try again and master vital life skills, but perseverance also a life skill in itself! 💫

⭐️ Parents, we can teach our kids the life skills they need to grow up and be happy humans with the knowledge to be independent, confident, kind, skilled individuals who embrace their unique talents and awsomeness!! 🤩

⭐️ Come join other parents who are, and join our village! 🥰
See link to FREE group in the comments 👇🏻

Growing up, I spent a lot of time outside in nature, exploring the British countryside;
🌳 in the woods
🌊in the streams
🫐picking blackberries out of the hedgerows

I found all sorts of treasures (rocks, flowers and if I was really lucky a bug) 🐞 😜

But being out in nature seems to have its problems 😳

💧How do we cross the stream ?
💧Which rocks will hold us?
💧Is there a better way round?
💧Should we make a bridge?

Nature also gives kids plenty of opportunities to work on problem SOLVING skills 😜

🌳 My own children love being out in nature

🌻 They learn best when they have physical freedom to roam and explore, to play and make noise!!

🦉 They learn best by doing, practicing, having fun, failing, trying a different way, being successful, feeling confident, challenging themselves

🦋 Being outside in nature can be one of the best places for kids to learn lots of different life skills

🐿️ Parents, you can teach your kids the life skills they need to grow up and be happy humans with the knowledge to be independent, confident, kind, skilled individuals who embrace their unique talents and awsomeness!! 🤩

🐸 Come join other parents who are, and join our village! 🥰
See link to FREE group in the comments 👇🏻