What's your story?

One of the biggest challenges that dads of all ages and cultures have is the lack of role models to learn from. How much better would the world be if all children had an inspirational relationship with their dad? Wouldn’t the world be a much better place?

Then may be you can help.

Do you have a dad’s story you would like to share with the rest of the world?

Would you like to inspire thousands of dads to take positive action?

Would you like to leave a lasting legacy with the children of the world?

If you’re answer is an emphatic YES, then please read on…

I’m looking for stories that will inspire the hearts and minds of dads across the world. The stories can be as short as you like – anything from 200 up to 2,000 words. Here’s the great news! You do not have to be a dad to write the story.

I am looking for first hand stories from you if you are a mother, a father, a son, a daughter, a teacher, an entrepreneur, a friend, etc. In other words – ANYBODY. Very importantly, the story must be either:

A. Something that you have experienced personally
B. Observed personally
C. Wrote about somebody else who has given you a personal interview

If you wish to contribute your story or wsh to find out more about the book, please contact me directly by sending an email to harun@harunrabbani.com or speak to me directly through the social networking site where you and I are connected, i.e. Twitter, Ecademy, Facebook.

I am very excited about this project and I look forward to a phenomenal relationship with you.

To your success!

Harun Rabbani

When all else fails in motivating your child to behave...

...have a go at having a conversation with them.

I have a 12 year old nephew who has mastered the art of getting into trouble with every authority figure going. He is the archetypal Dennis the Menace. His teachers are tearing their hair out trying to manage him. His parents are going stir crazy wondering how come he's turned out the way he has.

Unfortunately, by getting himself into so much trouble, he seems to get very little affection from anybody. Nonetheless, he is still a child. I still believe he needs to be shown loving and to be treated like he is intelligent.

Earlier this evening, I sat him down with my two younger sons and started talking to them about the way the cardiovascular system and the nervous system operate. I also told them about how stress affects both those systems. Would you believe the 12 year old boy along with my 7 and 9 year old sons all understood? Hell yeah! When you give a child the chance to be intelligent, they become that.

Then we went onto to discuss the universal law of reflection. This means what characeristics you see in others, you already possess. In other words, you see the world as you are. Through the discussion, we highlighted the positives and some areas for development. Two things came out of the conversation:

1. My nephew, a.k.a. Dennis, realised that although he finds everything he does as funny, he is usually the only one in the class to be laughing. He also got that others were laughing at him - not with him.

2. In order to help him relax more, my nephew agreed to spend 10 minutes a day, everyday, just doing some simple meditation. His grandmother (my mum) agreed to remind him everyday.

I'll keep you posted on the results.

Harun Rabbani

Spiritual beings having physical experience

Most readers of this blog would agree that children are one of the greatest blessings you have received. However, mums and dads can occasionally get a little confused during the creation of the child. Once the child is conceived, you have no control of how the child becomes manifest.

The spirit that enters the foetus is a custodian of that shell we call the body. At the same time, the mother is the custodian of the unborn child. At no point is the child a possession - when pregnant or once the child is born. So treat is as if you are a custodian of the most priceless gem in the world.

When the child is born it is a conscious being and with a high level of maturity, often much more than the parent. It is crucial that both parents take responsibility for the development of the foetus and the newborn baby. Be mindful of the type of sounds the child is exposed to. All sounds have a vibration.

High vibrational sounds that are beneficial to the child include praying, meditating, singing, expressing love, the sound of flowing water and nature. Low vibrational sounds include shouting, heavy rock music, ganster rap, industrial noise.

Be also aware that when that the feelings that are radiated from the pregnant mother's inner being will have a strong effect on the child. This is important to bear in mind. If a mother has a traumatic pregnancy, she will give birth to a child who has been exposed to negativity before they are even born. If the mum generally has a 'happy' pregnancy, she will give birth to a happy child.

There is much more we can talk about regarding preparing your child for the best. However, I want to leave you with one thought. Your child is a spiritual being having a physical experience. You are part of that journey they will have in this life. What kind of experience would you like to give your child?

Harun Rabbani

Building confidence through speaking

Last night, I was watching a program on BBC TV that resonates with me more than any show - "Speaker". In the years of delivering interactive workshops, the public speaking workshops have the quickest impact on a child's confidence. If you missed last night's penultimate episode, then click here to catch up with the program. Make sure you're glued to next Tuesday's final.

If your child ever gets a chance to stand up and speak in public, give them all the encouragement they need. It's a skill that they will nor forget quickly. It's also something that will help them in their education and their future career. Many a good and great leader was once a child public speaker.

Harun Rabbani

Sleep deprived children show symptoms of ADHD

Have you ever wondered why some children are so much more hyperactive than others?

The BBC News reported that children whose average sleep duration was shorter than 7.7 hours had a higher hyperactivity and impulsive behaviour score. (Please note: the 7.7 hours refers to time in actual sleep. Bear in mind, your child will need more time in bed to take into account bedtime reading and staying awake.)

What does that mean to you? Sleep deprived adults face problems of concentration lapses and being less emotionally stable. However the consequences on a child’s life and their future are dire. It means your child has a reduced ability to concentrate at school and a higher tendency to be behaviourally challenged.

Clearly, this will affect your child’s ability to realise their academic potential, not to mention be more susceptible to be bullied or become a bully. Controversial, I know. However, given the record numbers of children being bullied at school and 40% of teachers being subjugated to student bullying, this is a serious matter that teaching professionals are having a tough time with.

Prevention is better than cure. Ensuring your child gets a good night’s sleep allows them to fully recuperate for a productive day ahead.

Harun Rabbani

The New Story, Part Four: The Key to Handling Fear

We live in a world of duality. Everything has its equal and opposite. Look around you and you see evidence everywhere. This is something that my children love learning about. For example, have you ever touched those prickly stinging nettles that you find growing in undergrowth in woods and in parks or even in untamed English gardens?

Although the nettles do leave a nasty, stinging sensation, they have a cure very close by. Everywhere you find stinging nettles, you will find the broad dock leaves growing nearby. Once you've been stung, all you need to do is to rub a dock leaf on the part of your body to counteract the effect of the nettles.

Everything in the manifest world has its equal and opposite. This is Mother Nature's way of keeping checks and balances.

So it is true about 'e'-motions and feelings. Fear is one of the biggest fuels for the 'Ego'. The more you are fearful of something, the bigger the Ego becomes. (I'll explain Ego more clearly in a future blog.)

When you try to motivate your child through fear, you are in fact feeding and growing their Ego.
The Ego lives off victimhood. This then reinforces the desire for that child to unconsciously seek out things that they feel fearful of. Then when that happens, the Ego gets all the juice it needs to become more of a 'victim'.

Have you noticed, for example, that people who are 'victims' of circumstance and prey to their environment and everybody else's opinions and behaviours. The Self, however, sees the world from a different perspective. Instead of seeing problems, they have challenges. Instead of being in a recession, they're looking out for the opportunities. Instead blaming others for their condition, they choose to learn from their experiences.

In my humble opinion, the key to handling fear is to know that with every 'negative' situation, its positive counterpart is thriving in equal amount. Where you find something to be sad about, when you look you'll find something else to be happy about. Out of every sadness, joy is also to be found.

So for example, if your child does not pass a test at school, it is a great way to recognise where they can improve on. Or when your child comes last in a race at school, they may learn a new way of becoming better in that race or get more motivated to train harder or even find a sport that they do excel in.

In the case of specific fears, do as Susan Jeffers recommends - 'feel the fear and do it anyway'.

The New Story is the unfolding of a generation of future leaders who will not lead their lives by being motivated by fear, shame and guilt. They will excel despite that and because they choose to use emotions that are energy creating such as compassion, empathy, love and courage....the latter being the equal and opposite of fear.

Help your son and daughter to create balance in their life by seeing the upside to every downside and by making them aware that every upside has its counterbalance. Make sure you do both gently and with plenty of loving.

Harun Rabbani

The pain of worrying what others would say...

When I became a dad for the first time, my own family expected me to be a strict, regimented and temperamental disciplinarian. Much to their surprise, I 'turned' out to be quite the opposite to that. My family based their assumptions of me as a dad based on their experience with our own father. They expected me to be everything that he was.

However, I used my experience as 'market research', as described by Richard Wilkins. My dad taught me many of the ways I should not be a father. For example, he never expressed his love verbally. He was never comfortable with that. But I was quite surprised when once in my adult life, he found it in himself to tell me how much he hated me. To this day, he still 'cannot' express his love.

Why am I telling you this? Because I want to share the biggest research material I got from being a child of my father. His biggest stressor is not related to his health. It's not related to his wealth. It's not related to any physical, mental or emotional disease. However, he does have all these conditions and it stems from his fear of what other people would say.

Let me explain. My dad grew up in a village where he was constantly in survival mode since being orphaned at the age of 8. As a child, he made his way through into his adulthood by literally fighting his way there. In his mind, he had (has) a reputation of being someone that everybody fears. Nobody would dare cross his path. Nobody would dare to speak to him in a 'disrespectul' way to him, i.e. they would never disagree with him.

Indeed he was a very persuasive man. People took heed of him. His older brothers listened to him and did as he would say. His many nephews all feared him as did his younger sisters. All in all, he had a reputation.

However, he could never understand why when everybody obeys him, why none of his children would obey his every order with no question. Unfortunately, my dad lived in a world of fantasy. Whilst he was disgusted with his children and even resented their 'behaviour', we - his children - lived in constant fear of being shouted or being beaten with a stick, sandal or anything that would inflict pain. The higher you were in the age pecking order, the more you were his object of anger and blame. I was the oldest of six.

Yes, for many years I was a very angry child. A very angry young man. I heard about alcholic fathers violating their children. But what was my dad's excuse? The only answer I could find (and still do) was that he was afraid of what would be say about this lion of a man who was a complete whimp with his own children. He couldn't even manage to get his children to listen to him.

The consequences to my siblings and me of my father's fear of what other people would say included being physically and emotionally battered, forced marriage of one of my sisters, me running away from home, emotional scarring and depression. But the worst affected was himself - constant ill health, stress, worry, fear, resetlessness and a sense of isolation and abandonment.

Unfortunately, my father is from a generation where they never need help, advice or support from their own children. In fact, giving any kind of advice to him was one of the most offensive things my siblings or I could do.

So how all this make me a better father? In many ways. In the case of this blog, I want to mention two key learning lessons.

Firstly, you are already a perfect being as you are...spiritually. Your attitude and behaviour is a manifestation of childhood conditioning. If you are perfect, then you are more than capable of raising your child without the interference of do-gooders - usually in the form of 'family' and 'friends'. Let your love for your children and your trust in their perfection be your guide.

Secondly, be very mindful of the words that leave your mouth when you are speaking with your kids. NEVER allow words with low vibrational energy to be uttered by yourself. Using fear and shame words does NOT work. For example, I remember once my dad say to me how much he 'hated me from the time I was 12 years old'. I was not upset. On the contrary, it felt like the bond between the two of us snapped irrepairably for good. Use words of praise and love to express your feelings. They work. They truly do. I know because I use it with my children all the time.

Harun Rabbani