Specially reported by Tarie Kertodikromo
A one day seminar with the theme of Achieving Excellence in Family and Life conducted by Family Discovery on 3 November 2012 at APL Tower, West Jakarta attracted around 350 participants, consisting of parents, children activists and teachers.
The first session of the seminar presented Bambang Syumanjaya, a consultant and analyst on behaviour, family and multiple intelligence as well as a hypnotherapist at Family DIScovery. Some points of his presentation are the effect of playing games which tends to lead the children to violance and porns as well as lack of memory and IQ since playing games just trains audio visual part of the brain.
Bambang who wrote parenting books titled Family DIScovery Way and JUST for PARENTS also mentioned some examples of behaviour disorders experienced by children and teenagers as the impact of parents’ ignorance due to their work and business activities. He emphasized the importance of communication to build good relationship with children, so as to build their positive characters. Parents need to do 3Ms (Mengenali/Recognizing, Menerima/Accepting and Menyesuaikan/Adjusting) to support the children’s good character.
In the end Bambang reminded the parents to spare their time for their children and use it optimally, “How much time you have, even 10 minutes for the kids, use it as a quality time. Focus on your activities with them, leave your work and electronic devices and pay full attention with them,” said Bambang about quality time.
The second session presented Arvan Pradiansyah, a Happiness Inspirer who has written some inspiring books such as You Are a Leader, Life is Beautiful and The 7 Laws of Happiness and the Managing Director of Institute of Leadership & Life Management. On the seminar Arvan gave some advices of how to create a happy family by doing simple 5 tips: (1) achieving maximum INTIMACY level between a husband and a wife, (2) giving (unconditional) LOVE anytime, (3) creating EXPERIENCE (beautiful moments) together, (4) serving each other (before being asked to) and (5) always being connected to each other.
Elaborating those five tips, he mentioned two types of love given by parents: SOFT LOVE and TOUGH LOVE, both of them are good to give, but ensure to prioritize the soft love. Each of family members also have to recognize the way the others reveal their love, as Arvan mentioned 5 types of LOVE LANGUAGES, they are: (1) word of affirmation which reflects praises, (2) quality time, (3) physical touch, (4) willingness to give and accept gifts and (5) act of service.
Arvan also showed some heart-touching videos about love in family. At the end of his presentation, some questions came up mostly from women who are single parents. Answering one of the questions, Arvan emphasized that it would be better if children accept love and attention from both parents, but if being a single parent is a choice to a woman, she should be able to act two roles as a mother and a father and it might be difficult.
Another speaker on the seminar was Anthony Dio Martin, a trainer, speaker, psychologist and personal coach as well as the Country Director of Six Seconds & MWS Indonesia who energetically presented about EQ Parenting. Anthony emphasized the importance to control emotion in anything we do anywhere and anytime as well as to whom we communicate with, especially to the children. He reminded to be aware of HALTS: Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired and Stress/Sleepy, situations that trigger emotion. He gave some tips of getting used to emotion control such as to Know, Believe, Will & Feel as well as STAR: Stop!, Take a deep breath, Access Positive Memory and Respond. He mentioned the importance of waiting for 6 seconds to determine to react.
To face the problems in a family especially with our children, Anthony suggested us not to be in our own box, we should get out of our box and try to understand what our children need. Parents are also reminded to be aware of their past and childhood that might influence their treatment to their children, since full awareness will avoid the repetition of bad treatment to the kids.
Last but not least, Ayah Edy the educational practitionner ended the seminar with a sharing moment about how to understand our children. He asked some audiences to bring up their cases and he tried to give advices, mostly on how to understand more about the children by changing perception. Just like what Anthony Dio Martin stated on his presentation, Ayah Edy also emphasized the importance of getting out of the box, trying to putting ourselves on the children’s position to understand their problems.
The seminar was a reminder to parents to treat children based on their needs, not the parents’ willingness or needs, adjusted to current condition not the parents’ past and childhood. The importance thing is communication reflected in love, attention, quality time and understanding.
The presenters of the seminar are also the speakers on inspiring programs on Radio Smart FM. Their attractive presentations made the participants stay from 8.30 am to 4.30 pm.
