Keeping the Christmas Spirit Alive

The stockings are hung from the warm, cozy fireplace and you can smell the fresh cut tree full of bright lights decorated with the prettiest angel you’d ever seen on top. You find yourself singing along to the jingles playing from the radio as you bake homemade ginger bread cookies. Can you guess what time of year it is again? Yes, Christmas is on its way, but it’s not always as easy as it sounds.

Every year our kids’ get older, but when is the right time for them to know the truth about Santa or is there even a right time? Kids at school may start to say Santa isn’t real so how do you respond to your kids when they ask?

Here are easy tips to help answer the difficult questions that surround Christmas, without telling your child what to believe, but rather have them decide on their own, let them use their imagination.

• What do you think? This one may sound obvious, but it often works – and gives you a precious glimpse into your child’s own reasoning around Santa.
• I like to imagine… This is one of my favourite ways to answer Santa questions. The truth is, I have such a vivid memory of how I imagined Santa as a child that I can paint that mental picture with total truth and incredible detail.
• When I was little, I thought… Again, it’s the truth, and it lets us be imaginative together without giving a definitive answer.
• Isn’t it magical? Mysterious? Amazing? Yes, it is. And it’s okay not to understand it all.

Christmas is about love, family, giving and receiving – it’s not about who wrapped the presents or how they got there, but the feeling you get when surrounded by those who love you, that in itself is magical and that’s all we can really hope for our kids to understand as they get older.

Happy Holidays!

Seasons Greetings from Auckland Central West

Hi,

What an awesome year it's been!

We've had such a fun time with your little kickers and have plans to develop the fun even further, including an Auckland wide Mega Kickers tournament later in 2014.

2014 Enrolments
Classes return on Jan 31st and many of our classes are already full. If your child isn't currently enrolled and you're looking to return in the new year I strongly advise you e-mail (info@littlekickers.co.nz) or call us (09 815 8607) and get your child on the wailtist for your preferred class time so you don't have to wait too long.

Some classes will be taken outside, your coaches will let you know if this is looking to take place and then we'll ask for sunscreen, hats and plenty of water to be at the ready.

Coaching Updates:
Mt Eden: We would like to congratulate Coach Kathryn on getting a paid job as a Lifeguard, she looks to return with us once the summer season has finished. The lovely Coaches Merren and Raj (on his return from Singapore in Feb) will do a great job having a ball with your kids. 

We are sad to see Coach Raphael leave us as he follows his dreams to become a Policeman. Both Rapha and Gabi, his wife, have been such a pleasure to have on-board and will be surely missed by all that have being coached by them and worked with them.

I would like to thank all our coaches for all the hard work they put into making our classes so much fun, we can't thank them enough for their commitment to Little Kickers and love of what they do.

Office Update
The lovely Jo who was our Office Administrator has gone on early Maternity Leave with pregnancy complications with her twins - you'll be pleased to know the twins are still growing well inside and all is well with both Jo and the twins. I enjoyed coming back into the office and answering e-mails and speaking to many of you and now we've recently welcomed on board Gina who I call our calming influence in the office. You'll be hearing from Gina in the office via e-mail and phone from now on so please take a moment to welcome her on board.

On behalf of our wonderful coaches and those in the office we wish to thank you for all your support this year and all the lovely feedback which always makes us smile. 

We hope you have a special Christmas and summer break,

Yvette 

Director Little Kickers ACW & NZ

Ho, Ho, Ho from Auckland Central East

Ho, Ho, Ho everyone!  

Where oh where has our year gone? Here at Little Kickers ACES we have been super busy.  Our classes have been really busy and we even had time to open a brand new venue at Kohi.  Our next stop will be Remuera, and apologies that this didn't happen this year, but 2014 is when we will look to open.

Our coaches have really enjoyed coaching your little ones and they all seem to have such a great time that they tell me 'it's the best job in the world!'  Looking to next year we will start back on 1st and 2nd February and continue to develop our games and make them even more fun.  We are also hoping to get our Mega's together with other areas and have a mini competition later in the year!

On behalf of all of my lovely coaches and myself we wish all our super parents and amazing children a SUPER SUNNY SUMMER, and we look forward to seeing you all again in February!!

Big Santa hugs

Ruth

Parent vrs. Me

I wonder whether there will come a time in every parent’s life that they decide what sort of parent they’ll be? I don’t mean as in a strict or chilled out parent, I mean as in to what extent you follow the ‘do as I say and not as I do’ or ‘do as I say and do as I do’ parent. 


I’ve pondered this recently as I am at a stage in my child’s life that I need to make decisions about how I act and what I say around my boys. My twin boys have just turned 3, they copy all my words and sentences and basically everything I do and say. I hear their little voices (alright, very loud voices) and I hear mini-me’s. For example J & E were in the car with a fire truck having just gone past E’s side of the car... 


E “oohhhhh, a fire truck, maybe it will go and fight a fire?” 
J “the fire truck will go past my side now? ... “ that’s a good idea, it will go pass soon?” 
E: “NOOOO, it’s going to put out a fire” 
... goes back and forward a bit about where the truck is and whether it will go pass J’s side of the car or not....
J “it WILLLLL!!!!!!” 
E: “mummy, J is being loud and naughty, he will go into his room soon?!” 
J: “I’m NOT being naughty” 
E: “mummy, he WILL go to his cot... 5,4,3,2,1... he’s going into his cot when he gets home” 
J: “mummy, I am being a good boy” 
E: “he will not get a cracker, only I will get a cracker because I am a good boy” 


They end up having a bit of a verbal tiff but distraction overruled in this instance but in all of the above I just hear me saying every sentence and even copying my intonations, I start to wonder what I’ve created (2 monsters?) or what am I creating? 


It’s no surprise that their are many parenting style and I’m not an expert but I often come across 3 different types: 

1. Live and lead by example – just be who you are and you’re happy for your kids to be replicas of you taking the good with the bad. 
2. Live, change a bit and lead by example –change yourself to become the role model you want your kids to follow and look up to 
3. Do as I say and not as I do – don’t change much but making sure your kids follow your instructions even though you as an adult may go off track often.

I don’t think many people solely fit into 1 of the above but I’ll just go on and talk about my experience and my current dilemma. You see, I am of the thought process that I want my kids to copy my ‘good’ behaviour and do as I do with me becoming a ‘perfect’ role model but this has meant I have had to change certain characteristics about myself during this parenting process malarkey. 


Things I have changed that come to mind: 
- I don’t swear often and never (or extremely rarely) in front of the boys 
- I never yell at them or around them (I used to, very rarely mind you, yell out of frustration in verbal disagreements). 
 - Don’t watch TV during the day 
- I try to tidy up after I use something – big change for me! 
- I try my best to speak using full words such as ‘do not’, ‘you are’ as I like them to know the individual words rather than ‘don’t’ and ‘you’re’, odd I know? 
- Not use ‘yeh’ ‘hiya’ and ‘cause’, – now that’s been a hard habit to break but the day they came home from daycare saying ‘use guys’ really got to me so at least I managed to change it to a bearable ‘you guys’.

There are probably many examples like the above but I wonder how much of someone (like myself who wants my boys to copy my actions) changes so dramatically that I lose some of my personality just to appease their upbringing? I used to be the ‘distracts others’ in my primary/intermediate years and a rebel in my teenage years but got back on track when I turned 20. I look back at the rebel years and go ‘those were good times’! But, I wonder, do I want my boys to be ‘geeks’, ‘cool’, ‘smart’, ‘sporty’... and how much of what I’m teaching them now paves the way for the future? 


 If a parent swore, smoked, never exercised, drove too fast, use slack lingo... around the boys whether this would instantly turn them into a replica of that person – my presumption is yes. I then realise you can’t help but pave certain ways for them, I have no doubt that our boys will be sporty in one way or another but you never know how good their sporting achievements will be but I don’t care about that part provided they are healthy and enjoy active movement. I would like to think I can create fun, loving, sporty yet sensible teenage boys who know right from wrong, can take certain calculated risks in life but don’t go too far off the beaten track. 


When I read over this all I can think of is myself as I was bought up well, went to average/good schools along the way and had good parent role-models (of course I think I can do better in certain areas, sorry about that one parents if you read this ha ha). I honestly don’t think they did anything wrong to create such a rebel of a teenager and it came down to me being an extrovert so my natural personality overruled BUT I think the fact that I got myself back on track is a testament to their parenting. I knew I was being stupid, knew how to change my behaviour and chose not to until I was ready. 


I feel there are so many rights, wrongs and in-betweens offered to parents to become such an amazing role model you have to put everything in perspective. To realise there is only so much control you can have over the environment they grow up in versus what success they’ll have in life (defining success is another kettle of fish altogether) and only so much of yourself that you can change if indeed you want to in the first place! 


I don’t really have a conclusion for this but your thoughts and experiences are much appreciated and in 20 years I’ll let you know how my boys are going! 


Yvette, Director Little Kickers NZ

Blue September 2010

My father is one of the lucky ones. He was diagnosed with prostate cancer and lives to tell the tale. It seems most people have had someone close to them be diagnosed with cancer and it’s definitely not a ‘it won’t happen to me’ scenario as it’s just all too common now.

No longer can you just be a bystander to this diagnosis, if we can all help each other and ourselves with understanding early diagnosis and taking precautionary measures the more lives we can save.

“In New Zealand, prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men. About 2,500 new cases of prostate cancer are diagnosed each year.” (http://www.prostate.org.nz/) ‘Men’ are husbands, fathers and grandfathers who affect even the youngest generation. It is Blue September 2010 (Prostate Cancer Awareness month) and it seems many men have a dislike for acknowledging that something isn’t quite right or if they do acknowledge it they don’t want to act on it. It’s often up to those around them to push them to go to the Doctor and get a check up.

Now you may wonder what this has to do with us at Little Kickers and preschool football?

A study (‘NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study’) carried out over 6 years shows clearly that overweight and obese men are more likely to die from prostate cancer than men of normal weight, though no more likely to actually develop the disease.

Little Kickers is about starting that all important task of introducing daily movement as a lifestyle behaviour and if this can be done through the beautiful game of football (soccer) that they love to play than that’s even better.

The importance of being active comes with it the recognition of keeping healthy and awareness of your body in a positive way (even at their young age). We start off getting children to enjoy being active. We keep our sessions light hearted and fun without putting undue pressure on succeeding at what they are doing. We support your child’s effort whether their ‘big kick’ off the sandcastle (aka coloured marker) was actually a small kick or they missed it completely. It doesn’t matter to us, we’ll get them to keep trying and give them plenty of high fives along the way. Their enjoyment at the sessions is the most important thing.

By introducing the love of sports into their lives we hope to instil the love of healthy living which leads to a healthier lifestyle. This in turn leads to a healthier family environment and generations of healthy families.

If we can start this process at pre-school age we are more likely to succeed.


More information about Prostate Cancer and Blue September:
http://www.prostate.org.nz
http://blueseptember.org.nz/index.php