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Welcome!
Charla Belinski is the author of the weekly feature, "Are We There
Yet?" which shares her common-sense style and humorous world
view on raising happy, healthy kids.
A certified parenting instructor, Charla’s real advice comes from
lessons learned on the front-lines of her own living room. As a wife
of 17 years and mother of three school-aged children, her
observations and advice on family-life are meant to encourage,
engage and make us laugh in the face of the toughest job on the
planet – parenting.
For information on positive parenting, click here.
For this week's column, read on!
Editors and Media, please click here to contact Charla.
Yet?" which shares her common-sense style and humorous world
view on raising happy, healthy kids.
A certified parenting instructor, Charla’s real advice comes from
lessons learned on the front-lines of her own living room. As a wife
of 17 years and mother of three school-aged children, her
observations and advice on family-life are meant to encourage,
engage and make us laugh in the face of the toughest job on the
planet – parenting.
For information on positive parenting, click here.
For this week's column, read on!
Editors and Media, please click here to contact Charla.
This Week's Column
Charla Belinski
parenting humor writer...columnist... author of weekly feature "Are We There Yet?"
parenting humor writer...columnist... author of weekly feature "Are We There Yet?"
Dream Big
My sister owns a small business that she’s been quietly building over the last few
years. She works with kids and classical music – not exactly a combination sure to make
her rich. But like most people who open up shop to do something they love, she’s not
worried about her own bottom line. As long as she’s making it at the end of the month,
she’d rather labor for passion than a paycheck; which works out well unless, of course,
you have a penchant for cute shoes and accessories. But I digress.
So she’s generally happy with her vocation but like everyone else, she’s entitled to a
bad day now and then; and so it happened that she found herself one day truly worrying
about the future. She poured out her uncertainties to a friend on a recent afternoon,
wallowing in the world of “what-ifs.” Her friend listened patiently while she fretted about
decisions, how to better market her business and the impact, if any, she was having on
the world. We’ve all been there – trying to sort out our own existential angst and second-
guessing our own (good) decisions. We don’t necessarily need anyone to fix our problems
or offer empty praise. We just need a shoulder – a soft place to land in an otherwise
tenuous moment.
Which is why I love what happened next.
My sister and her friend parted, and at the end of the day my sister approached her
car and noticed a note stuck to the window.
“Everything has a way of working out,” it said. “Dream big and I’ll dream right along
with you. And if by chance we fail, we’ll just drink my yummy margaritas and then try
again.”
Ah, friendship. It always comes with a silver lining. Or at least a rim of salt.
What a gift to offer someone the permission to dream big. If you can dream it, you
can do it, Walt Disney said; and yet why is it so many of us are afraid of the dream itself?
From a young age we start asking our kids what they want to be when they grow up,
encouraging their imaginations. But somewhere along the line the encouragement gets
dulled – and so do we. We dream, but not quite so big. We confuse imagination with
fantasy and believe it will never happen to us. We think we can, but let the voices of
others intercede and tell us we can’t.
What if we simply told each other… Dream big and I’ll dream with you?
The worst that can happen is we fail – together – and then, in my sister’s case at
least, we’ll have a margarita and start over. To quote another of my favorite movie minds,
Yoda, “there is no try, only do.” And every time we “do” we add experience and
understanding to our repertoire. If kids are raised with the idea that failure is often a
necessary means to the end, rather than a reason to give up and go small, imagine the
possibilities.
When adults dream big it immediately gives our children permission to do the same.
So go ahead and dream, take chances, dance like nobody’s watching. And if you fail, we’ll
drink yummy margaritas and try again.
Published May 4, 2008
My sister owns a small business that she’s been quietly building over the last few
years. She works with kids and classical music – not exactly a combination sure to make
her rich. But like most people who open up shop to do something they love, she’s not
worried about her own bottom line. As long as she’s making it at the end of the month,
she’d rather labor for passion than a paycheck; which works out well unless, of course,
you have a penchant for cute shoes and accessories. But I digress.
So she’s generally happy with her vocation but like everyone else, she’s entitled to a
bad day now and then; and so it happened that she found herself one day truly worrying
about the future. She poured out her uncertainties to a friend on a recent afternoon,
wallowing in the world of “what-ifs.” Her friend listened patiently while she fretted about
decisions, how to better market her business and the impact, if any, she was having on
the world. We’ve all been there – trying to sort out our own existential angst and second-
guessing our own (good) decisions. We don’t necessarily need anyone to fix our problems
or offer empty praise. We just need a shoulder – a soft place to land in an otherwise
tenuous moment.
Which is why I love what happened next.
My sister and her friend parted, and at the end of the day my sister approached her
car and noticed a note stuck to the window.
“Everything has a way of working out,” it said. “Dream big and I’ll dream right along
with you. And if by chance we fail, we’ll just drink my yummy margaritas and then try
again.”
Ah, friendship. It always comes with a silver lining. Or at least a rim of salt.
What a gift to offer someone the permission to dream big. If you can dream it, you
can do it, Walt Disney said; and yet why is it so many of us are afraid of the dream itself?
From a young age we start asking our kids what they want to be when they grow up,
encouraging their imaginations. But somewhere along the line the encouragement gets
dulled – and so do we. We dream, but not quite so big. We confuse imagination with
fantasy and believe it will never happen to us. We think we can, but let the voices of
others intercede and tell us we can’t.
What if we simply told each other… Dream big and I’ll dream with you?
The worst that can happen is we fail – together – and then, in my sister’s case at
least, we’ll have a margarita and start over. To quote another of my favorite movie minds,
Yoda, “there is no try, only do.” And every time we “do” we add experience and
understanding to our repertoire. If kids are raised with the idea that failure is often a
necessary means to the end, rather than a reason to give up and go small, imagine the
possibilities.
When adults dream big it immediately gives our children permission to do the same.
So go ahead and dream, take chances, dance like nobody’s watching. And if you fail, we’ll
drink yummy margaritas and try again.
Published May 4, 2008