Monast Law Office - January 2020

Help Your Kids Achieve More This Year

WITH SIMPLE, ACTIONABLE GOALS

Keep things simple and achievable.

With every new year comes an opportunity to reinvent ourselves or start down a new path toward self-

When your kids are forming their resolutions, their first attempts will probably be very broad. Statements like “I want to be more kind”or “I will try to help more around the house” incorporate good values but don’t include any actionable steps. Help your kids think of tangible ways to act on those goals. For example, if they want to be tidier, a good resolution might be for them to clean their room once a week or take responsibility for one household chore every day.

improvement. Making resolutions is a big part of many families’New Year’s traditions, and parents often have a desire for their kids to take part in that tradition when they’re old enough. Following through on resolutions is tough, especially for young children, but with your help, they

Don’t do all the work for them.

can achieve their goals.

Practice what you preach.

While it’s important for you to help your kids formulate their goals, be sure that you aren’t taking over. If they’re ultimately responsible for their resolutions, they’ll feel more compelled to keep them. Instead, suggest different goal areas they could improve, such as home, school, or sports, and let them elaborate. When it comes to creating habits, nobody is perfect, so even if your kids falter on their goals in the middle of February, don’t worry. The important thing is that you continue to encourage them every step of the way.

You are your children’s role model for almost everything, including following through on New Year’s resolutions. So, ask yourself if you follow through on your own resolutions. When you proclaim that you will read more books or finally get a gym membership, do you actually try to do it? Your kids will assign as much importance to New Year’s resolutions as you do, so by sticking to your own commitments, you can help them stay on track too.

In classic Andy fashion, when Wilma called him to make sure it’d be okay to feature him in our newsletter, Andy suggested I start with the heading, “Look at this S.O.B. I had to defend!”

has heretofore concluded people with one foot in the grave can work; for Andy, he agreed with permanent total disability.

After all this, Andy remains positive. Though he can’t get around by himself, his delightful ex-mother-in-law, Midge, helps him to and from appointments and with running errands. He’s able to connect with others through social media and shares his apartment with an ornery cat. Wilma calls him periodically to check how he’s doing. He sent us several photos to include with his story. I’m including two — see if you can figure out which is which. The first he captioned, “Confused or smoldering? You be the judge!” Of the second, he says, “Happy because I don’t know any better!”

Actually, it’s an apt headline … that is if by S.O.B. we mean “still optimistic, bro!”

Just after Thanksgiving, Andy passed 20 years since his injury. And, oh, what an injury it was! Working as a water service technician (what he calls a “glorified plumber”) doing industrial- based water treatment, Andy was getting into his work van when he slipped in mud, did the splits, and twisted his right knee. Little did he imagine how well-acquainted he’d become with hospitals and doctors. He had eight surgeries on his knee, none of which were very helpful. His surgeons told him he had the worst knee they’ve ever seen. After developing reflex sympathetic dystrophy of his right leg because of the original injury, his doctors tried a spinal stimulator, but it didn’t reduce his pain. Since his injury left him unable to bear weight on his right leg, drive, or walk without crutches, Andy’s employment options were limited. Still, he attempted vocational rehab six times! Each time, the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation concluded it wasn’t feasible to retrain him. This is a hard blow for someone at any age, let alone someone disabled in their mid 30s. By the time we filed for permanent total disability, the claim costs had exceeded $1 million, and Andy had been found by the Industrial Commission to have 72% impairment, one of the largest I’ve seen. He was examined by a commission doctor who

All I can say is that “we like our Andy very much!”

2

www.monastlaw.com

Made with FlippingBook flipbook maker