On Friday, November 9th, 2018 a seminar on parenting was held, with the theme “How to Motivate Ourselves and Others” by Prof. Djamaludin Ancok, Ph.D, a seasoned Lecturer at the Faculty of Psychology of Gadjah Mada University, Yogyakarta. This seminar was essentially open to the public, but because it was held on a weekday morning, many men and teenagers who have to work or study couldn’t attend, so those present in the seminar were all women – either housewives or entrepreneurs.

As many as 32 participants joined the seminar. To kick-off the session, Pak Ancok played several videos about self-motivation. A chronology of Pak Ancok’s life journey showed how he achieved his success – examples of what must be done and what not to do. This was followed by how to motivate our children to achieve their success and how to correctly educate and guide them. In his opinion, Indonesia is an advanced and highly cultured nation, as evident from the past relics that still exist in the present day, so we do not need to be discouraged and dismayed in this fast moving world. Pak Ancok punctuated his presentation with lots of humor so that the audience wasn’t bored, keeping up their enthusiasm throughout the duration of his presentation.

After all materials had been presented, a question and answer session was held. Among many questions that were asked by the participants, two were highlighted: (1) How to manage emotions in moments of exasperation (2) How to deal with children who are addicted to playing gadgets. However, due to time constraints, Pak Ancok offered to answer participants’ questions by phone or text message. (DAP)