Family Matters

The easiest way to increase your kids’ self esteem is to send them to have dinner at friends’ house or encourage them to sleep over with their friends. If you think I am joking, keep reading.

Here are 5 things parents do a lot, which invariably get them into trouble with their kids, and a good solution for each of them. Regardless of your parenting style, these tips are worth remembering and implementing at home.

Every person dreams about extreme happiness, a time when we do only the things we want, spend most of our time with the people we love the most, have the money to give ourselves everything we want, are at the peak of our health and our life is perfect.

Soon, Gal and I are going to celebrate our 28 years of our life together. Every year that passes, we get more and more requests for our relationship program from people who are considering divorce. The good news is that they look for solutions before they “turn off the light and send the actors home”. The bad news is they are in an emotional turmoil and are very very unhappy.

During school holidays, the younger kids (now 12 and 6) wanted to sleep over in Eden’s room. They took mattresses, their special blankets and pillows, migrated to her room and left their room empty and bare. Eden was happy for them to join the party …

I have learned that life is short. You never know when will be the last day of your life. If there is anything you know you will regret not doing or saying, do it or say it now!

Last week, after posting Self Esteem Mini-Course (part 6), I got this comment from Chuck Bluestein referring to his post called What Causes a Lack of Self-Esteem in Americans. According to Chuck, the lack of physical touch in infants is the source of the problem.

When I sit in my car, driving the kids to school or just on my way to the supermarket, I like watching people in their cars. Some funny people talk to themselves. Yes, I know it may look like they are on the phone, but I am talking about the crazy people that actually talk to themselves.

I call these people “MacGyvers”. Do you remember the TV series with this guy who was narrating the whole time? We heard his thoughts all the time wherever he went.

Many of the conflicts between parents and kids are related to household chores. What usually happens is that parents are (of course) responsible for the household chores and find it very difficult to handle everything by themselves, so they ask the kids to share the load of cleaning and taking care of the house.

My client Meg came today very emotional and sad. She had been successfully working on her relationship with her husband for over 3 months but doubts had crept in after a serious argument.

Meg has been with her husband for over 10 years. When he started talking about having kids, she started talking about divorcing. “I do not know if we love each other anymore. We don’t have fun together, the sex is not what it used to be”, she thought and came to me for coaching to make the decision about staying or leaving.