Family Matters

This week, I got phone calls from two teachers who had been through my life coaching and professional development programs, where I told them a story about another teacher. Each of them told me, “Ronit, I did it! The whole funeral, it was fantastic!”

After the first call, I was very happy, but since I am not a strong believer in coincidence, I said to myself that the universe was trying to tell me something after the second call. Translating from “universe” language to “Ronit” language, this meant I needed to write about that funeral – one of the most wonderful funerals everyone should take part in.

When Gal was a working dad, he spent his time far away from lots of the things that happened at home. He was a working dad for over 16 years. Luckily for us, he was not the working late type of dad, more like a 9 to 5 version, but you know that unless your workplace is a 2-minute walk from home, commute becomes a big time waster too. If you add up rush-hour traffic, for the kids (and myself), Gal was away every day of the week from 7 to 5:30 (and I have to say that at work, he was the only one that said “no” to working late or going out for drinks, because he wanted to have dinner with the kids every night and put them to sleep).

Gal had to make a lot of efforts to come home in time for dinner. I think it was a constant struggle. Working in IT companies, where working until midnight and not having a life was the norm, keeping his family values was not easy.

You are probably asking yourself by now why I am writing this.

I am writing for all the dads reading this blog and also for all the moms in hope I can make a difference.

All too often, we ourselves having a bright idea, only to shoot it down a few seconds later with, “Yes, but what if ?” Since the idea was still fresh in our mind, even the smallest hesitation can sometimes bury it, never to be seen again.

Worries, stress and negative self doubt all your creativity and pretty much guarantee that even if there was a way to turn your idea into reality, you will not be able to see it if it bumped you on the nose.

And that is a pity. It really is.

So how do you overcome obstacles and turn your ideas into reality? You use your imagination.

Last year, my 21-year-old daughter Eden started studying Psychology. She said she wanted to study Psychology since she was 10 years old. Having a mother and an aunt in Special Education, another aunt in psychology and Social Work and being inspired by our amazing psychologist friend probably all contributed to her desires to learn about the human mind.

Whenever I talk about Eden and her desire to study Psychology (by the way, at this stage, she still just wants to study and being a psychologist is not on her radar yet), it takes me back to a research project I did during my own studies, titled “Why do people choose to study Special Education?”

Besides finding out why people chose Special Education, I also discovered some interesting relationships between teachers, Special Education teachers, social workers and psychologists, which I now use as models for parenting styles.

Last week, I wrote about the notion of fairness and how it can be used to manipulate people to do what we want them to do. Today, I am going to cover “the dark side” of fairness, which makes us do things we later regret.

If you have ever broken up a fight between kids, you are familiar with the exclamation “He/she started it!”

Further investigation into who “really” started it usually yields a detailed list of escalation steps, starting with something surprisingly small, even trivial, like “He stepped on my dragon” (little rubber toy dragon, that is) or “She made a face at me”.

But it is not just kids, is it? Any “married couple” (any couple sharing a life together for long enough, really) can tell stories of fights that started from nothing and ended up in days of angry silence, only to be resolved later when the original issue was finally addressed on its own.

So why is it we can be pulled into bad cycles with little things and get into big trouble “all of a sudden”?

When the ancient Romans wanted to be fair, they gave “quid pro quo”, literally “something for something”, meaning “a favor for a favor” or “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours”. Not that they were fair to everyone they met – just ask the other ancient peoples of Europe and the Middle East – but this particular expression stuck.

More importantly, the people of our time still feel the need to be fair and return favors. So much so that it can be used to manipulate us in various ways. I want to talk about that today. It also makes us do things we later regret, but I will talk about that next time.

To find out how this notion of fairness works, Psychology researchers went to a museum. They joined a tour, picked a person and started talking to them, then went away and returned with two cans of soft drink, one of which they offered that person, who had been a total stranger only 5 minutes earlier.

The topic of repeating a year bothers many parents. Recently, I was asked by another parent for advice on this matter. I have chosen to present her story here and hope other parents will benefit from my advice.

She write: “Last night I read your comments to Repeating a School Year, which is our own situation. My boy was also born in May and he started school when he was 4 & half years old. We struggled throughout his school years. I felt exactly the same like Mama Fiona – I also found a huge maturity difference to his peers who are 1 year older in most cases. Academically he is sound but struggles to remain there, and keeping him focused is a constant battle. My gut is telling me he needs to repeat, more so for confidence and to help him settle better with kids his own age. School is resisting this as academically he is not well below.”

Last year, I wrote a post about the 8 worst ways to treat your kids. I get comments on my posts – some of them support my views, while some of them disagree or challenge the ideas I write about – and this post was no different. You probably know that bloggers love comments, but it may be surprising to you that bloggers absolutely love the challenging ones, because they create even more opportunities to write their opinions.

Recently, I received a comment from Sandie, a mother who thought my top 8 tips were “out of line”.

I started writing back, but then I realized it probably needed a bit more attention, so here is Sandie’s comment and my reply. Enjoy!

It was 5am and our 8-year-old daughter Noff came into our room. It was so dark I thought I was dreaming it.

It was early and dark and I sooooo wanted to go back to sleep, but when Gal came back from his search, I realized I had done it to myself.

“Do you know where Tsoof is?” she asked.

Tsoof is our 14-year-old son and shares a room with Noff. He never comes to our room so early in the morning.

I jumped out of bed with my heart pumping. Where on Earth could he be?

For a second, I imagined scenes from movies.

“Maybe he’s downstairs”, Gal said after searching every room upstairs and went down with Noff to solve the case of missing child.

Dogs are really simple creatures. Whatever they do, they give it EVERYTHING.

If you have ever seen a dog happy, you know they are happy with their whole body – they wag their tail like crazy, they jump around, the breath excitedly, lick every part of you they can reach and even yelp with joy. If you have a dog, just take its leash and stand by the door and you will see what I mean.

People, on the other hand, think too much. Particularly, people care about what others will think of them. So instead of being true to what goes on inside them and expressing it to the best of their ability, they aim for a response out of the people around them and behave in a way that will get them this response.

But that is being manipulative, really.

It is also far less likely to succeed than being honest.

Kids start out like dogs – they get all excited when Mommy pulls a breast out of her bra. They wag their little arms and legs, their face lights up with excited anticipation and they cling and suck with everything they have. When Mommy goes out of their room, on the other hand, they start crying bitterly, twitching their arms and legs in a futile attempt to chase her.