Family Matters

Martin (not his real name) came with his mom to an assessment with me. He stood at my door, the cutest redheaded 5-year-old, with a cheeky smile. He looked down, but whenever he lifted his head, I could see that his eyes were smiling.

We sat at the table and I gave him a matching game and what do you know, I met another MacGyver, but this one was the first and unique in his kind - MacGyver Pro.

The quote “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you” is widely used by people as a “rule of thumb” for treating others. I must have heard it spoken to kids by their parents hundreds of times in different settings. But I am here to tell you that this way of thinking can get you into all kinds of strife and that if you review your relationships, you will find out how.

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.

A couple of clients came to me for parent coaching because of a problem they had with their teen boy, and were very surprised when we went through Pink Elephants. They said, “We tell him every day NOT to hang around bad kids, but saying it only puts the focus on those kids we want him to stay away from”.

Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD) is very trendy. If you search on Google, you will see that there are 34,800,000 hits for it (this is today, but I am sure tomorrow it there will be more, if only because I am adding this post…). It is amazing that as the years goes by, the percentage of kids and people with ADHD goes up. Do you have an explanation to this?

In this post, let me try to give you some explanation to this inflation in the diagnosis of ADHD.

Auditory kids pay the most attention to sounds. To them, voices, tones, pitches and rhythms provide a wealth of information and carry emotions that other kids simply ignore. They have superior abilities to “record” and “play back” TV shows, skits, songs and conversations. On the other hand, they are sequential thinkers and must be able to focus on one thing at a time.
Here are some ideas that will help auditory kids learn better, be happier and love learning.

There are two parts to making a change from using a negative language to a positive one. The first is to understand how we were programmed to use negative language in our life. We talk about what we are not happy about and we express disappointment and frustration instead of saying what we feel, need and want.

Digital kids have an outstanding ability to notice patterns, structures, rules and processes. They like to think, take things apart and put them together, possible in a better way. Knowledge is the source of their power and they continually look for opportunities to get more information and sharpen their mind. These kids learn best and expresses themselves best using systems, languages (including math, music and computer languages) and logic.

Digital kids think of things as being “interesting” or “boring”.

Here are some ideas that help digital kids learn better…

Kinaesthetic kids needs to move in order to think. They are also very sensitive to others and have lots of “gut” feelings. Kinaesthetic children learn by doing.

Too often, these kids are treated as trouble makers, being blamed for not being able to sit still. However, but forcing them to sit and be quiet, we effectively shut down their brain and ensure that they learn nothing. More than that, we teach them that learning is not fun.