Family Matters

Posts Tagged ‘Emotional Intelligence’

Now that I am of what is considered ‘adult’ age, many of my friends have started talking about leaving home. Some of my high school buddies moved out long ago and have even started families. This is obviously a stage in life that everyone experiences sooner or later.

One of the most common reasons my age-mates have suggested is that they clash very strongly with one (or both) of their parents. They are sick of being bossed around and they just need space and freedom. When this happens, I find they don’t always make the best decisions. They are so intent on running as far away as they can that they don’t realize where they are going.

Sometimes they make off with some would-be drug dealer or with a complete idiot, because “anything is better than home”. Like many people out there, when they hit 40, they realize they made a terrible mistake.

But it doesn’t have to be that way.

When I was quite young (maybe 4 or 5 years old), my mom told me that one day I would have a family of my own and live in a house of my own. And I said to her, “Mom, don’t be silly, I’m always going to live at home with you and Dad”.

After a full day of me challenging the way they think and manage themselves, the kids were relaxing at dinner and we heard laughs and discussions from tables all around. In came the girl from the office, holding envelopes in her hand. “You’ve got mail”, she said and the kids rushed from their tables to mine and wondered who she was talking to.

I held up each envelope, acting as surprised as they were, and said, “Oh, this is for Jack … and this is for Amy” and gave each one of them their letter. Among the kids’ letters, I got a letter from Gal, Derek, the principal who had organized the camp with me and attended the camp, got a letter from his wife and so did Ahmad, the other presenter.

At first, there was an excited buzz around the room, but as soon as the letters were opened, there was total silence. The kids left my table and each found a corner to read their letters. Some of them seemed to be crying. For about 10 minutes, no one said anything.

Then, the kids started looking at each other, trying to figure out what others were going through. We, the adults, also read our letters, which were given to us sealed by our partners.

Success is climbing upwards and for kids (and grownups) to succeed, they need someone to hold the ladder for them – a support structure that is there to remind them to move forward – like the caddy of a champion golfer. Parents are the best support group for their kids, because they have the purest interest in their kids benefit and good fortune. As a teacher, I cannot hold one kids’ interest higher than others’ and I have 30 of them at any given time. That is why parents are so important in this process.

Two years ago, I organized a leadership camp for Grade 7 student leaders from 5 different schools. Unlike any other camp that is meant to be just fun, this one was meant to be challenging (and fun). We wanted the kids to go through a process of recognizing their individual strengths and needs in order to build their leadership skills.

I brought students to that camp, but found a wonderful and moving way to bring their parents their too. And you know what? Bringing parents into a leadership camp is way more effective than taking only the kids.

This year, I ran another camp and organized the same parental participation and the experience highlighted (again) many things about the relationship between students, parents and schools.

At my current job, I work with a lovely group of ladies, each at a different stage in life. Two of the ladies in the office this week were discussing how their teens seem to question their actions constantly – why they had to buy new boots, where they were going so late at night, etc.

Monica said she came home from a meeting in time to organize dinner for the family and then rush out again to another meeting. She told her girls that all they needed was to wash up afterwards. While she was on her way out, her eldest teen said, “Why do we have to do it? What have you been doing all day? You’re just going out to be with your friends”.

Of course, I have no children of my own just yet, but I have heard this before. Back in the day, it even came out of my own mouth once or twice…

Janet said her eldest was constantly questioning her actions too and that her standard reply was that she did not need to justify herself or her actions.

I beg to differ.

This month was very hectic for me and therefore for our entire family. I had many big projects to complete and I could not do them without the help of my family. Gal and the kids helped me a lot and we ended up dedicating almost 3 weekends to this work (we are still recovering from work, work and more work). All this work involved doing things I love, so it made me excited and I was in total flow and winding down was not easy. That made me think about slowing down as the topic this time.

Slowing down is a challenge for many people. The more successful you are at what you do, the more you risk being unable to slow down and enjoy the simple things. Slowing down is a challenge for me, so I am taking the time to write what happened to me in the last month and how I got over it (still doing that).

In the not-so-distant past, most people lived in small places and had to do things themselves. They grew crops, cared for animals, sewed their own clothes, built their own houses, met the same small group of people from childhood to old age and learned about the rest of the world only when strangers came to town.

When something broke, those “olden days” people had to fix it themselves or take it to a specialist, such as the blacksmith or the cobbler. Time was cheap and materials, like metal and medicine, were very expensive and hard to get. There was a lot of time, so life was slow. There was a lot of space and travel was slow, so there was little change.

The world’s culture evolved around this lifestyle. The main values taught to kids were self-sufficiency, industry, thriftiness, modesty, discipline and courtesy. When they grew up, they also learned faithfulness and responsibility.

I have a feeling your parents may have tried to instill some of these values in you too, even if your life was quite different. I know mine did, as did the parents of all my friends.

The general focus of people was on getting things and keeping them. There was little choice, so what people got, they enjoyed.

Today, life is radically different for most people. Most people live in big cities, have easy access to large amounts of food, drink, clothes and other goods and are exposed to a never-ending stream of high-pressured information through the TV, the radio, the Internet, the mobile phone, printed media and various other means.

The general focus of people should be on choosing things and enjoying them. But it is not.

During my parenting workshops, I ask the parents to describe the challenges they have with their kids. Parents of teens often excuse all their challenges as the result of their kids reaching the “teen” stage. “You know how teens are”, they say.

During the workshops, we discuss many of our beliefs and how they affect our kids’ behavior and I hear myself saying to parents again and again that the image teens have is worse than their behavior. Teens are considered emotional, insensitive, subject to peer pressure, disrespectful, irresponsible and moody, but what they have is just a bad reputation!

I do not think it is a coincidence that all those teens have parents who are able to see beyond their hair color, their hairstyle, their piercing, their desire to be with friends, their rebellious behavior and their academic achievements. It is not a coincidence at all. It is a formula that works. If you can see beyond what is on the surface, you will raise happy teens and you will be a happy parent.

A few weeks ago, we attended a musical competition where my brother and his school band played. It occurred to me that every player in the band had a brother or sister in the crowd, some of whom were very resentful of their sibling up there on the stage. After all, it is hard to be that person in the crowd who misses out on all the attention.

When I was in high school, it was very common to hear stories about brothers and sisters who fought with each other constantly. I heard things like “My brother is so stupid. He’s always in the way” or “My sister is such a terror she never listens”.

Now that I am at university with students who are a little older, they are much more aware of the reasons behind it all, but they still seem to fight and argue a lot with their siblings. When I ask if they get along with their siblings, they reply, “Sure don’t. He hates my guts” or “No way! I can’t stand her”. One of my friends was on such bad terms with her sister she would wish on an almost weekly basis that her sister would hurry up and move out.

It is said that sibling rivalry is influenced by things like parental treatment, birth order, personality and experiences. Apparently, sibling rivalry is particularly strong when one child is gifted.

Bullying is part of every kid’s life, unfortunately. It is estimated that every person bullies someone, is bullied by someone or witnesses someone else being bullied during childhood.

I am writing about bullying because some of my work with kids, although it seems related to academic achievements and learning difficulties, is overcoming emotional baggage that starts with some form of bullying.

First, let’s get the facts straight.

What is Bullying?
Bullying is a conscious, repeated, hostile, aggressive behavior of an individual or a group abusing their position with the intention to harm others or gain real or perceived power.

There are many definitions of bullying, but they all consist of the key words “power”, “aggressive” and “repeated”.

To my surprise, most kids do not know what bullying is.

As a parent, I often wonder how my kids interpret their world. Besides being younger than I am and lacking experience, they have grown up in a period and an environment so different to mine this is worth looking at.

Try to remember the last time you watched the news on TV. The anchors smiled most of the time, didn’t they? They even exchanged jokes from time to time, right? But the topics on the news were all doom and gloom – shootings, robberies, dishonest politicians, government decisions you may not like, etc.

Is it appropriate to behave cheerfully when you deliver bad news?

Now, consider most of the “sitcoms”. In a typically conversation, the audience is the real listener and the participants are just acting out a script, so delivering hurtful words, putting others down and using sarcasm are all “part of the deal”, while keeping a posture and facial expression that says, “Yeah! I’m all that”.

But in our daily life, there is no audience. The only ones hearing the words are us and we get hurt by them. And when someone we love says something that hurts and looks like they have just won the lotto, it makes us wonder how much they care.

I believe these things (and others) are leading our kids to distrust body language, facial expression and tone of voice as ways to receive messages from others. Worse, by often mimicking this inconsistent behavior, our kids are actually training themselves to lie better, which makes me worry for them sometimes.