Matt was a troublemaker. He disturbed the class, made lots of noises and fought with the other kids in class. It was unbearable. His teacher tried different methods to stop this behavior, but nothing helped, so he invited Matt's presents for a talk.

Matt's parents came to see the teacher and he told them about his failed attempts to calm him down and keep the order in class.

"I've tried everything I could and exhausted my options", said the teacher and asked Matt's parents about his behavior at home.

Matt's dad said, "We've tried everything ourselves. We punish him, we bribe him, but nothing helps".

"Have you tried diagnosing him?" asked the teacher.

"I don't believe in diagnosing. It won't help. It's not practical," said Matt's mom.

"Well, how about giving him Ritalin?" suggested the teacher, "It will calm him down".

"Where do we get Ritalin?" Matt's dad asked.

"Oh, don't worry, I'll arrange this for you. Matt will take one tablet every day before he comes to school and everything will be OK", said the teacher.

"Well, that won't work", said Matt's mom, "Our mornings are very hectic. My husband leaves home early and I rush the kids to school. Who's going to make sure he takes his tablet?"

"OK, then I can help you with this", said the teacher, "I will give him the tablet myself when he gets to school".

"No way!" said Matt's dad, "I don't want all the other kids to see him taking Ritalin. Having a bad reputation can be worse than causing trouble. I don't want my child to suffer from a bad reputation".

The teacher thought about it and said, "I have an Idea. Every day during the first break, I will ask him to go to the staff room and make me a cup of coffee. I will leave his Ritalin in my pigeonhole, he will take one tablet and no one will know about it".

The parents were hesitant a bit, but decided to give it a go.

The plan was brilliant. The teacher left the Ritalin in his pigeonhole in the staff room, explained to Matt what to do and every day during the first break, he asked Matt to go to the staff room and make him a cup of coffee. Matt brought the coffee and everything went smoothly. The environment in class calmed right down. Matt was relaxed, he was no longer nervous, did not get involved in any fights or cause any trouble to his teachers.

Three weeks later, Matt's mom asked him about what was happening in class.

"How's school, Matty?"

"Excellent!" said Matt.

"Is the teacher happy with your behavior?" she asked.

"Oh, yes. Everything's great now. Everyone in the class is happy," said Matt.

"Wow", said Matt's mom, "How come everything got so much better in such a short time?"

"Oh, it's very simple", Matt explained, "Every day, my teacher tells me to get him a cup of coffee. I go to the staff room, make him some coffee, take a tablet from his pigeonhole and put in his coffee. He drinks it and everyone in class is much more relaxed!"

If you are reading this and saying, "Ha, ha, it worked on the teacher", that was no my point. I believe it would have worked even if Matt had thrown the Ritalin into the rubbish bin every day.

You see, perception is a powerful thing. What we believe to be true is sometimes stronger than what happens to us in real life. If we interpret a child's behavior as "troublemaking", we will see troublemaking in every move he or she makes. This is why medical researchers always consider the "placebo effect" to find out if the person reacts to the medication or the thought of being medicated.

When diagnosing kids with learning difficulties, the real problem is often "teaching difficulties". Diagnosing ADD, ADHD, ODD can be a result of "teaching and/or parenting difficulties". We try some strategies and say we have done everything we could.

But we have not!

I had inspiring Special Education teachers that gave me the best belief every teacher and parent needs.

If you have tried some things and the child is still struggling, it only means you have not found a solution ... yet!

How to work with troublemakers

Instead of searching for labels or using a magic pill, search for a solution. Here are some things to keep you focused and to keep you going.

1. Try every approach for at least 3 weeks. It takes 21 days to make a habit and preferably 21 days in a row.
2. If something has worked for someone else and not for you, be happy! You are closer to the solution, because now you know something you did not know before trying it. You know what does not work.
3. Be open minded about potential solutions. If you do not understand something, that does not mean it is out of the question. I was very skeptical about finding a solution for my kids' dairy allergy when I went to see a kinesiologist. I still do not understand how he did it. One visit and $75 later (mostly paid by my health insurance) our life was changed forever.
4. Be creative! If you have tried conventional ways and they have not seemed to work, try something different.
5. Consider the placebo effect. Give your kids Vitamin C in a special container without a label and tell them it is a magic pill and that every child who takes it feels relaxed, calm and able to manage difficulties better within 3 weeks. Tell the teachers to assess the child's behavior during those three weeks. From my experience, the teacher will tell you the child is much calmer. If you want to boost your credibility with your child and with the teacher, tell them an expert has given you this special prescription, along with a story about how expensive the tablets are, how many kids use them and what wonderful results they all get.

If you think you have tried everything, think again. This is an overused phrase and it is never ever true.

If all else fails, before you lose hope, take some Ritalin yourself.

Happy times,
Ronit

You may want to read

• Parental Troubleshooting
• Make a list: Beliefs about Kids cont.
• Mom, I’m Sick

Mama knows best

Community nurses will tell you that the phrase "Mama knows best" is true and when a parent feels their child is suffering some kind of problem, they should be taken seriously and the child should be thoroughly checked until the problem is found and fixed. Ronit helps identify kids' problems regularly and is amazed at how many times parents arrive in desperation, having been dismissed and ignored by "the professionals".

So whether you are Mama or Papa, if you suspect your child might be having some sort of a problem, you know best. Do not let anyone put you down or discourage you. Your child is your responsibility and if you say he or she needs help, that is good enough. Keep on searching and doing the best for your child until you succeed.

What's the problem with my child?

Excuse me if I use a computer metaphor, but in the IT world, there are 3 kinds of people: hardware engineers, software developers and implementers. Hardware engineers know how to combine electronic components and build computers. Software developers enable the hardware to do a lot of wonderful things. Implementers (business analysts) choose the best hardware, software, settings and methods to use in a particular context.

Parents, unfortunately, have to be all of them.

Check your kid's hardware

When I was a university student, I was a "big brother" to a disadvantaged boy in 2^nd Grade (let's call him Sunny). The poor kid' father lived somewhere else, money was nonexistent to the point where there was no running water, both his parents had a past of drugs (I had no proof about their present) and he was doing badly at school.

One day, as I was helping Sunny with his homework, he told me he could not see the board in class.

"What do you mean?" I asked, being very inexperienced at the time.

"When I sit in class, I see the teacher's writing on the board very blurry. Most of the time, I can't make out what she writes", he said sadly.

"Where do you sit in class?" I asked.

"I used to sit at the back, but then I could hardly see where the board was, so now I sit in the first row, but it's no good", he said.

"Maybe you need glasses", I suggested.

"I told my mom for a long time about this, but she didn't believe me", Sunny said miserably.

Ronit recently assessed a child who was not poor at all, lived with both his parents and still did poorly at school. After spending some time with him, she realized he did not pronounce words properly. After some specific testing, she concluded his problem was with his hearing.

His mother reacted to this diagnosis as a great revelation and immediately decided to have his hearing checked. After that is corrected, he is likely to go through a period of catching up and eventually have a normal life.

But others are not so lucky. in 1991, Ronit had a girl who was sensitive to the protein in milk. Since much of her diet (she was 2 years old) was dairy food, her nose was runny all the time and she suffered from frequent ear infections. Based on Ronit's diagnosis and recommendation, her mother took her (after months of convincing) to a specialist who operated on her ears and installed ear tubes to relieve the pressure in her ears.

Despite the clear indication that her daughter's health and hearing were affected by her diet, the girl's mother changed nothing. The little girl is now 22 years old and has not caught up with her age group. The period of partial deafness changed this girl's life forever.

So regardless of the symptoms, consider your child's "hardware" first, including eyes, ears, breathing, tongue and mouth, posture, quality and quantity of sleep, food sensitivities, allergies, vitamin and mineral deficiencies and muscle tone. Take your child to a reliable and open-minded doctor, run every suitable test and rule out "organic" causes.

Check your kid's software

Every child is pre-programmed with communication styles (visual, auditory, kinesthetic and/or digital) and love languages (affirmations, services, quality time, physical touch and/or gifts).

A totally healthy child with an excellent pair of eyes and a perfect brain may have great difficulty reading in a noisy place. Once you discover your child is auditory, that makes sense and the solution is clear.

A vital, bouncy child with no vision or hearing problems may struggle at school despite the teacher's best efforts. Once you discover your child is kinesthetic and needs to move, you can work out ways to liberate the little person and help him or her excel and be happy.

This blog contains many posts on stimulating children with various communication styles and a number of posts on supporting the different love languages, so if your child's physical checkups are all clear, read up on communication styles and love languages and check the child's "software".

Check your kid's implementation

Sunny's mother listened to him after a while and took him to an optometrist, who found out Sunny was very near sighted. He prescribed a thick pair of lenses and Sunny's mom, having no money to pay, chose the cheapest frame for them, which would be fully refunded by the government.

Sunny kept doing badly at school.

One day, I wondered about his glasses and asked him to show them to me. He refused and looked ashamed. I told him that there was nothing to be ashamed of and that Ronit has to wear glasses all the time, as did many other people we both knew.

After some convincing, he finally went to his schoolbag and produced a spectacularly ugly pair of glasses. He shyly showed it to me and said quietly, "I'm never wearing these at school. Never ever!"

"Don't you see better with your glasses? This is your chance to see what the teacher writes on the board and keep up", I said.

"I came with my glasses the first time and everyone called me 'four eyes' and laughed at me", he said, nearly in tears, "I told my mom to buy me a different frame, but she didn't listen to me and bought this bulky, ugly one. I look horrible in them and I'll never wear them to school".

Sunny cared a lot more about being accepted socially and having friends to play with than he did about his school performance. For a child who had been abandoned by his father, other people's company was precious and good grades were not going to bring his father back home.

Sometimes, despite our best intentions and due to a whole bunch of grownup considerations, we produce solutions that ignore the context of our kids' life. In some cases, the child will try for a while, but as soon as they have a choice, they will do something different (anyone with teenagers will agree).

We sometimes hear about kids who stayed at home until it was time to go to school and played very little with others. Their start is rough and involves a lot of friction with others, fighting over possession of toys and book, defiance and more. Some parents' reaction to this is to keep their kids at home for another year, until they "grow up" or even choose home schooling for them, believing they have social difficulties.

But without enough social experience, it is not surprising the kids have a hard time initially. What they need is not to grow up but to adjust and learn the rules of engagement, which the other children will quickly teach them. What they need is not more isolation but more time with other kids so that they can adjust faster and at a younger age.

The context makes all the difference sometimes, so check the "implementation".

Easy parenting,
Gal

You may want to read

• Make a list: Beliefs about Kids cont.
• The Wonders of Ritalin
• Raising Grownups

If you are a parent of a child who has been diagnosed or suspected as having ADHD and you are considering putting them on Ritalin, this post is for you! I have written about ADHD in this blog before, hoping to empower parents to take control over the health and wellbeing of their children and making sure their kids do not become a label. I hope today's story and video will help you make more informed choices about ADHD and Ritalin.

I have been working in the special education field for 25 years. My amazing mentors and teachers warned me that one day, the inflation in the use of drugs to solve academic or behavioral problems like ADD, ADHD, emotional struggles and even tiredness will be so high that my job would be to stay on guard and offer parents alternatives and hope. I took this job description very seriously, but never in my darkest and most pessimistic dreams have I seen it becoming as big or as scary as this.

I am angry and I want to cry from frustration, because we have lost one more child to a form of organized crime. I am writing this post to recover, to remind myself of my job description, to try and save other children from a horrible fate and to offer hope, only this time I need that hope myself.

Ritalin devastation

Luke was a highly auditory child I worked with after he had been diagnosed with ADHD. I tried to convince his mom to give him coffee to calm him down, because coffee has a calming effect on children with ADHD. She told a friend of hers about this tip and her friend's child relaxed and "became a new child", but Luke's mom never tried it.

I worked with Luke for about 3 months. The increase in his ability to concentration was amazing. Luke was in Prep (the year before First Grade) and through our sessions together, he started reading faster than any of his classmates. He was a lot of fun and we had amazing conversations that you would not expect to have with a 6 year old.

During those three months, despite his progress, every time his mom entered the room to pick him up, he looked worried as if he could sense something bad was happening to her. From time to time, he would ask in an anxious tone, "Mom, what happened?" she would say, "Nothing", but later on, she would cry and tell me she was confused. I did not dig any deeper into her personal life, but it was obvious something had happen during the time she had been away and Luke could sense it in a flash.

I admired Luke's mom, because all through the previous year she had refused to give him medication and had tried different diets, although she had not been consistent or selective in her approach to these diets (she weighed over 140kg and huffed and puffed from shortness of breath). She had taken off many things at once, had not eliminated them from Luke's diet for long enough and had not stopped using some techniques even when they had not worked.

The refusal to medicate Luke ended one day when him mom had a nervous breakdown and the doctor prescribed her antidepressants. This was the day she said, "I can't do this anymore", and handed her power over to the psychologist. The psychologist came to observe Luke in class for half an hour (which is more than some others do), then talked to his parents for an hour and prescribed Ritalin.

One day, Luke did not come to his session with me. I called his mom and she did not answer the phone. I emailed her and she did not reply. I SMSed her and she did not respond. I waited for the following week and Luke still did not show up. I tried all the communication channels again. Nothing. I contacted the school, which had been very helpful during the time I worked with Luke, and found out Luke had stopped coming to school. They thought his family had moved to a different town and said his mom had not replied to any of their communication efforts either.

This week, I went to Luke's school for a project I am running there. I talked to his special education teacher and wanted to cry. I was so angry and wanted to scream out loud. This is my scream. I hope you will be able to read it in between the lines.

Luke was given Ritalin for about 4 months. When his behavior got out of control, he was admitted into a mental institute several times after trying to commit suicide and having incidents of psychotic hallucinations. He went in and out of the mental ward until they concluded he had Schizophrenia and he was given a different medication for that.

For crying out loud, he is 6 years old!

How many kids are victims of this crime?!

I came home devastated. I had lost one more child to the organized crime of drugging kids to death. Luke was just 6 years old and could have killed himself because someone did not bother telling his parents about the risks of taking Ritalin.

I have decided to remind myself of the job description and use this story to warn every parent about treating this dangerous drug as an easy solution for ADHD.

Emergency room visits by kids aged 10 to 14 involving Ritalin intoxication or overdoses have now reached the same level of those visiting for use of cocaine
- Citizen's Commission on Human Rights

The government classifies Cocaine, Morphine and Ritalin in the same category of "highly addictive drugs". No one would give their child Cocaine. Why would you give your child Ritalin?

If you ever consider giving your child Ritalin, do yourself a favor and watch this video first.

Happy parenting,
Ronit

You may want to read

• The Wonders of Ritalin
• Parental Troubleshooting
• Video Games Violence (3): Parenting

I am not against labeling. I use labeling a lot in my work, especially with kids, because it saves a lot of time explaining the range of each label. Instead of saying, "On a scale of 1 to 100 of being scared, you scored 30", I say, "You are very cautious and that should be really appreciated".

Over the last 25 years of work with children, I have heard hundreds of parents complain about their kids' stubbornness, which I was happy to label as being persistent. You see, Thomas Edison was one of the most stubborn people I have learned about (I wish I could write, "met", because I could probably learn some good lessons in stubbornness from him). It kills me every time to think what would have become of us if Edison's mom nagged him all his life for being stubborn.

This ability to rename negative labels put on kids has brought me lots of joy and success in my career. I have worked with kids who had been diagnosed with ADD, ADHD, mental health issues and others who had been labeled "dumb" and even "slightly retarded". By just "sticking" a different label on them, I have helped them and their parents bring out their amazing, wonderful talents and abilities. It was no longer a problem but a talent. It was no longer some weird behavior but creativity. It was no longer something to be ashamed of but a source of pride, no longer stupidity but a unique form of thinking.

I think the problem that parents have is not understanding how labels become self-fulfilling prophecies. Kids who are labeled "Smart Alecks" because they ask many question grow up to ask questions that annoy everyone around them, but if they are considered curious when they ask questions, they grow up to ask questions that earn other people's respect. It is as simple as that – labels are everywhere and your life depends on which one you choose.

When kids are given labels, they do not question them. When my son was 13, he entered a composition competition. The teacher suggested to the students to enter their finished music assignments into the competition and he was the only one from his school who did. This piece was his second composition ever. What do you know? He won third price in a young composition competition. The professor from the music conservatorium who chose the winning pieces and explained his choices, gave him many great labels that easily convinced our son he was a composition genius. From that moment on, our house has been full of new tunes and orchestral music. At the age of 15, he is finishing Grade 12 confident he is going to be a composer.

Of course, it works the same with negative labels. When kids are given negative labels, they do not know that for every negative one there is a positive counter label. They cannot tell you, "I'm not lazy, I just think carefully about my answers and take my time", "I'm not a procrastinator, I'm very particular and would rather think things through before I do things", "I'm not selfish, I follow the rules of the jungle" or "There's no problem with my choice of clothes, I'm simply creative".

You see, in order to say something like this, you need confidence, confidence, confidence and a high level of thinking, which requires years of experience. At a young age, kids have plenty of time ahead of them, but not many years of experience. So I never blame kids for being unable to see the good label sticking out from the damaging label, because most of the grownups I work with do not know how to do it either. That is because when they were growing up, no one taught them to question the labels they were given.

No Name Calling

I have been protesting against negative labeling for a long time. In the last 5 years, I have been teaching tolerance at schools and have realized that we have lots of programs for kids to teach them not to use "name calling", but we have not extended them to grownups, although they are in this cycle too.

Some people do "name calling" as a profession.

I mean it.

I am one of them.

Special education professional always use diagnosis to start from somewhere. Doctors, psychiatrists, psychologists, counselors, life coaches and other human problem solving professionals must use "name calling" to start from somewhere. The problem is that we become attached to our diagnosis and start living by it. Instead of giving a service, we create a need that never existed before.

One problem that is very close to my heart is the overuse of drugs for kids after taking normal childish behavior and turning it with a simple label into a disease.

Leon is my recent example of it. He was a 6-year-old Prep (the year before Grade 1) student who lived in a very problematic family dynamic. I worked with him for less than two months, but in that short period, he did a lot. He was active, moved a lot and was very communicative. I failed to convince his mom that Leon was a bright and active boy who needed a different style of teaching. His parents ached for a fast solution and used Ritalin after spending a fortune on diagnosis, observation and meeting with a psychologist. Two months after taking Ritalin, Leon was diagnosed with schizophrenia.

Oops.

Had the psychologist missed the schizophrenia in all her many observations and diagnosis…

Or

Maybe he never had it?

For the psychologist who said ADHD and the psychiatrist who said Schizophrenia, these were just labels. For Leon's family, life is now a living Hell.

Recently, I watched a video done by the Citizens Commission on Human Rights. I would like to support their cause by encouraging all the parents in the world to watch it and I know you will enjoy.

Happy parenting,
Ronit

You may want to read

• Make a list: Beliefs about Kids cont.
• The Wonders of Ritalin
• Parental Troubleshooting

Luckily, I am not a doctor and I do not need to prescribe medication to kids, but when parents want my opinion, I usually say, "Try as many other things as you can before you consider Ritalin".

In fact, this happened to me again recently.

Luke is a 6-year-old boy who came to see me because he was diagnosed with (are you sitting down?) ADD, ADHD, autism, Asperger Syndrome, ODD (Oppositional Defiant Disorder) and OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder). The doctor was pushing the parents hard to put him on Ritalin, but his mom did not like the idea. She changed his diet and said there was a significant improvement at first, but felt that after 6 months of a strict diet, the effects had worn off and he was becoming more agitated and getting into trouble at school again.

During our first session together, Luke was quite hyperactive - he moved from one place to another frequently, touched everything in the room and was generally very loud. But shortly after he arrived, I noticed he talked to himself and "excused" all his actions. "That piece is hiding. Where are you?" he said to the letters he was trying to find.

It did not take me long to discover that dear little Luke was an auditory child, so I turned on the musical keyboard and allowed him to play with it. Whenever I asked him a question, I sang it like a tune and used auditory words. Luke and I quickly became friends.

In our second session, I allowed Luke to play some more musical instruments (we have plenty of them, because Tsoof is an auditory child who would buy himself every musical instrument out there if he could). This time, Luke was much more relaxed. He talked to me (at a high level of conversation) and worked well for a whole hour. He worked for 10 minutes, played the flute and came back to continue his activity until it was finished.

When he came for our third session, Luke was relaxed and happy. He still played the musical instruments, but his productivity grew 3 times over the previous session. As long as he was allowed to make noises in a controlled way (in-between activities), he was much less noisy while he worked.

In the fourth session, I sat with Luke's parents and talked to them about my observations. I said to them that many years ago, when I studied special education, one treatment for hyperactive kids was … coffee! Yes, I know it sounds strange, because coffee makes most people more edgy, but I learned that some kids react to coffee in the opposite way and coffee makes them relax.

I remember that when I studied it, I was shocked. You see, I had never liked coffee. The only thing I loved about it was the smell. One day, my friend Kathy, who loved coffee, took me to a coffee shop in Texas that sold flavored coffee beans and I thought it was one of my most memorable experiences. Kathy bought some vanilla coffee and when we went home, she made me a cup to taste it. I concluded that I just do not like the bitter taste of coffee, unless it is mixed with a lot of milk and whipped cream and ice.

So when I learned about the effects of coffee on hyperactive kids, I said to myself, "It will be impossible to convince kids to drink this bitter stuff", but my teachers said that even a mild ice mocha blend can do it, so I tried and it was magical. Every time I had a kid who was labeled as hyperactive, I suggested to their parents to try coffee.

This week, I met Luke's mom again. I asked her how the coffee experiment was going and she said to me, "Ronit, Luke does not like coffee and we have not found a way to give it to him yet, but I have a message for you from a guy who works with my husband. He said to tell you that when he and his wife heard about giving coffee to hyperactive kids, they started it immediately with their son. He asked me to say thank you, because they have noticed an immediate change in their child's behavior. The day after, they had a new child and they wanted to thank you for saving them".

I was very happy to hear that one more child had been saved from medication. I do not even know him, but I am very happy for his family. That also reminded me I could share this great tip with the thousands of parents who read this blog. This technique can be useful for them too.

So if you have a kid who is hyperactive, do not say anything to him/her about it. Just offer them some of your coffee (if you drink one) or mix a little instant coffee (and sugar) in their milk and see if it makes a difference. I would personally try it in the morning and not in the evening, just in case it makes their hair stand and make them even more "awake". Try this over a week.

If things get worse, stop immediately. Remember there is caffeine in coke, energy drinks and energy bars, so keep those away from your kids for a week instead and see what happens. They may just be hyperactive from too much caffeine and sugar…

If you want the experiment to be clean, ask someone outside the family (like a teacher) to examine your kid's behavior over a week, but do not tell them what you are doing or when. Just say, "I'm giving him/her medication and I want to know if you notice any positive change".

You do not need a doctor to monitor the effects of coffee on your kids and you can tell what works by yourself. When you have the results, please come back and share with us what happened.

Happy parenting,
Ronit

P.S. I may share more of my observations on kids' behavior from child assessments for you to enjoy and see how easily we label kids and say they have problems, when in fact, we just cannot relate to them in their preferred way.

You may want to read

• The Wonders of Ritalin
• Parental Troubleshooting
• TV Diet (9): Kids’ Personalities

Although I like the thought that I work magic in my programs, I truly believe this magic can be done by everyone who understands the importance of having fun in the learning process and focusing their energy in a positive direction.

The woman told me her son was "hyperactive". During my 24 years in education, I had met very few truly hyperactive kids. Most of the kids diagnosed as hyperactive are kinesthetic - they like to move a lot. In fact, they have to move in order to think and they perform better through action, except others around them cannot stand it and decide something must be wrong with them. As for the kids whose agitated behavior I could not explain, I was convinced it was due to something I had not discovered (yet).

So I asked her, "Why do you think he is hyperactive?"

"He cannot rest for a second", she said, "He moves from one activity to another and can't sit still. It drives me nuts. His attention span is 30 seconds tops".

"What does he like to do?" I asked her.

"He loves playing with toy trucks", she said.

"When he plays with his trucks, how long can he sit and play for?" I asked.

"I don't know. If I let him, he'll sit there for half an hour, making make noises of trucks and pretending the carpet was a construction site or a warehouse", she told me.

You see, a truly hyperactive kid could not do anything for half an hour.

So I shared my first magic formula with her:

When kids have fun and love what they do, they perform better.

Then, the mother told me her son also had eating problems. She said, "He doesn't like vegetables. He only likes junk food".

So I told her how easy it was for me to get a group of 2-year-olds at my early childhood center eat fruits and vegetables after we made a game out of it. The idea came from one of the moms in a parenting workshop who suggested that every day, one mom would make food for all the kids in the group. Since there were 20 kids in each group, parents figured that making an effort one day a month was a bargain compared to making food every day for one child.

"Instead of having bread with the usual chocolate spread or jam, we can bring real food", they started getting excited.

Since I was a very health-conscious parent, I suggested that every parent bring 4-5kg of fruit each day and 2-3kg of vegetables (tomatoes, cucumbers, capsicum, carrots, etc).

At first, the parents looked at me surprised. Many of them said, "My kid never eats fruits and vegetables".

I told them, "With my 'magic tricks', I can make them eat anything I want".

I started a competition among the kids and gave awards to anyone who asked for "seconds". After 3-4 days, the award was just a compliment - "congratulations" or "well done" for asking for seconds and a great public announcement when someone asked for a third helping.

I also added a game called "Empty Plate", which was more of a group challenge. I put pieces fruits or vegetables with a bit of salt on a plate and left it on the table. I told the kids I was going to take the plate away in one hour. If the plate was empty, they would win, but if it was not empty, I would win. Sure enough, they won every time.

About two weeks later, parents came happy to say their kids ask them to buy more fruits and vegetables "Just like at Ronit's kindy".

It is very easy. When eating is fun, kids eat well.

We do not stop playing because we grow old
We grow old because we stop playing

Fun is a very important component in life's success and learning and works as a wonderful incentive.

I managed to teach kids abstract concepts of physics in 1^st Grade, reading at the age of 3 and high school math during primary school, because everything was a game. As long as the kids were studying with me, they played games. They never realized they were learning. Everything was fun, there was no resistance and their brains were so open to absorb new information that learning happened without interference.

The only interference usually comes from parents' resistance to the fun. In one of my primary classes, parents came and said, "When I ask my daughter what you do in class, she says you only play games. I want her to learn something at school". Since then, I made a point to meet the parents and explain the program to them before I taught their kids. Parents who do not value the fun in learning can easily ruin my magical incentive.

Mary Poppins taught me the importance of having fun in our life and she made it look easy, not because she was magical, but because she knew something valuable about the human brain: people do better when they enjoy what they do.

It is that simple!

If you want to improve your kids' performance at something - music, math, reading, writing, art - find a way to make it fun.

Here are a couple of really nice videos of how fun works as an incentive even for grownups. I think you will like them.

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Until next time, have fun!
Ronit

You may want to read

• Make a list: Beliefs about Kids cont.
• Approval Trap (4): How to get yourself out
• Approval Trap (3): Approval-Seeking Behavior

• Reading and learning problems
• Dyslexia
• ADD, ADHD, Autism or Asperger Syndrome
• Behavioral or emotional problems
• Headaches, migraines, fatigue or other physical symptoms
• Light Sensitivity (Photophobia)
• Traumatic brain injury (TBI), whip lash or concussions
• Certain medical and visual conditions

But let's start with a story.

I have always been more auditory than visual. In class, I would listen to my teachers, ask questions and remember what I heard. It was not much use giving me a book to read for knowledge (although I loved reading stories). I would ask some who had read it to "just tell me" what they got out of it.

At the end of high school, I returned from 6 months as an exchange student abroad and had to prepare for some final exams. I got Ronit to read me her notes (she had superb notes, mind you, and I certainly enjoyed being with her and listening to her) and passed the exams with annoying success for those who had been in class for 6 months prior.

When I got to university, I had to read and write a lot more and was surprised to get splitting headaches after one page. After that, I got very little out of continuing to read, not to mention it was torture. Again, I got through it by spending a lot of time with my study group and engaging them in discussions about the material, as well as by always attending lectures.

Then, I decided I would have my eyes checked.

It turned out I had slight far-sight and slight astigmatism, so I got a pair of glasses. I could see better with them, but I was still tired at the end of the day and nearly always had a headache in the evening.

After a few years, I decided not to wear my glasses anymore. I did eye exercises and forced myself to read without glasses for a couple of months while on a long break and never put them back on again. Except I was still reading very slowly and my eyes would be the first part of me to "call it a day".

A couple of years ago, I found out about Behavioral Optometry while looking for a way to help my son see better in class. Recently, I decided to find out if there was anything this field of science can do for me too.

I went "to have my eyes checked", but Peter the optometrist kept saying to me, "We don't see with our eyes. We see with our brain, so you're actually having your brain checked".

He got me to read from the usual letter chart and then tried on a few lenses, while asking questions about my lifestyle and the kind of vision I was experiencing. I told him it was as if the letters were floating in front of my eyes and I could not "get a lock" on the text I was reading.

Suddenly, he turned to a different shelf and grabbed a green lens. He gave me a sheet of paper with thin lines across it and asked, "What do you see?"

"The lines seem to be floating, like little waves", I said.

He slipped the green lens into the special lens-holding-thingamajig. "How about now?" he asked.

I was amazed! The lines lay there on the page and hardly moved anymore. "Much better", I said, "The lines have almost stopped moving".

Peter tested a purple lens, then a blue lens and then some combinations of lenses, but the green one seemed to do the job. I got the same results when the lines were at different angles and intersected in the middle of the page.

"What's so special about this lens?" I asked him, "When you put that green lens in front of my eyes, it's like my brain relaxes".

"Well, there are two parts to our vision - the fast, inaccurate peripheral vision and the slow, focused central vision. When we read, the fast vision jumps to the next part and then the slow vision reads it. Some people's brains are sensitive to certain wavelengths of light and the two parts of their vision get out of sync", Peter explained, "Your brain works very hard to compensate for this, but it's very likely you don't remember too much of what you read and have to re-read a lot".

"Exactly right", I said.

"It's a form of Dyslexia", Peter surprised me, "Luckily for you, I've used colored lenses to help many people who thought they had Dyslexia. They put on their new glasses and all of a sudden they can read almost like normal people".

Did you get this?! Colored lenses can help with Dyslexia!

"I have to tell the world about this", I thought, and here we are.

As it turns out, there is even a name for this method - Irlen Method.

Further reading

On the websites below, you can see demonstrations of how a dyslexic sees. If this is you, this will help you "zoom in" on your specific issue. If this is your child, the sites will give you ways of getting to the bottom of their problems and … overcome them!

• http://irlen.com/index.php - main website for Irlen the method. Use the little colored squares to change the page background and see which one you like best
• http://www.dyslexiaservices.com.au/ - Australian site with an excellent demonstration of various vision problem
• http://www.dyslexia-test.com/color.html - more background colors and a better method of changing them to test your own vision
• http://www.health4youonline.com/article_dyslexia.htm - famous people you know with colored lenses and related nutrition information

If this helps you or your child, please come back and post your story in the comment box. There is nothing more inspiring and encouraging to other parents than genuine testimonials of parents who have been in their situation and gotten out of it.

To infinity and beyond!
Gal

You may want to read

• Parental Troubleshooting
• TV Diet (9): Kids’ Personalities
• The Art of NEXTing

Today, I will cover kids' personality types that are more subject to TV addiction and need a bit more care and attention.

Anti-social kids

TV creates a vicious cycle for kids who lack social skills. The more lacking they are, they more they will watch TV and their social skills will get even worse.

Some kids just have better social skills than others. They like being with other kids and polish their skills further with every interaction. However, most kids need to work on their social skills and spending time with other kids can help them improve greatly.

When I worked with young kids, I could tell within two weeks of meeting them which kids had stayed home with Mommy before they came to my center and which kids had been in some form of social environment. All I needed to do was watch them during free play time. The kids who had stayed with Mommy were clingy, did not share, did not know how to get themselves into a game, were sensitive and easily offended and insulted, came more often to ask an adult for help and spent much of their time by themselves.

If you have been reading this blog for a while, you know I have a lot of criticism on the education system, but I keep saying that the best mother in the world cannot give her kid what a group of 20 to 30 kids can give a kid in terms of social skills, which makes the education system the best environment for developing social skills. I have my doubts whether the education system is the best option for academic development, but I am 100% confident it is the best choice for social skills.

Kids work on their social skills from the second they realize there are other people around them and the more play time the have with other kids, the more effective they are in their social interaction.

Watching TV is even worse than being only with Mom for too long, because there is some interaction with Mom, but not with the TV. It is as simple as that - every second kids watch TV (or play computer games/X-box/Nintendo), they are missing the social interaction they need.

If your kid is not very social, the risk of him or her watching too much TV is greater.

Boys vs. girls

Boys and girls show different symptoms as a result of watching TV, because the media is targeting young male and female audiences with different shows and promotions.

Boys are easily influenced by competitions and shows that present men and boys as strong, aggressive, handy with tools, sporty and violent, while girls are easily influenced by pampering and emotional shows presenting women and girls as sentimental, sensitive, caring, teary, sexual and highly concerned about looks and figure.

If you see symptoms of aggressiveness, risk taking, machismo or chauvinism in the attitude of your boys, examine the TV influences on them.

If you notice obsession with external looks and figure, like your 9-year-old daughter talking about diet for no reason at all, be alert and check for TV influences.

"Keep me busy" kids

Some kids are drawn to the TV as an easy way to keep themselves busy and overcome boredom. This attitude of kids who have no idea how to keep themselves active and interested is easily translated into getting up in the morning and turning on the TV and coming back from school and turning on the TV. It is just an easy solution.

You can tell that kids are the "keep me busy" type when they nag you to keep them busy. I say that these kids see their parents as their "entertainment crew", just like on a cruise ship. They come to you with "I don't know what to do?", "I'm bored" or "What can I do now?"

Just like the social skills cycle, this one is also a hard cycle to get out of. You come up with ideas to keep them busy for a while, but after a while, it is just the same - they come again and their ability to come up with their own activity ideas never develops.

If your kids are the "keep me busy" type and there is TV around, they will choose this easy option of entertainment. Beware!

"One more second" kids

Some kids just know how to "steal" time from their parents by saying, "Just one more time" or "one second". These kids use this technique when asked to do their homework, come to dinner or do other things.

If you ask yourself what kind of person keeps wanting "just one more" of something, while missing out on life, you will soon realize it is an addict. Gamblers want to play just one more game for a chance to win. Drug users, alcoholics and smokers promise to quit tomorrow, in just one more day or one more hit.

But this is just a tactic to make you go away, so they can keep watching.

Addiction is when something takes away our power and controls our life. Would you like your kids' life to be controlled by an electronic device that shows them what other people want them to see?

Low academic achievers

Kids with low academic achievers find comfort in TV, because it is easy. They do not need to work hard when they watch TV.

Lately I have noticed that even my kids' school teachers bring more DVDs and movies to school to encourage the kids to learn. At my kids' school, watching a movie in class is also used as a treat or a special reward.

Kids in the special education system - with ADD, ADHD, fine motor skills problems and even behavior problems - are more likely to watch TV for comfort. I wonder sometimes whether this is not a chicken and egg situation, i.e. did these kids have problems first or did they watch TV first?

If your kid has some learning difficulties, behavior problems or low academic achievements, watch their TV habits. Every second they spend in front of the TV screen is wasted time they should be spending improving their skills.

Some kids are more easily influenced by TV than others. Check the list and see if your kid is subject to TV addiction or not.

Join me next week for parents' influence on kids' TV habits.

Until then, talk to your kids about your little survey of their TV-watching habits and find out what they think about it.

Happy parenting,
Ronit

You may want to read

• TV Diet (10): Parents’ Influence
• Make a list: Beliefs about Kids cont.
• TV Diet (7): Learning and Education

Some people might say, "Big deal. Not every child has to do well at school. Besides, there are things kids can learn from watching TV too".

Well, humans must learn to survive. Your kids' opportunities in life depend very much on their abilities to learn and develop new skills. Read on and you will see that watching TV causes kids to do poorly at school, but this also sets them up for a much more limited life long after they finish school.

Many researchers have expressed concerns about the decline in kids' learning abilities as a direct result of watching too much TV. While health concerns include obesity, anorexia and diabetes, educators say that watching too much TV and being less active physically damages kids' coordination. Whereas in the past, playing ball games was part of every kid's daily routine, spending hours in front of the TV exercises mainly kids' eyes and possibly their fingers (by switching from one channel to the other).

During the early years and the beginning of primary school, kids develop their gross and fine motor skills. Activities like ball games, beading, cutting and pasting, coloring in, playing card games and building games (like Lego) improve hand-eye coordination and prepare the kids for writing and drawing.

During Physical Education classes, awkward kids lose popularity and self confidence due to their poor performance, which in turn hurts their academic motivation and achievements.

Two other education concerns are increased hyperactivity and reduced energy level. Being underactive while watching TV results in kids being agitated during classes, yet lacking the energy to perform due to the drop in their metabolism. Some parents say their kids are more hyperactive after watching certain shows on TV, while others say their kids are lethargic and even depressed.

Good learning requires kids to concentrate on a task for some time. Being agitated prevents the kids from focusing long enough, while having too little energy prevents them from concentrating enough to get the benefit of the task. Repeated failure only compounds this problem with the added negative emotions.

Eye strain is another health risk that directly affects kid's learning abilities. The American Optometric Association claims that sitting in front of a screen for two hours increases the risk of eye strain and focus problems.

Class work requires good vision both close up (paper) and far away (board). Without good eyesight, kids find it difficult to perform and gradually link learning with discomfort.

The National Centre for Educational Statistics has found in a study that students who watched over six hours of TV a day achieved lower academic results. One major reason for this is believed to be shorter attention span. The kids surveyed did not have enough patience. They were so used to the fast-paced TV world, in which people succeed overnight, that hard work became a bad word to them.

A research done by Dimitri Christakis of the Child Health Institute at the University of Washington has found that direct exposure to stimulus overload in the early years, while the brain is still developing, has a direct connection to the increase in attention deficit. Essentially, he claims that TV promotes ADD/ADHD.

Another contributor to the attention problem is flicking channels and not focusing on one thing for a long period of time.

When kids do spend time doing their homework, most of them have the TV on, which distracts them from focusing and produces worse results than their true potential.

Surprisingly, watching a lot of TV undermines kids' language development. A long study has shown strong correlation between watching TV and limited language skills. Kids who were exposed to adult shows displayed even more limited language skills. In the early years, this immediately translates to challenges in the first years of schooling.

Why is this?

Babies learn language by listening to their environment and initially developing their Receptive Language. Over time, they begin to respond more and more clearly, thus developing their Expressive Language. By interactive with other human beings, and even by talking to themselves, the expressive language gradually catches up to the receptive language.

However, while kids listen a lot to what is on TV, they do not talk at all, so the gap between their ability to understand and express themselves increases. With limited communication skills, their performance suffers at school and in society.

Limited literacy skills have also been recorded as a result of watching too much TV. Because kids spend their time in front of the TV screen, they have very little time left to read at sentence level of beyond. Schooling is very much based on being able to read and write, so the effect is clear.

Sleep deprivation has a direct affect on kids' learning abilities. Having TV in their room and forming an addiction to watching it prevents kids from getting enough hours of sleep and this translates to immediate challenges the morning after with concentration difficulties.

Parents' supervision helps in this matter, but many kids admitted that when their parents are not around, they do not get enough sleep. Parents are sometimes too tired themselves to fight over this.

A University of Oxford study has found that young kids who watched TV (and played computer games or used mobile phones) lost a month's worth of sleep every year. Their conclusion was that this lack of sleep has direct physical and metal effects on many school-aged children.

Research on teenagers' TV habits has found that watching TV late at night prevents kids from falling asleep, partly due to their exposure to the bright light from the TV screen in the hours before bedtime.

Sleep regulation is done in our brain by the Pineal Gland, which is sensitive to light. It takes this gland 2 hours to induce sleep after dark, which means that watching TV, particularly in a dark room, before bedtime interferes with sleeping. Kids need a 2-hour break from TV, computer and any other source of direct light before bedtime.

As you can see, excessive TV watching, regardless of content, damages many abilities kids need in order to do well at school and later on in life.

Join me next week for the next phase of the TV Diet series to read about some solutions to the problems I have described so far.

Happy parenting,
Ronit

You may want to read

• TV Diet (9): Kids’ Personalities
• Make a list: Beliefs about Kids cont.
• The Fun Incentive

"What's wrong with my kids?" these parents ask, "How can I get them to do as I say? How can I get them to stop misbehaving and do the right thing?"

Can you identify with any of this? Are your kids upsetting you on a daily basis with their disobedience? Do you also wish your kids would just sit still and be quiet already? Do you wish your kids would finally do as they are told?

If you have answered "yes" to some or all of the questions above, what I am about to write may be very strange to you. It may even be upsetting. But bear with me and read to the end, because there is a lot of value in this post for you (I know because I also used to wish all those things about my own kids).

Let's examine some of the words in bold letters.

Are you living in an absolute world?

Bad - using this word implies absolute good and bad. Unfortunately, when you say that something "is bad", you are actually saying you are feeling unhappy about it and you are trying to impose your standards on somebody else (like your kids).

William Shakespeare's Hamlet says, "There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so". Goodness is based on your point of view. For example, when a lion eats an antelope, the antelope dies, but the lion lives. Is this good or bad? Well, it depends who you ask.

Once you acknowledge that your feeling is personal and subjective, your mindset will begin to change.

Wrong - this word also comes from the assumption that what you consider to be right is right for everybody, but is it? Is it right to get up in the morning when it is 7am EST? Not if you live in Australia (unless you work nights).

Open your perspective to include your kids' comfort and interests and consider that what seems wrong to you may be perfectly reasonable for them.

Upsetting - thinking your kids are upsetting you is based on the assumption that someone else can cause you to feel something and that you have no control over that feeling. Reality is quite different.

Let's say you become upset when your kids ran around and made noise. Could this be related to your own state of mind when you come home from work? If this were the morning of the 3^rd day in a Pacific island resort, would you be as upset with them? Running around and making noise is what kids do. They are probably unaware of how you feel and certainly do not mean to upset you.

Take responsibility for how you interpret your kids' actions and how you feel about them before you blame the kids for it.

Identity vs. behavior statements

Naughty and rude - there is a very big difference between telling a child "Your behavior is inconsiderate" and saying "You are a naughty kid" or "You are rude". Every person, including the most righteous parent, does things that upset others, inconvenience someone or appear to be impolite. Since we cannot read other people's minds, even the best-intended act can be taken as rude by somebody.

Having lived in different cultures around the world, I can tell you from personal experience that the same thing can be considered an awesome joke in one place and absolutely horrible in another, and sometimes, you can be unaware.

As surprising as this may seem, your kids are new to the world and to their own culture. What you know as an adult, they still have to learn, but that certainly does not make them bad, naughty, rude or anything like that. No matter what they do, your kids are good little people who need your guidance.

When they do something strange, unacceptable, loud or awkward, stop yourself from calling them names, take a deep breath, go down to your kids' eye level and ask them what happened. Focus on their feelings and their actions and the rest will be very different from what you have been used to, I am sure.

Positive focus

Disobedience and misbehaving - many of the parents I mentioned earlier focus on their kids' non-compliance. They watch their kids like hawks, trying to catch any defiance, messiness or loudness and then pounce on them with bitter accusations. Over time, they also keep score of the number of undesirable acts on their kids' part and mention that score.

Those same parents often miss the other side of their kids' behavior completely, because they are not looking for it. Moreover, when they expect their kids to "stop misbehaving" or to "not disobey", they reinforce their own negative focus.

To get out of this (very vicious) cycle, spend some time counting good things your kids do. Keep a written score for a while. You will be shocked. Guaranteed.

Also, find positive opposites for what you do not want. Try asking your kids to relax instead of telling them to stop misbehaving. Ask them to do their best and be fair in assessing what they can realistically do.

Obedience vs. motivation

Discipline can come from the outside (you) or from the inside (your kids).

Obedience is when you decide what your kids should do and what they should not do and you aim to force them to live by your standards, whether they like it or not. In essence, when you rate your own preferences above theirs, you are teaching them to be self-centered and you are giving them an example for ignoring the feelings of others. I know this is an annoying conclusion, but you have to admit it is inevitable.

Motivation is when you find out what makes your kids do things and, as importantly, find out what stops them from doing things. Then, you use this information to encourage them to do what you think they should do by convincing them it will be best for them. For more information, read the Motivating Kids series of posts.

Shift your energy

In the same way that your kids are good people who sometimes do silly things, you are a good person who is sometimes trapped by your beliefs and needs.

Here is something you can do to totally shift your energy from struggling with unruly wild creatures to sharing love and harmony with your kids (yes, this is for men too, maybe even mostly for men).

Feels good, right?

Loving parenting,
Gal

You may want to read

• I See You
• More Control – Less Power
• What Happens When You Fight