I have been running these workshops over the last 4 years and have seen over 10,000 students from grade 4 to grade 12. In many places, the kids were convinced that changing a name is a must when you move to a new country and when I ask them if they know the meaning of their name, surprise, surprise (or maybe not), most of them do not know the meaning of their own name.

Out of 700 students, only about 30 raised their hands to share the meaning of their names with others, while the rest were nameless. They did not know what the meaning of their names was or why their parents had given them that name. They knew nothing about the story of their name.

I believe that explains why they people change their names once they move to another country and why the people in their new country expect them to "localize" their name.

To get the kids' interest, I told them that in my tradition, the name you are given determines your destiny. You will have the character of the name or the character of the person you are named after. My name is a Hebrew name, which means "little happy song" (in a female form). I think I live up to my name, because I dedicate my life to "singing the happiness song" and teaching others to find their own happiness. It is no coincidence that my life coaching business is called "Be Happy in LIFE".

I am also short...

I find that it is easy for people who do not know the meaning of their names to suggest to others to give up their names once they move to another country and I think this can be easily fixed.

At the end of that section of the workshop, I always tell the kids that my daughter Eden says, "Google is your friend" and they can easily discover the origin or their name by googling it, along with "name" and "meaning" or "origin"! For example, if your name is David, google "david name origin" and consider a few sources.

Usually, I see the students for one day and I do not get a chance to discover what they have done with my suggestion. But in this series of workshops, I stayed at each school for 3 days and an hour after each session, kids came to me with beaming smiles and shared their discoveries with excitement. "My name is Sophie. I am Wisdom".

In the primary school, when I came to work with the kids on the second day, one of the kids gave me a piece of paper, on which he had copied his research from the internet. He came to me excited and said, "I found out my name, Earl, means Noble Man". 5 other kids came to me looking happy and pound and told me their names and meaning. "My name is Liam. My mom said she loved he actor Liam Neeson, so she named me after him". A Somali boy who could hardly speak English managed to tell the class that his name means "Servant of God" and all the kids smiled at him and thought he had a cool name.

When I was packing my things, a teacher told me many kids had come to her that morning, happy to share with the rest of the class the meaning of their names. "They shared their names with pride", she said, "And there was a happy buzz from the first minute of the day. It's amazing how differently they behaved today".

I just smiled. It was not that amazing. Our name is like our fingerprints - it is part of our identity. Knowing the story behind our name and the meaning of our name is an important layer of our existence. It is required to help us define who we are.

I flew back home after a whole week of workshops, feeling tired but very happy and proud for helping 700 kids discover something important about themselves.

If you want to help your kids carry their names with pride, tell them the story of their names. If there is a meaning, tell them the meaning, but if you do not know the meaning ... Google is your friend.

While you are at it, search for your own name too and share it with your family.

Happy discovery,
Little Happy Song

You may want to read

• Your Inner Child
• A Question of Identity
• Living in a Dress Rehearsal

Usually, I reject the desire to be normal, because I believe we need to examine every situation separately and manage our behavior accordingly. This week, I had my beliefs questioned when I heard about a conflict between parents who are both my clients about the way to raise their 2-year-old daughter.

Damian and Alice were very successful. They were wealthy, established professionals, yet they struggled to raise their 2-year-old daughter Mel. Damian was anxious about their daughter and Alice tried very hard to reach "normality".

At first, I thought Alice's desire to be a normal family cluttered her perception. I did not really understand what she meant when she said, "Damian is not normal", but the more I got to know them, the more I realized that although striving for normality may be limiting, having no sense of normality can be devastating for children. I understood that isolation and normality could not go hand in hand.

The conflict between Damian and Alice started when Mel, their first and only child, was born at a very late stage in their life. Damian was 47 and Alice as 45 when their daughter was born after 20 years of a wonderful life together. Unlike most couples, Damian (not Alice) retired from life and dedicated every possible moment to his daughter. He lost interest in friends, hobbies, his wife, his work and counted the seconds until he got back home. When he came home, Mel was on his hands and he did not leave her for a second on her own. He talked to her constantly, even when he went to the shower or the toilet. When he was home, he did not allow Alice to spend any time with Mel and insisted on being her main carer.

Alice was OK with that in the first couple of months, because she was home during the day, but when she went back to work (as the main provider), evenings became a parenting competition.

They called me when Mel threw horrible tantrums, refused to let her mom take care of her and said she only wanted Daddy. At the age of 2, she could not say a word yet and she whined and cried constantly. By that stage, I did not think it was unusual, because in many families it happens the other way - the child prefers the person who takes care of them most of the time, which is usually Mommy. This time, it was Daddy and I could understand the delay in language development because Mel grew up in a bilingual home. However, as I spent more time with them, I realized the problem was much bigger than that. Damien was so isolated in his world of joy he had no idea what to expect of Mel or how to help her develop.

For a year, Alice was convinced everything was pretty normal, until one day, they visited members of Alice's family she had not seen for years and saw their 1-year-old daughter sitting on the floor and playing with toys by herself. Alice said to her cousin, "Wow, your daughter is amazing. She plays by herself" and her cousin looked at her surprised and said, "What do you mean? Every 1-year-old child can sit on the floor and play with toys".

Later that weekend, when Damian played with Mel on the floor, fed her and talked to her constantly without giving her a second to respond, Alice's uncle came to her and whispered in her ears, "What's wrong with him? Does he ever stop and let her be?"

Alice came back home and did not think much of it until one rare day when Damian could not get home in the evening and she had a chance to take care of Mel. She discovered that Mel was a wonderful girl. She played on the carpet, she did not throw any tantrums, she communicated with Alice without words and Alice's concept of normality changed.

The following day, she noticed that when Damian was with Mel, Mel was very clingy and did not allow anyone to help her, feed her or shower her. She whined and cried constantly. When they went out to a restaurant together, she threw temper tantrums and when she spent time with Mel on her own, she was the most wonderful baby in the world. Alice started demanding to have private time with Mel, which made Damian even more anxious.

Damian said to me that he was very worried for Mel. I smiled when he said that. A first child always makes parents worry. But his worry was not normal. He did not "allow" her to be on her own for a second - not on the carpet, not in her bed, not with Alice and not with her toys. When I asked him why, he said, "She is too young!"

When he found her awake in bed, he made sounds of disaster, "Poor girl, you must be sad", and when she cried, even if she was on Alice's hands, he picked her up immediately and said, "Daddy will take care of you".

When Mel had a rash and the doctor suggested them to avoid showers for a while, Damien decided they would shower her once a week. I saw them a year after the rash incident and asked them if they had seen the doctor since. They said, "No". When I asked them if they had tried showering twice a week, they said, "No". When I asked them how long they planned for her to shower once a week, they both looked at me puzzled.

Damian did not want their cook to come when Mel was home, saying, "There are knives on the bench top". "What's wrong with having knives on the bench top?" I asked, "We all use knives to cook". He said, "Not when Mel's around. Knives are dangerous".

Mel could not hold a spoon, because she was "too young" to feed herself. If she played with the kitchen drawers where plastic containers are stored, he said, "It's dangerous for a 2-year-old to play with plastic containers". He refused to let Alice fly with Mel on her own. When Alice gave him examples of a woman he knew who had flown with her baby, he said, "You're not Deb and Mel's not her daughter".

When they flew away for a vacation, he asked Alice to book a hotel that was close to a hospital and book tentative flights back home in the middle of the vacation, "In case Mel gets sick". They never had dinner together. "Mel is intensive. When she eats, she constantly demands attention", he said and Alice protested, "How do you explain her sitting at a restaurant with both of us?"

When they had guests while Mel was awake, Damien ignores the guests and they usually ask Alice, "Is it always like this?" When I asked Damian about it, he was surprised I said, "They don't understand. She is just a baby".

Isolation limits perspective

When I talked to Damian, he said several times, "Alice doesn't know what to do with her. Mel won't let Alice put her in bed. She's just a baby. All babies throw temper tantrums. I can't take the risk". He was totally convinced that Alice was incapable of taking care of her daughter and that leaving Mel with Alice was a real risk.

I have heard from lots of women that their husband "couldn't change a diaper" and I knew it was part of the "I'm the more important parent" game that Damian was playing with Alice. Unlike many husbands, Alice did want to change diapers and during the first year of their daughter's life, feeling rejected by her husband and daughter, she developed the idea that she was not normal and that something was wrong with her motherly instincts, until she saw her cousin's daughter playing by herself.

Whenever I talked to Alice about her feelings and the way she treated Mel, she was amazing. She was very clear and allowed her to have wonderful experiences. As long as Damian was not around, she felt great being a mother. So she started changing her schedule and worked from home more to be with Mel during the day when the nanny was home. As she built her confidence as a mother (when Damian was not around) she realized that their parenting was dysfunctional and she asked my help.

When I talked to both of them, I realized that neither Damian nor Alice knew what was normal for children and what was not. Their life circumstance had made them very isolated from the world. While I was with them, I said to myself that my first nephew was a wonderful lesson in normality for me and that having an early childhood center with 1.5- to 5-year-olds had given me lots of perspective by allowing me to see a wide range of behaviors. Isolation interferes with developing perspective.

Damian was an only child who grew up with his grandparents after his dad left and his mom could not raise him for some reason and came to visit him on weekends. When I asked him if he had ever seen a 1-year-old baby before he had Mel, he thought about and said, "No, never. Mel is the only 1-year-old baby I've ever seen".

I thought to myself, "Well, no wonder he's anxious. He doesn't know what to expect".

Here is a list of things that isolated Damian and Alice and prevented him from developing perspective that is so important to parents.

1. Having kids at a later age. By the time Mel was born, Alice and Damian's friends already had kids who were 10-18 years old. At first, Alice and Damian spent time with their friends, but soon after, they stopped. They had no chance to learn how parents treated their kids, what was normal and what was not.
2. Both Damian and Alice were "only children" and had no siblings, no nieces and no nephews to see how to behave or how their parents behaved.
3. Most of the parents with kids around Mel's age were very young and they did not feel they could relate to them, so they did not hang around them.
4. They did not attend any playgroup.
5. Their daughter did not go to childcare, so they could not see other kids' (or parents' or carers') behavior.
6. Their families lived overseas, so they had no support structure.
7. They did not participate in any Internet parenting forum.
8. They were both highly educated, but did not read any parenting material.

It was amazing how small changes can make a huge difference in people's life and lead them into developing perspective. Damian and Alice still have a long way to go, but in the last 3 months, Mel has started going to a childcare center, she showers every day and she is calm and friendly. Alice called and told me they had gone to a birthday party on the weekend and Damian had allowed Mel to go with Alice to the room where all the kids had been. For the first time in her life, Damien had stayed with other dads to have a chat. Mel had played with the kids for 3 hours and Alice had watched her with tears.

"At first she struggled, but after about 10 minutes, she was fine. She was just a normal girl", she said. Damian said it was not easy for him, but he had never seen her so happy.

Parenting your children is (and should be) a unique experience. Doing what everyone else does is not always best, but being exposed to a variety of parenting styles and options can help greatly to fine tune your uniqueness as a parent.

Happy parenting,
Ronit

You may want to read

• Ronit’s Parenting Bible: Babies
• Kids’ Declaration of Independence: Decision Techniques
• Kids’ Declaration of Independence: Teaching about Choice

If you are a believer, you do not need convincing or proof. Whether you believe in God or in another set of rules, you do not question the rules. You accept them as commandments and this gives you the confidence and the certainty to keep going forward in your life. The difference between believers and non-believers is in the questioning and the doubt.

I am not saying there is no place for questions in life. On the contrary. They are very important in coming up with the commandments of the bible, but once you have come up with a commandment, it becomes a living guideline. Questioning it makes it (and you) weaker.

You may be wondering about having rules that are "set in stone", because that is the idea of a bible - total credibility, surviving the challenges of time and endless validity. Well, I am a strong believer that nothing can be "set in stone", because the rules of the past are not all valid anymore and they do not survive time challenges. No god has ever said anything about the Internet and today's social technology, for example, yet they are a growing part of our life today.

So bibles are evolving scriptures that need continuous updates to suit the challenges of time and they get their validity from life experiences. Therefore, we all need to stop from time to time, go over our parenting bible and review it with questions like "Is this rule still valid now that my son is 15 years old?" or "I wrote this commandment 20 years ago. Is it still a strong belief for me now?" Maybe the best reflection question is, "How can change my bible so that will take me to my destination faster, more easily and more happily?"

So I do not think any bible should be set in stone and I think it evolves with every experience we have. Having a review session from time to time is necessary to keep it valid and strong. The bible I had when Eden was born was not the same as the one I have today. For example, When she was a baby (almost 22 years ago), traveling was not part of my life and I had no commandments related to traveling with kids or babies. After seeing what traveling has done to Eden and traveling with Tsoof as a baby, I adopted many commandments that made the choices of what to do with Noff, who was born about 6 years later, much easier.

1. Raising kids is a privilege - it is the ultimate human creation. Do not underestimate your role in designing their life. It is a big responsibility with great joy. Children come with a "no return" tag, so do not make the decision to bring a child (another child) into this world lightly and when you are pregnant, take care of the holy place where your baby grows and develops - your body. Do not abuse your body when you are pregnant.
2. Babies need loving male and female role models and to grow up around other people - do your best to stay with your partner and be in a good relationship. A good relationship between the parents greatly affects the kids' health and wellbeing. Try to have an extended family around them. If they are not around, have good social circle of friends to substitute.
3. Relaxed parents = Relaxed babies - babies have the most sensitive feelers. They sense their parents, especially the parent who spends most of the time with them, so take care of yourself!
4. Talk to babies all the time - tell them what you are doing, explain everything, use big words, big concepts and discuss thoughts, ideas and feelings. Babies absorb everything, even if they cannot yet show it.
5. Breast milk is best - if you cannot breastfeed, give it up. An upset mother "turns the milk sour". Breastfeed for 7 months if you can. This was written in my parenting bible when Eden turned 7 months. I wanted to breastfeed for a long time, but that was in contradiction to 32 other commandments about treating my body as a temple. After 7 months, I realized I was getting upset trying to avoid so many things and being tied to the feeding schedule and I wanted my body back. With Tsoof, I did not have to question myself anymore. I said to myself, "7 months seemed to work well with Eden, so I will do the same with Tsoof", and it was exactly what I did with Noff too. Last night, we had a girls' night out and one of my friends said she had been pregnant or breastfeeding for 10 years of her life. She had her babies about 2 to 2½ years apart and breastfed each of them until she got pregnant again. She told everyone how being in a cycle of not sleeping, not having her body to herself had gotten her out of balance and how badly it had influenced her life. I immediately told myself I had been lucky to develop my breastfeeding commandment with my first child.
6. Do not be upset when babies make a mess while eating - eating should be fun. It is not a science experiment done in a lab. Dirty shirts are not the end of the world and your baby practicing independent eating and successfully getting the spoon into their mouth is more important than the cleanliness of their shirt or the eating area.
7. Babies cry as a form of communication - this is how they say things. They cry when they want you, they cry when they are lonely, they cry when they are wet and they cry when they are hungry. Learn to recognize the difference between the cries and treat crying as their way to communicate. It is not always a sign of distress, anger or disappointment. When you communicate respond to your baby's crying, talk and do not complain.
8. Babies should sleep in their own room, in their own bed - having the babies in Mom and Dad's bed is not healthy for the couple and does not give the baby the space he/she needs to rest and develop healthy attachment. For the first 2-3 months, babies can sleep in my room to make it easy to breastfeed at night, but after that, they go into their rooms. Mom and Dad's bed is a great place to sneak into early in the morning (especially on weekends) and when the kids are sick. Do not send messages that will be hard to change when the next baby comes along and even a king size bed can no longer fit everyone in.
9. There is no such a thing as an overdeveloped baby - when you read about the "right" age to start crawling, sitting, standing, walking, talking, etc, remember these are just averages. If you babies do anything earlier than "normal", it is not dangerous or anything like that. Babies do what they can and we should not prevent them from developing just because the average baby does it later. On the same note, developing later than the average is not necessarily a sign of a problem. Babies do not have exactly the same biological clock.
10. Babies do not need total silence to fall asleep - babies who get used to sleeping in complete silence become fussy and make their parents' life harder. When there are more kids in the house, the baby just does not sleep and it is very hard to invite people over. Get your baby used to falling asleep under normal conditions.

There are many baby rules in my bible. I have tried many more and only kept those that worked for me.

Eden was born on the first day of the 36^th week. I had high fever and could not breastfeed for 10 days. The nurse told me I did not have any milk when I took her home, but I insisted. On my first night home, Eden slept for 7 hours and ate well every 4 hours like clockwork.

When Tsoof was born 6 years later, and after losing 2 babies, I came home and thought I would go with feeding by demand (because everyone around me said it was the right thing to do and I had doubts). I came home after a cesarean and Tsoof wanted to eat every hour. At night, I was so exhausted I started crying. I was so nervous I was convinced it was the last time I ever breastfeed. Tired and upset (and on medication), I woke Gal up and said to him, "We have two options now. I either give up breastfeeding or you take him away from here and do whatever you can to let me sleep for 2 hours". Gal was wonderful and I kept breastfeeding Tsoof for 7 months (every 3 hours).

When Noff was born over 6 years later, the literature and the discussion about breastfeeding by demand was even more popular, but I already had a commandment, without doubts, that said breastfeeding by demand contradicted rule #33 - Take care of yourself!

I hope you understand how important it is to build your own bible to boost your confidence and why backing it up with experience eliminates doubt.

Come back next week for the next part of the parenting bible: change.

Happy parenting!
Ronit

You may want to read

• Are You a Normal Parent?
• Kids’ Declaration of Independence: Decision Techniques
• Kids’ Declaration of Independence: Teaching about Choice

Down Syndrome can be detected during pregnancy by checking the amniotic fluid (Amniocentesis) or after birth by a quick physical test. In 1866, a British physician named John Langdon Down described the condition. Almost 100 years later, Jerome Lejeune discovered it was caused by an extra copy (whole or part) of the 21^st chromosome. The chance of having a baby with Down Syndrome is 1 in 733, but it becomes more common with the age of the parents.

Apart from very distinctive facial features, the average IQ of kids with Down Syndrome is 50, as opposed to the general IQ average of 100. Their health is very poor and their life expectancy is very low, and even though their life expectancy is increasing, the intellectual and physical disabilities remain part of their life and the life of their parents.

The announcement of the condition came to the couple as a shock, but surprisingly, their family and friends took it even harder. While Naomi talked to people on the phone, she found herself comforting them, rather than them comforting her. Some people even said silly things, not because they were mean, but because they had never experienced the grief of losing a baby. It reminded me of the things people said to me after losing my second baby, "Never mind, you will have another one". As a grieving mother, I was not in the right state of mind and that sounded to me as if I were a machine on an assembly line, going for make the next product.

It was amazing to hear how people reacted. The first reaction was, of course, "Is it definitive?", "Can you have another test to make sure?" and "Is there anything they can do to reverse this?" Unfortunately, the Amniocentesis merely confirmed the earlier Alpha feto-protein test result that clearly showed a problem. The doctor showed her 5 different tests indicating an extra 21^st chromosome.

The second was a religious reaction of accepting what God had given her and having no right to stop the pregnancy. Personally, I have an issue with this position, which I see as hypocrisy. I look around me and see millions of religious people doing their best to cure the illnesses that God gives them. They build houses to stay away from the weather God gives them. They innovate and an create better technology, making lots of progress and showing no sign of accepting what God gives us (unless of course you decide that what God gives us is the mind and body to do just that).

I remember the ethical debate we had during my special education studies. We talked about "innocent lives", "rights" and "choice", but how on Earth can you use "right" and "choose" in the same sentence? It is an oxymoron!

I always thought that when talking ethics, we are only debating whose definition is more important? Who is more important, the Down Syndrome baby's life or the lives of about 50 people around them (parents, siblings, grandparents, uncles, aunties, cousins and friends) whose lives will change significantly? What about the education and health systems that need to support them for the rest of their life?

Throughout the discussion, I was surprised by parents of kids with Down Syndrome who justified their own condition. I am not talking about those who discovered the condition at birth and had not known their baby might have Down Syndrome. Those people should be admired for doing the best to make the most of this condition and find the "gifts" in a bad situation. We can learn from them how to make the most out of life and how to deal with the condition, but cannot take their recommendations to abort or not to abort the pregnancy.

I have heard some people talking about the baby's right to live and that the parents have no right to kill a baby just because it is "damaged". I do not know about you, but I find it more problematic when parents cause damage to their babies by smoking, using drugs and abusing their body during pregnancy, but I do not hear the same noise being made about these things.

It is amazing that the discussion starts when the test shows a bad result and not when the mother decides to have the test. Why would anyone do a test, especially a risky test like Amniocentesis, if they plan to ignore the results?

As you can see, I am very emotional about it. I have worked with children with severe physical and cognitive disabilities and supported their parents and I have no idea why anyone would voluntarily do this to themselves. The only person I would take advice from is someone who would make the same choice twice.

Personally, I do not believe I could tell someone else what the "right" thing to do is, because I believe that in this case, "right" is something that no one else has the "right" to choose for you. People who do not have to deal with the consequences of their judgments lose all their "rights" to the decision.

Therefore, the poll is not about whether someone having to make that decision is right or wrong but what would you do if you had to make that choice.

May you never have to face this choice!
Ronit

You may want to read

• Baby’s Sex – To know or not to know (poll)
• Ronit’s Parenting Bible: Babies
• Give Me 22 Reasons

Not true.

Parents are actually raising future grownups and this is an important distinction, because grownups are independent, hopefully self-sufficient humans, whereas children are rather dependent and undeveloped beings who need continuous care and attention.

So in essence, no matter what we do today, we should do it with the final creation in mind - our future son or daughter when they are ready to say goodbye and beyond.

Will they be healthy and able to care for themselves so they can stay healthy?

Will they have the knowledge they need to not only survive in the world but also succeed?

Will they have the strength of character to do well and be happy?

But daily life is quite different for most parents. In most homes, parents are busy people and when they interact with their kids, it is often to do with housekeeping, cleaning up their messy rooms, getting off the computer or getting ready to go somewhere in a hurry. Most of the communication between parents and their children is aimed at right now ("Come here", "Stop making noise", "Clean your room" or "Let's go") and sometimes at the recent past ("Why did you…", "If only you had…" or "You should have…").

If the future is mentioned in the family context, it is often as part of arrangements for the following day or maybe an upcoming event.

Even when important decisions are made, they are often aimed at a shorter range than they could be. One major one is studies. Parents do their best to help their kids choose the best course of studies, making high school decisions towards the end of primary school and university decisions towards the end of high school. But the truly important goals of all this studying - the kids' career and lifestyle - seem to be too far away to be discussed.

Decisions that will affect the kids' life as grownups are "divided and conquered" and everyone goes back into "action mode" and plows ahead towards a yet not very well defined future.

If you are shaking your head by now and saying, "What do you expect? How do I know what my kids will be like when they grow up? I don't (or didn't) even know what they'll be like when they become teenagers. Sometimes, I don't know what will happen tomorrow".

I agree. We cannot predict the future of our children.

But maybe it does not matter exactly what their future will be like. Maybe we can still give them the best chance at whatever comes their way by focusing on some imaginary grown-up "them". Doing this is not about having a concrete plan of action, it is about seeing our kids as separate human being rather than extensions (some would even say burden) of us.

So let's take some typical family situations and see how this might play out.

When your baby starts eating with a teaspoon, the mess just seems to spill everywhere - on the table, on the chair, on the clothes and on you. Even the most patient parent can get sick of this quickly and start to clean the baby up and eventually feed them.

I have had the good fortune of spending a few months caring for each of my daughters when they were babies. When Eden was young, I cleaned her and fed her, all the while telling her she needed to stop making a mess. Well, Eden took a long time to stay clean when she ate and do other things "properly" and I believe this contributed to her current decision-making difficulty.

By the time Noff came around, I had learned that lesson and just let her "experience" her food and her teaspoon. Noff is by far our most physically confident and decisive child, which is probably related to me making a different choice.

Two of Ronit's sisters now have little walking munchkins. They go everywhere and try to reach everything. One of them keeps her home as it was before and spends much of her time chasing her child and restricting his movements, while the other has lifted the obvious hazards out of the way and lets her son roam freely and experiment.

Sure, rearranging your household is a hassle, especially since you will need to put everything back when your child grows a bit, but which child do you think will grow up more confident and capable physically? Which of them will have a better relationship with his parents?

School-aged kids need their sleep. Going to bed too late means a grumpy day later and poor performance on all fronts. So when your daughter's assignment is due tomorrow and it is 8pm, should she stay up and finish or go to bed?

You may be thinking, "Who needs a grumpy kid tomorrow? I won't be able to get her out of bed. Upstairs you get, young lady". This will make the following day better for you and may teach your daughter a lesson in planning, but what about being responsibly? What about determination and not quitting when things get tough? Would you rather raise a woman who compromises to avoid discomfort or one you can trust?

And when you are tired and "can't be bothered" (an all too common Australian expression) to make dinner, should you indulge everyone in a quick visit to your local McDonald's and buy everyone their choice of tasty, no-hassle food? The benefits from that will not even last until breakfast.

The alternative, of course, is harder, but you could get the kids to help make dinner out of fresh ingredients and teach them things like teamwork, nutrition and satisfaction in their own creations. I doubt the effects of that experience will ever wear off.

Back at school, teachers are familiar with assignments that are prepared too well to have been done by a student. When time runs out, do you worry about your child's next score on the report card and "lend a helping hand just a little"? Doing it may help in the short term, but at what cost?

Do you want your kids to put external approval above things like honesty, good time management and responsibility? Which will serve them better when they grow up, their good grades from 3^rd Grade or a strong character? If they score low or even fail, but learn at a young age that their actions in life produce consequences, is that really so bad?

Many parents are so focused on short-term academic scores they also pressure their children to focus on reading, writing and math, while abandoning art, music and sport. However, research has shown that physically active, creative children grow up to be more successful than those who have spent their time studying. For example, by the end of high school, kids who play a musical instrument from 5^th Grade score 23% better on average than the general population.

When you walk through the door, tired and hungry, it is not easy to consider your little boy's future as he tugs at your pants and asks to play some soccer (Tsoof did this to me every day). This is why you should prepare and develop your responses ahead of time. After a week of pant tugging, you know it will happen next week, so sit down, spend some time imagining your little ones growing up - finishing school, looking to work, working, starting a family - and ask yourself, "How should I treat them so that they will gradually become confident, independent and happy people?"

Whenever your kids show confidence and independence, you will know you have done well and they have mastered yet another life skill.

I will leave you with something that happened to me yesterday and made me think Ronit and I are on the right track with this.

This year, Noff struggled a bit with her new teacher and then had a hard time with a snobby girl. Ronit and I supported her and counseled her, but did not act on her behalf. Over time, she managed to get through both challenges.

Yesterday, as Noff was leaving for school, I kissed her and said, "See you, Noff, have a great day".

She gave me a big, excited, confident smile and said, "I WILL!"

With this attitude, of course she will.

Inspired parenting,
Gal

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Some friends said to us, "It's silly to have a party for a 1-year-old, because they don't understand what's going on and will never remember".

Well, Eden was our first child, so we ignored them and had the party anyway with the whole family. I could swear Eden knew everyone came to see her. You see, when Eden was 1 year old, she could walk, say some words (luckily, we captured it on video, otherwise no one would have ever believed us, not even she) and respond to people's requests. For a whole day, we walked like peacocks, watching her going from one family member to another, clapping her hands, dancing and moving her hands and fingers to the rhythm of the songs and acting out the lyrics.

When Tsoof had his first birthday (13 years ago), we were in Thailand and celebrated with some friends. When he was 14 months old, we flew to visit our family and had another party for him. At that stage, he was very aware of everything that happened around him. He already talked and felt like a prince for a day as the family came to celebrate his first birthday. He used the opportunity to show off his skills and abilities. Whenever anyone asked him to do something, he did and when they started clapping him, he joined in and clapped for himself with pride.

When Noff was one year old, we packed our house and were preparing for an 8-week trip around Australia. We had some friends over and, just like Tsoof had done, she used the opportunity to show off her dancing and singing and was very happy with all the attention. We were happy and excited about the trip and her first party was very much a farewell party. Noff was cute and every time we had guests, she thought it was a party, because people loved her and played with her.

Recently, my two sisters had their sons' first birthdays. People around them said that it was not worth the effort, because the kids would not understand it was their birthday and would never remember it anyway. That brought back all my memories about my kids' first birthdays.

I am not sure what people mean when they say kids do not "understand". What is there to understand? It is a fun day when everyone comes to show how happy they are the new baby has come into the world and give them lots of attention. Besides, birthday parties are not just for the kids. They are also for their parents, because they are congratulated for having their kids and they will surely remember.

And what do they mean when they say this kids will not "remember"? Do they mean the food? What games they played? The special suite they were wearing? Then no, they will probably not remember any of these. But I believe they will always remember being loved by so many people, being smiled at, being cheered and being happy. Every person spends every day of their life longing to feel like this - to be loved just the way we are, regardless of our looks, abilities and talents. Being unable to do anything properly and still being surrounded by an ocean of love.

I have to say I do not remember my first birthday but my kids will, not because I did something special, but because they were born at a time when we could capture they special day on video. All they need to do is put on the DVD of themselves going around the room, smiling to everyone and being lifted up high with a bouquet of flowers on their head to recreate the memory.

Look at the kid in the pictures. This is my nephew on his first birthday. It was a joyous day for his parents and for everyone else who came to watch him showing off his tricks and his beautiful smile and he had a ball. I even got to celebrate his birthday from a distance and hear all the stories of him through photos and YouTube clips, thanks to the development of technology!

So what is your opinion? Will he remember or not?

Happy parenting,
Ronit

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Only when I got pregnant for the first time, I learned about all those beliefs and traditions:

• If you are pretty during your pregnancy, it means you will have a boy (because girls take away your beauty)
• If you hold your necklace with your wedding ring hanging from it and the ring moves in circles, you will have a girl
• If you touch your nose after someone sprinkles salt on your head (without your knowledge), you will have a boy (because he will grow a mustache under his nose), but if you touch your eyebrows, you will have a girl

It was so funny, I thought back then I could do a PhD thesis on the beliefs surrounding the sex of babies.

Somehow, my story was a bit more complicated. Everyone said I had a boy (because of my head, my butt and my beautiful hair during the pregnancy) and I never argued. When I had the first ultrasound, I asked the doctor about the sex of my baby, but he could not tell, because it was too early or the position was not comfortable or something.

For about 7 months, I thought I had a boy, not that it mattered, until one weekend, I went to visit a relative and met her mom, who was an old woman from Iraq. She walked up to me, touched my belly and asked me "Would you like to know what you have?" I smiled. I "knew" I had a boy, but I was curious to discover another traditional way to tell.

"Sure", I said.

"You have a girl", she said confidently.

"How do you know?" I asked her.

"I was a midwife in Iraq and I can tell by your belly button. I helped deliver thousands or babies and I've never been wrong".

I went home smiling. There was a conflict between all the other predictions (boy) and the Iraqi midwife's (girl).

Two weeks later, I went to the hospital, thinking my water had broken. The woman who did the ultrasound thought my baby was too big, which could indicate a developmental problem.

"Would you like to know the babies' sex?" she asked.

"Sure", I said, curious to know what modern medicine would predict.

"You have a girl", she said. I did not know what to think.

However, the doctor was not very happy with that technician's measurements and said to me, "Come back tomorrow. The other technician here is very professional and I would like her do the measurements again. By the way, if she says it's a girl, it will be accurate".

So I came the next day, hoping the measurements were not accurate and my baby was not too big. The other technician said everything looked fine and "Yes, you have a baby girl".

After almost 8 months of thinking I had a boy, I had to come to terms with the idea that I had a girl (which did not take too long, because I was happy either way).

In the evening, I called my mom and said on the phone with lots of excitement, "Mom, I had another ultrasound today and I have a baby girl".

And my mum replied, "Never mind. It's not so bad".

I always knew my mom thought that having a first son was the best thing. Her first was a girl and in the culture she grew up in having a first daughter was a sign of weakness (I am so happy I was not born then and there).

I think that more than having a first son, which is a tradition of cultures that puts the responsibility on the first born to take care of the family and his aging parents, the desire to have children from both sexes is greater. When my first was born, I did not mind at all about the sex. With the second pregnancy, I wanted it to be a different sex to allow me to experience both sexes.

Knowing your babies' sex is a debate that I hear many times. Some say it does not matter, that it cannot be changed anyway and it needs to be a surprise, just like nature meant it to be. Others say it is better to know in advance. For them, you cannot change it anyway, so it is better to know and prepare for yourself. If it is what you wanted, cool, you can be happy months before. If not, you can prepare yourself and get used to the idea.

My mom thought she should comfort me for having a baby girl (as a first born) and that I should not have asked to know the baby's sex. I guess she thought the disappointment is not as great when you already see your baby and hold her in your arms (or maybe when you are partially sedated).

So, if you or your partner were pregnant and the doctor asked you during an ultrasound check if you would like to know the sex of your baby, what would you say?

Please tell us why in the comment box below.

Regardless of their sex, I hope you have fun with your kids,
Ronit

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The profound moments in our lives shape who we are not only in good ways and can also explain our fears, our self sabotage and our failures. As a life coach, I know that finding these moments is often a key to moving forward.

The reason I posed this question to the Top Parenting Bloggers was not for you to learn from them but more as an encouragement to ask yourself the question and answer it to yourself. I see it as an important question that should not be skipped when examining our parenting philosophy. Whether you would like to share it or not, I highly recommend you take a moment and ask yourself "What was my most profound parenting moment?"

I would like to thank all the bloggers for their exposure. As you will see, part of bring a parenting blogger is not only sharing your own thoughts and ideas but telling about your whole family.

What was your most profound parenting moment?

My son's death made me think of the important things in life and helped me realize that life is short and there is no point living it if we do not do the things that make us happy. This understanding directed me to promoting happiness as a profession.

Again, our profound parenting moments can tell a lot about who we are and reveal the learnings we take with us to form our parenting philosophy.

What as your most profound parenting moment? Please share through the comment box below.

Thanks again to RJ, Sue, Annie and Annie Fox, Susan, Ria and Maria and join us again next week, when the top parenting bloggers share their best parenting tips.

If you wish to know more about the bloggers who take part in this project or contact any of them, please visit their blogs, follow them on Twitter and/or Facebook. Alternatively, you can send them a question or comment through the comment box below.

Happy parenting,
Ronit

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As young woman, I wanted to join a course to become a facilitator of parenting workshops. The director of the project said to me, "Ronit, in order to be a parent educator, you need to be a parent first". And she declined my application.

I was very upset. I tried to convince her I would be the best facilitator she ever taught and flashed my high academic scores in her face, but she said to me, "Parenting is one of those things you can't learn from books. You must experience it. When it happens, you realize that neither books nor the best institute can prepare you for such a dramatic change in life. You can go through the program, you can pass the final exam and you can be a high achiever, but for this, you first need to be a parent".

No matter what I said, she just replied, "When you have your first child, you will understand". She was determined and I failed to convince her to accept me into the program.

Later that year, when I held Eden in my arms after a long, hard labor that ended in a caesarian section, I understood why.

Today, in this chapter of Top Parenting Bloggers Discuss, our experts answer the question "How has parenting changed your life?"

How has parenting changed your life?

Susan Heim - Susan Heim on Parenting In every way! Being a parent has shaped my career, my identity and my goals. I'm sure my life would be much different today if I weren't a mother of four.

Annie Fox, M.Ed. - From the desk of Annie Fox I have always loved being with children - teaching them, helping them understand themselves better. Being a parent only increased my empathy and compassion for all children. Parenting has, I would have to say, made me a softer and more patient person. I am, as a result of parenting, much more aware of the impact of my words and my actions.

Ria Sharon - My Mommy Manual Parenting is the greatest spiritual journey. It is the most amazing self-development program any person can sign up for.

Ronit Baras - Family Matters

My life changed as soon as Eden was born. One second before, I did not have the same feelings I had the moment I saw her. In a split second, I felt so much love to a creature I never knew. It was a mixture of love, responsibility and fascination with my magical daughter. Some big events in life, much like becoming a parent, are the birth of some feelings and thoughts you cannot adopt without actually experiencing them. I think Eden's birth made me realize how much I was loved.

Becoming a parent changed me but did not shake me, because I knew what to expect (having studied psychology and child development). I think the professional knowledge contributed a lot to my confidence as a parent and inspired a lot of creativity in me.

I think parenting is one of the most important tasks in my life and my success in it brings me the most joy and happiness.

How has parenting changed your life? Let us know through the comment box.

Thanks again to Richard, Sue, Susan, Annie, Maria, Annie and Ria for being part of this great series. If you wish to know more about them, please visit their blogs, follow them on Twitter and/or become their fan on Facebook. Alternatively, post your questions or feedback for them as a comment below.

Join us next week for the discussion about the ideal kid.

Happy parenting,
Ronit

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Although it seem like a gradual progression from living on your own to living with a partner and then living with kids, the shift from managing a house as a couple to managing a house with kids is huge and can shake the most organized people just as it happened to my sisters.

As a parent, you probably remember yourself saying, "I don't have a spare second to do the basic things anymore". My younger sister was happy simply because I was with her baby so she could take a shower in the middle of the day. "Sometimes, I don't have time to eat", she said.

The good news is that parent's time management or household management improves as their children grow. It is very natural that as the load of taking care of kids, work and household increases, people come up with better ways to save time. When you start having kids, this is when parents' time becomes an important asset they need to master.

I suggested some household tips to my sisters and realized I have accumulated many handy tips to save time and headache in my own household, which have allowed me to spend more time with my kids and still do everything around the house. Every time I gave my sisters a tip, they tried it immediately and were so happy, I decided that for the New Year, I would post these tips here to help other parents benefit from them too.

I hope you will put them to good use.

Timing the dishwasher

Every morning, as I got up at my sister's place and entered the kitchen, it was a mess. Early in the morning, she dragged herself into the kitchen and started cleaning, clearing the dishwasher and putting all the dishes piled in sink from the previous night. I personally hate such mornings. Looking at a messy kitchen as I get up is not a very good start for the day for me.

Here was my suggestion:

It takes the same time to clear the dishes (let's say 10 minutes) whether you do it in the morning, afternoon or evening. It takes the same time (let's say 10 minutes) to load dirty dishes in the dishwasher, whether you do it in the morning, afternoon or evening.

Run your dishwasher at night and clear it in the morning!

Regardless of when you do it, it only takes about 20 minutes a day, but there are some advantages to timing things this way.

Turning your dishwasher on at night, when everyone is asleep, will leave your kitchen clean and save you listening to it working during the day. In our case, Gal is auditory and works at home. The constant grinding noise of the dishwasher drives him nuts and does not let him concentrate on his work.

Putting the dishes away in the morning will leave the dishwasher empty and ready to be filled up with every dish that needs washing. This way, your sink is nearly always empty and the kitchen stays clean, no matter how many dishes you use. My brother in law, who is an efficiency fanatic, even calculated the time saved by putting the dishes straight into the dishwasher instead of piling them in the sink first, but that was too much for me…

And in the morning, you can enjoy going into your kitchen and seeing it clean and tidy. There is nothing better than starting your day on a good note, is there?

When I explained to my sister that the act takes the same time but timing it differently makes the difference, she only had to make an effort once and the following days were easy. As she got up in the morning, while making her coffee, she cleared the dishwasher and from that moment on, the kitchen looked clean and tidy.

Easy, don't you think?

My nephew is just 8 months old, but if you have toddlers, you can already teach them to help with household tasks. Even a 2 year old can clear the dishes (starting with the things that will not break) and when they are tall enough to get to the sink, they can also help load the dishwasher. Timing the dishwasher loading and clearing can be educational and the time saved by working together gives you the chance to have more fun together.

I hope this tip is useful for you too.

If you have household tips that other parents can use, use the comment box below to share with other parents and subscribe via RSS or email to get the next tips.

Easy parenting,
Ronit

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