Family Matters

Posts Tagged ‘beliefs’

Our world is a weird and wonderful place, but sometimes, we act in weird ways that make it not so wonderful anymore. In many situations, there is a conflict between what is good for us personally and what is good for everybody. In others, the conflict is between what is good for us right now and what will be good in the future. Without considering the implications of our actions, they sometimes make the world just a little bit less pleasant.

Of course, when we do many of these things and lots of other people do them too, the decline accelerates. I often think of my kids and the kind of place I would like them to have when they grow up and it makes me worry.

When we lived in Texas, there was a period of frost every year. That was bad for the lawn, roads were slippery during morning rush hours and there were always accidents because of the frost.

Yet, a friend of mine found a way to have fun with his kids during that time. Before going to bed on Friday night, he would water his driveway, which was short, straight and steep. When his boys woke up on Saturday morning, the driveway would be ready for some extreme sliding!

This went on for a while and nearly became a family tradition, except one day, my friend’s mother-in-law came to visit on Saturday morning and slipped on the ice. She was thoroughly upset with my friend’s carelessness and promptly sued him (and her daughter, who was married to him) for her medical expenses.

The following year, my friend’s insurance raised his premium and he stopped wetting the driveway.

Recently, I ran a series of workshops with about 700 students in grades 6 and 8. The workshops were about diversity and acceptance and how to treat migrants coming from different cultural backgrounds. One of the questions that came up in every session was about names – what do you do with your name once you move to live in a different country?

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…

For the record, I am not gay, I have no gay relatives and this matter has no direct connection to me at the moment, other than gay marriage has become a major subject of public debate in Australia and seems to be involving very strong emotions on both sides.

In fact, this post was Tsoof’s idea. He came in a couple of days ago and said, “Dad, maybe you should write about the gay marriage thing. It’s all over the news”. So here goes.

Fundamentally, gay people’s sexual preferences are in conflict with Christianity, Judaism and Islam. In democratic countries, although the law may not be directly religious, a religious majority may be able to pass laws to the same effect. That is just the way things are in the world.

But this is not a legal blog.

This is a parenting blog. This is a personal development blog for parents.

If your baby boy posed nude with fireman gear on, would you leave him out in the cold and walk away?

Would you tell your little toddler girl to go and live somewhere else because she wore a boy’s hat?

What if you knew right from the start your cute newborn baby was gay?

Kids are little philosophers practicing the theories of the great philosopher of all times in real life. They live in the simplest stage show that is their life, without much sophistication and with no budget. This is ability smart, knowledgeable and experienced grownups need to learn from their children.

Kids do not have tomorrows. The younger they are, the more limited their understanding of time and the harder it is to explain to them what they will gain tomorrow if they just try a bit harder or wait a little bit longer today. One of parents’ biggest frustrations is their inability to explain why to try harder today for some imaginary tomorrow. Kids, on the other hand, do not understand why they should try harder, because from their point of view, fun is the best way to navigate through life and “hard” and “fun” do not go together.

Kids’ attitude to fun as a compass is perceived by grownups as a limitation, a lack of perspective and experience. I wonder sometimes who is missing perspective. Kids, the artists of living in the now, whose present is full of fun, or their parents, the champions of living in the future, whose present is an endless cycle of anxiety?

Children invest all their energy in what they will achieve in the short term. Adults, convinced they need to delay their gratifications, exaggerate this and without meaning to, they have invented the opposite of enjoinment and fun and have turned their life into a dress rehearsal for the “real thing”.

When we moved to Australia, I was shocked to discover that many people were sick. At school, it was hard to find a day when all kids were there. At Gal’s work, out of 7 people working in the office, 2 or 3 were missing every day, because they were sick.

At first, I thought Australians were just sick more often than others in the world, but after a short time, I came to the conclusion they were taking a day off when they were tired, sneezed too much, had some errands to run or just needed a day off.

As a parent, that freaked me out. I could take myself one or two years into the future and imagine my own children substitute “Mom, I want some time off” with “Mom, I’m sick”. I believe that if you say you are sick enough times, you will convince your body that you are and then you will actually feel sick. Gal and I put a lot of effort and thinking into raising healthy kids and the thought of them being “sick” every time they needed to rest made me feel sick ;P

I fully understand that people need some a break from time to time and the regular days off on weekends and public holidays are good, but they do not always come at the right time or provide enough relief. It makes sense to me that kids do not plan to need time off exactly on those days, so it is just natural that they want time off on a school day.

The problem with “being sick” is that you cannot really enjoy the day and rejuvenate, which defeats the purpose of taking a day off. Taking these needs into consideration, I came up with a solution that has been working for me for over 12 years.

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”.

In the past month, I heard it a lot. I had client after client sitting on my “life coaching deck” and talking about being totally unhappy about some things in their life. They were unhappy about their relationship with their partner, their kids, their health, their job, their money or their social life, and they wanted it to stop.

When this happens, I tell them there is something good about being unhappy. They always look at me surprised, thinking I have fallen on my head, but gradually, they understand that being unhappy and going to see a life coach is a wonderful sign that your body is talking to you and you are listening and actually doing something about it.

Congratulations, you are unhappy!

If you are unhappy with something in your life, congratulations! You are aware of your best navigating compass – your feelings.

Some people think happiness is an airy-fairy thing that cannot be explained and understood, not to mention controlled. Many people say they want to control their feelings in fear that their feelings might take over and control them.

But feelings do not have a mind of their own. They are a compass that lets us know where we should or should not go, we just have to look at it from time to time and see the direction it is pointing to. It is very simple. If it says, “I am not happy”, change directions. If it says, “I am happy”, keep going the same way.

I think this realization has helped me lots in life. When some of my friends, who know I am a happiness coach, ask me, “Well, Ronit, What is your formula for happiness?” I answer, “Tune into your body and let your feelings guide you”.

Our world today is a stressful place, full of pressure from every direction. That much is obvious. In fact, there are many things designed specifically to put pressure on us and keep us feeling stressed, and they are getting stronger and stronger over time.

Being a parent and having to raise kids adds another dimension to the pressure, because we not only have to stay calm ourselves, we also have to help our children relax and teach them how to handle pressure or everyone will go nuts.

I was unlucky in that respect.

My dad was raised by a very strict father, who taught him there was a “right” way to do everything – eat, dress, shave, speak, study, work and behave. Every other way was “wrong”. This was not a matter of personal preference but of “general consensus” and he treated any deviation from propriety with the same high severity.

There were things my dad decided not to do to me, like using physical violence. I was not beaten as a child, although my dad was beaten when he was little. That was a good thing. However, I grew up with strict rules I was expected to follow and not many things were open for discussion.

But I have come a long way since then and you can too.

I think there is a lot of confusion among parents between happy kids and spoiled kids. Sometimes, out of fear of spoiling our kids, we guarantee they will be miserable.

I heard about the fear of spoiling kids when my first daughter Eden was born. Everyone around me said, “Don’t hold her all day. You’ll spoil her”.

I never liked the word “spoil”. I did not understand how anyone could think of spoiling such a wonderful, perfect, divine creature. I always felt that hugging Eden and holding her was more for me than for her anyway.

As time passed, I realized they were trying to tell me to find the balance, to avoid creating a dependency, to give and get space and to provide and gain freedom. It is sad the only word that can include all those ideas was “spoil”.

I find the idea that showing love to our children is risky very disturbing. I talk to many parents at my parenting workshops and discover that this old fear is still there.

I think people came up with the idea to justify not being able to give their kids what they thought they should. For example, if they feel tired of holding a baby for a long time, they come up with the justification that holding a baby the whole day would spoil the baby. Why can we not just admit that part of what we do for our kids, we actually do for ourselves?

Last Sunday, Ronit ran a parenting workshop and I came in the afternoon to help her pack. When I arrived, she was still talking to the parents about rules and boundaries and mentioned the way she used “family rules” to avoid conflicts with the kids.

That reminded me of the time when I wanted to register for a software engineering course at the local university. The course I wanted was popular and all the places were taken, so I rang during my lunch break to ask to be put on the waiting list.

“I’m sorry, Sir, but you’ll have to come in person and fill out the waiting list form”, the administrator told me.

“Can you please just take my details and put me on the list?”

“I’m sorry, Sir, but it’s university policy”, she said.

Boy, was I pissed off at this. I was spewing for weeks afterwards. It may have even contributed to my later stomach ulcer. Or not.

Over the years that followed, more and more companies structured their operations in such a way that clients could not get their way. Not easily, anyway. When I rang Customer Service, I would bump into First Line staff who were basically trained parrots. The term “company policy” rang in my ears more and more often. It was infuriating.

But at some point, Ronit and I learned how to use the same trick to our advantage as parents. Oh, sweet revenge!