Kids are not born with reading skills, but they still need them to build their knowledge and understanding. We develop these skills in them by reading for fun or by reading to get information.

Although I believe that reading for fun is very important and can help increase your vocabulary and understanding, I think it is limited, because kids cannot check on their own if they understood the stories or not. Many books have layers of understanding and the young reader cannot tell which layer he or she is reading at and what they might be missing.

School is pretty much the only place where we can check kids' understanding and help them develop their reading skills and teachers are qualified to tell which level of reading and which reading skill is expected at each age, but as a parent, there are things you can teach your kids at home that will help them greatly with their reading development.

1. Title - Guessing ahead is a good skill in reading. Teachers ask kids to guess what the story is about by reading the title only. This is an easy game that you can play with kids of all ages. Give them a title and ask them to guess what the story, the article or the book is about. They do not have to be 100% correct to develop this skill. They only need to have a good association with the title in their mind. When they can read more, give them paragraphs and ask them to come up with a title. The primary question the title needs to answer is, "What is this about?"
2. Content page or headings - Reading a content page or going over the headings can help us greatly to understand the structure of the book or article, to "get into the author's head" and to discover the flow of the book, article or essay. You can ask children to guess what each chapter or section is about from its heading. One sentence is enough to get the picture. If kids read lots of content pages and lots of headings, it can help them with their writing skills too, because they can understand how to structure an essay on any topic. First, we find the title, then we make a skeleton of the things we want to say and only at the end, we write it all down. Often, the content page and the headings are enough to help kids remember a book or an article when they need to.
3. Pictures - Photos and drawings are a very good way to communicate ideas. Even before kids can read, you can use pictures to help them "read". I remember 2-year-olds in my childcare center reading books to me using only the photos, so every child can do that. Ask your kids to guess what the book is about from the pictures. When they grow up, they will also use the photos and artwork on the cover of the book to pick books from the library.
4. First and last paragraph - In every article, section or chapter, the first and last paragraphs are the most important parts for the reader. The author is supposed to write in the opening paragraph what the article will be about and in the closing paragraph what the article was about. Crossing those two paragraphs can give a very good indication for what children are supposed to remember when they read. Later on, it can provide a quick way to review and recall the information.
5. Taking notes - Turning your reading into something short that you can remember is very important. Do not wait until the end to memorize. Instead, at the end of every chapter, write down in one sentence what you have read. Do it in your own words and keep your notes in a handy place. If you can write inside a workbook, that would be the best place. If not, write on a piece of paper and insert between the pages like a bookmark. Teach your kids to do the same.
6. Highlight - I have always loved books and taken good care of my books. However, whenever I bought the book and it was mine, I wrote my notes inside it and highlighted the most important parts of the book. Highlighting makes sure you pay attention to only the important things in the book or article. It is also extremely helpful in remembering what you have read for an exam and for finding great quotes to references in your own writing. Show your kids how you do it and teach them to do it too.

Your kids' teachers will probably dedicate lots of time to teaching these skills, but they need to teach 25 to 30 kids and every year, there will be another teacher doing it, with a different style and a different approach. You are there all the time for your kids, so when you help them do their homework, you can easily teach them these tricks to help them become effective readers.

Happy parenting,
Ronit

You may want to read

• The Fun Incentive
• Effective Reading for Kids (2)
• Effective Reading for Kids (1)

Creativity is the art of making something new and original. We can expose our kids to making things from a very early stage and that will boost their self-confidence and their flexibility. The good thing about being creative is that it helps when you need to solve problems. Creative people are better problem solvers, because they are able to take a solution from one area of life and apply it in another area.

Children are in "learning mode" during most of their childhood. They try things, fail and learn and this grows their confidence. We all want to have creative children, so when they are not, before we start with the Genetics mantra ("He's not a creative child. Some people are born with it and some aren't"), we should examine our parenting style and how it locks or unlocks this creativity. Yes, there are people who are born with high creative potential, but I tend to think they need to be stimulated enough to actually reach a high level of creativity.

I think parents hold the keys to their children's creativity. No matter how genetically creative your child is, you can help them be more creative. Your attitude will determine if your children keep trying or label themselves as "not good with those things", which is worse than not being able to create.

Over the last 25 years, I have worked with thousands of children that talk about their ability to create in a bad way. You might think, "Well, maybe they discovered they were just not very creative", and I say"

You cannot discover you are just not good at creating. You can only be blocked from discovering that you are.

There are some parenting attitudes that do that to children, lock or unlock their creativity. Children get beliefs about their ability to create from their social agents - mainly parents, family members and teachers. As parents hold most of the influence and spend most of the time with the children in the early years, it is likely that they hold the key to kids' creativity.

Realistic creation

When children draw, paint or sculpt, as their fine motor skills are not very sophisticated and their desire is to make things colorful and fun, there is a 100% chance their creation will not be "realistic".

Parents who point out that a creation is not realistic block their children's creativity. If you say things like, "Where have you seen a man with green skin?", "This doesn't look like a rabbit" or "Does it make sense to you that the child is bigger than the house?", you might think you are teaching your kids something about life, but in fact, you are sending them a message that art and creation are only good if they look like real life.

If the great artists thought like you, they would never have created the most wonderful creations of all times. If the great inventors thought like you, we would still be in the Dark Ages with no technology or medicine.

To be creative, you have to come up with something new, something that has never been done or seen.

By being realistic, making everything look like real life, being logical and making sense, we block creativity.

The right way to create

Creativity has no right or wrong way. When my son, Tsoof started playing percussion, he was about 4 years old and played for hours every day. When he was 7, he had a teacher who was so focused on playing "right" that Tsoof stopped playing totally.

It took us a while to realize that playing at home stopped totally. Tsoof is a very creative child. He is 16 years old and dedicates his life to playing and writing music and I still remember the fear I had that his amazing talent would be gone because he hated that teacher and stopped playing for a while.

Children need freedom to experiment, experience and create. When they are under pressure, they cannot think clearly and cannot create at all. It is the same as other areas of life. If they read for fun, they will read a lot, but if they read under pressure "to read the right way", they will hate reading and stop.

If your child is creating something and you are too focused on the right way of doing it or on the right order of things, you miss the whole point of learning creativity. When your child plays a musical instrument and you tell them they played wrong, you block their creativity.

By thinking there is a right way and correcting your children when they cook, when they sing, when they build, when they play a musical instrument or when they draw, we block creativity.

Talent is genetic

Some parents believe that creativity is genetic and that you are either born with it or you are not. I think this is an invention by people who underestimate their creativity to help them feel better about their inability to be creative.

If you ask any highly creative person, they will tell you their talents would mean nothing if you did not pursue them, if you did not try, struggle, learn and practice.

Some parents think they help their child deal with disappointment when they say, "You can't expect yourself to be like Dave. He was born with this talent" or "You're not good at drawing. So what?" It is our role as parents to expose our kids' creative expressions, in hope that they find what they like and what they are good at. If we keep telling them they must be born with it, they will give up on looking for their creativity at a very early age. When things are hard, they will just say, "I'm not good at these things", and stop trying.

By talking about creativity as a genetic quality that cannot be developed, we blocks children from trying.

No mistakes allowed

The essence of creativity is the ability to try again and again and to borrow ideas from one area of life for use in another area. To reach success, we need to make lots and lots of mistakes before we come up with something that works.

Think of Thomas Edison. He was very creative and very determined and he could try again and again and again to perfect the light bulb, because he did not think that mistakes were bad things. He thought they were opportunities to learn.

Some parents are very rigid in their parenting style. They make a big fuss out of every "mistake" their children make and create painful associations with mistakes that make their children afraid to try.

If you examine those parents childhood, you will find that they have a painful association with making mistakes themselves and they think they are helping their children avoid this pain by not making mistakes. This is a very vicious cycle that must be stopped.

By associating original creation with the fear of making mistakes, we block creativity.

This is silly

Some parents think that every creation must be serious, practical and useful. But children create for the fun of creating. They do not expect their creations to be displayed in a museum and their inventions are not meant to save the world.

The way you treat their creations will determine your children's attitude towards being creative. If you think their silly, useless or there is nothing special about them, you are taking the fun out of creating them.

I remember 3-year-old kids at my childcare center not wanting to take their carton car creations home, saying, "Mommy will throw it away and I want to keep it". Give your children's creations the respect they deserve if you want them to respect themselves in life as they grow up.

I used to teach the 3-year-olds to sign their names on their creations "just like the greatest artists of all time" to help them respect themselves. If you have creative children and with lots of creations, you can come to an agreement that you take a photo or make a video clip of it before you throw it away "to make room for new creations".

By talking to kids as if their creations are silly or not serious enough, we block their creativity.

I bet Einstein's mother never told him his ideas were silly...

Every child can be creative if we help them unlock their creativity. You hold the key, so use it wisely.

Creative parenting,
Ronit

You may want to read

• Approval Trap (4): How to get yourself out
• Approval Trap (3): Approval-Seeking Behavior
• Approval Trap (2): Are you trapped?

Here are some more things you can do on a regular basis when you are relaxed that will help you send a message of respect to your kids and strengthen their "choice muscle".

Brainstorm options

Some kids are afraid that because they cannot see a way out, they are stuck. We all get stuck when we do see no option that will get us out of a painful situation or get us to a desired situation.

That is OK, because thinking of options is a skill that needs to be taught. Ask your child, "What's the worst that can happen?" or "What can go wrong?" or "Tell me the craziest solution you can think of". It is important to think of options and while I suggest coming up with crazy things, I would like to emphasize you should aim for solutions, not problems. If you focus on endless possible problems, you are going to find them. Looking for many problems is a dangerous zone that may create more fear than help.

Sometimes, all kids need is a single idea. You can suggest things too, but make sure the child comes up with most of the ideas. If you want to lead them towards something, say things like, "How about...", "What if...", "Do you think doing .... could work?" "What do you think of this option?" Everything you say must be as a mature person, a helper and a mentor. If you try to push your solution, you are not helping, but weakening your child's choice muscle.

Give time to think

When you suggest something, give your child time to think about it. If you expect an immediate decision, you are pushing. Pushing the choice muscle will not make it strong but weak.

It is very important to tell your kids they do not have to make immediate decisions. If we push our kids to make decisions quickly, we give them a message that every choice is a "life or death" decision. This is not good. They should never have that feeling. The choices we make are not perfect either and we often work on them for a while. By the time our kids need to make a decision like whether to risk of driving through a red light, their choice muscle will be so strong they will resist the temptation once they get to a red light, but that takes time and practice.

To help kids think about their choices without pressure, say, "I think it's a good idea to sleep on these ideas", "Take some time to think about this and we can continue tomorrow", or, "I suggest that you think about it for a while before you make your decision".

I use this technique for many things my kids want and I started at an early age. If they want to study a musical instrument, get a haircut, paint their room or register for a new class, I say, "Think about it for a week". If they come back in a week, I know they have thought about it, but if not, I know it was not that important. That is OK!

Basic pros and cons

Making a choice is a matter of weighing the pros and cons of the options you see in front of you. This is a learned skill that is good to teach from an early age. Kids must understand that most choices are not 100% good or 100% bad. Every choice has advantages and disadvantages.

The simplest technique is just writing down the pros and cons separately, counting each side and comparing the numbers. This process helps kids see with their own eyes which options has more good points than bad points. Take a piece of paper and write things down. Often, when you write down the pros and cons, that is enough to convince yourself. Do not be tempted to do everything in your head. When we do not write things down, we allow our subconscious to erase things we do not want to remember or deal with.

Advanced option weighing technique

Sometimes, just listing the pros and cons is not good enough, because some considerations have a higher value than others. For example, your son wants to join a basketball team that practices on Thursday evenings and Saturday mornings. He cannot make up his mind whether he is willing to give up other things for this, such as going to parties that happen on Saturday, going to the beach with your family or inviting friends to sleep over on Friday night.

This is when you give the considerations weights. Some considerations are more important to you than others are and it is good to know what these are. So if there are 6 things to consider, you can rank the categories from 1 to 6 (1 being the least important and 6 being the most important). Then, you fill in the form, giving 0 points for "no" and 1 point for "yes" to each consideration in each option.

When you are done, multiply the 1s by the importance and add up the scores for each option. Using a proper weight system, this example shows that going to basketball will be the best choice for your child.

* I play with my basketball friends
** I may play some basketball during school breaks

I use this technique when I make big decisions and even with my clients (who are not young kids) when they need to make hard decisions. Quantifying the importance is a very good way of taking the emotions out of making a choice.

I learned a version of this technique from one of my inspiring teachers. One of my Special Education professors said that teachers tend to give extra points to their favorite students (yes, I know, it is not something you like to find out, but it is true - it is only human to give discounts to the people you like and teachers are just human). To get over this, she came up with a weighing system and designed a marking system that was made of 10 to 20 items (that is a lot, because most teachers use only 3: exam, participating in class and homework, and if they use more than one exam, that makes a huge difference in their grading). This is very easy to do with percentages. You have 100% and divide it between scoring categories by their level of importance (which you can easily teach older kids to do). Well, this does not mean you will not give extra points to your favorite students, but when the extra point is 1% of 7%, it is not a lot and your favoritism in under control.

This technique is great for choosing work, profession, what university subjects to study, friends, a suitable school and, I dare say, even a partner. You rate what is important to you and find out if this person gets to the level you expect. Remember, 100% is not possible!

Independent kids are not born, they are made. I know many parents who struggle with their kids when an easy shift from showing power to supporting their kids' choice muscle could have made their life much better. Do you know how much trouble you can save if you teach your kids to be independent and prepare their own lunch box?

Noff has been making her own sandwiches since she was 4 years old. We would give her a blunt spreading knife and a plate with bread and she put her own spread on it. When she wanted a chocolate drink, she could climb on a chair, take the chocolate powder and pour herself some milk. Yes, it was messy at first, but she did not need us to fulfill her needs, because she could do lots of that herself. She is 10 years old now and she is in charge of many dishes that we make for dinners. If Gal and I had to be away from home, our kids would make themselves a feast every day.

Raising independent kids is helpful in many ways. Eden, who is our eldest, is the most independent in our family, because she has had the most time to practice. She slept over when she about 6 months old, she flew to the other side of the world on her own when she was 10 years old. When we brought a babysitter to take care of the younger kids, she used to host the babysitter. Every time we came back home, the babysitter would say, "Eden babysat me until she went to sleep". She asked her if she wanted anything to eat or to drink and, served her cookies and showed her how to make herself another cup of tea. She showed her how to use the TV and the VCR, where the toilet was and when to give Tsoof his bottle (when Tsoof was a baby). When she was awake, Eden used to change his diapers herself and went to sleep when she knew the babysitter was fine. As you would expect, the transition to not having a babysitter was easy. Practice had made it better and easier.

Total independence happens the second your kid leaves the house and no longer needs your financial support. No kid on Earth, no matter how old, can do it well without practice, without making mistakes and without learning from their own choices. They need time and the more time they have to make those choices in a safe environment, when Mom and Dad can help them, guide them and teach them techniques and opportunities, the better they will be at it.

Life is full of choices and as a parent, you have the luxury of raising independent kids. All you have to do is ... choose!

Happy choices,
Ronit

You may want to read

• Kids’ Declaration of Independence: Teaching about Choice
• Kids’ Declaration of Independence: Opportunities
• Kids’ Declaration of Independence: How to Give Choices

Accept choice as part of life

Be open and share with your kids stories about situations that have made it hard for you to make choices and how you have solved your dilemmas. It is very important for kids to understand that those situations are part of everyday life and our life is full of choices. Kids generally feel small and helpless and when they understand that you, their almighty parent, feel small and helpless sometimes, that you are not always sure what to do, that you are even afraid sometimes, it will help them be more tolerant towards their own difficult choices. If you talk to them about bad choices you have made and how you have grown from them, that will be of great service to your kids, because they will be able to learn from them too.

Be their inspiration

We make some of the choices in life because we know someone we trust and appreciate who has done (or is doing) something we think they have benefited from. Those people are an inspiration for us. Many kids see their parents as role models and inspiration, because they trust them.

Telling kids about your life will give them ideas and they will say, "I make this choice because something similar has happened to my dad and he solved it successfully that way". It is very important to say, "It worked for me. I lived in different circumstances, but it may work for you too". Remember not to impose your solutions. Think of their choice muscle, not your significance or your power muscle.

Let go of the perfect choice

Some people and their kids think there is such a thing as the perfect choice. Those people tend to talk about their good choices and are in denial of their bad ones. This is a tendency towards perfectionism and it promotes procrastination.

It is important for those parents to understand that not making a choice is a choice not to make a choice and when we do that, we put our life at the mercy of circumstances. The other side of this is being in constant regrets about bad choices. It is reasonable to be disappointed about choices you have made in the past, but since you cannot go back to the past and change them, you have to make the most of your choices, learn from them, move on and teach your kids to do the same.

If you want to help your kids, talk about good choices and bad choices. Tell them there is nothing in life we can have that does not require giving up something else and that waiting for the "right" choice to appear may take too long and they might miss opportunities to learn and grow. When you help your kids make choices, avoid using the words "good choice", "bad choice" and "the right choice". Do not say things like "I'm telling you, you will regret this", "I'm telling you, you will never regret this" and "If you ask me..." (which implies you are using the power muscle).

This is the nature of choices. Only after we make them, we know if they were any good. Do not play fortuneteller, because you may be wrong and lose the trust of your child. You can say, "I believe...", "From my experience...", "I hope..." or "I wish..." Humility can do a lot for your credibility.

Pay attention to conflicts

Use protests as a sign it is about time to change something and give your kids more choice.

Some parents cannot tell when is a good time to give their kids more independence and let them make their own choices.

I think it is hard to tell mainly because there is no "right" time, as most kids are different and are ready to move forward towards their independence at different times. This does not make them problematic, it only means they need more time to practice.

A good sign the time has come is that there is a conflict. I believe that conflicts with kids are part of their journey to independence. Their protests are declarations of their desire to be respected and to have some form of independence. Even a 1-year-old who fights her mom when she feeds her is a declaration of independence.

This is a good time to start giving her choices with her food by saying, "Would you like the red spoon or the blue spoon?" "Would you like to hold the spoon yourself?" "Do you want Mommy to sing you the airplane song or the porridge song?" The impact of this is amazing.

Most conflicts with kids are a battle between the parents' strong power muscle and the kids' weak choice muscle. If the kids are OK with you making choices for them and you are happy with it too, make the choices for them, but if they are not happy, they will protest and if you are not happy, you will protest.

Join me next week for more techniques for teaching your kids about choice and helping them use their "choice muscle".

Happy parenting,
Ronit

You may want to read

• Kids’ Declaration of Independence: Decision Techniques
• Kids’ Declaration of Independence: Opportunities
• Kids’ Declaration of Independence: How to Give Choices

The best way to get over this is to teach kids strategies for making decisions and to give them opportunities to practice. The most wonderful thing is that you need to do it systematically only for three weeks to start noticing change. Many of my clients, even those parenting babies and teenagers, say their kids have fewer "tantrums", they express themselves better, it is much easier to communicate with them and they are more confident, more decisive and less "hormonal".

Kids need to learn to make choices and it is our job to give them opportunities to do so in situations that are not so critical to allow them to gain confidence and learn that there are advantages and disadvantages to the options in front of them. You can give your kids opportunities in many areas of life.

Food Choices

In our home, we have been creating systematic ways to give the kids opportunities to make choices regarding food. They can choose what they want for dinner, what to make (if they are making it), what to buy from the market and how much to put on their plate.

When I was a girl, my mom used to serve us food and we had to eat whatever she put on our plate. Sometimes, she would put too much and we were forced to finish it. I never liked it and always thought it did not show respect to us kids and did not help us make our own judgment about how much would make us feel full. Kids can always have "seconds" and no one likes waste. Gal and I decided that in our family, the kids would serve their own food. When they were too young, we put a little bit and asked them, "One more spoon?" or "Would you like some more?" before putting it on their plate. Kids need to learn to say to themselves "That is enough for me" or "That is too much for me". Let them serve their own food.

From time to time, you can give them an opportunity to choose what they want to eat. You can pick a day a week that each family member can choose what to make for dinner or what they will make for dinner. This is an awesome way to get your kids more involved and more appreciative of what is served. If you have 3 kids and everyone makes dinner once a week, you have to make a lot less and more of what you make will be eaten. When kids make the meal, they also have to do the shopping and to think of things ahead of time to make sure what they need is available, they may need you to buy things at a special store and they need to allow enough time for preparation. The more they cook, the better they will become.

Going with kids to the fruits and vegetable market can help them practice choice as they need to help you find things within your budget and learn how you choose apples, eggplants or cucumbers. Kids tend to think you just go, pick something and come home, but if they come with you, they can see that the cheapest is not always the best and the most expensive is not always worth buying. They also learn things about the quantities you need, so you can give them a bag and tell them to choose 14 cucumbers, 2 for each day of the week, and they will learn things about your thinking process.

Some families get to eat out a lot. This is another wonderful opportunity to teach your kids to choose. If they can read, let them choose what they want to eat from the menu. If you have budget limitations, let them know they can choose within that budget. If you have junk limitations, let them know that too. Gal and I do not drink soft drinks at home, but when we go out to eat, we are not fussy about that. Our kids can choose whatever they want to drink and most of the time, they order fruit juice.

When we lived around the world, we ate a lot in restaurants (mostly local family places, not fast food). In Thailand, we ate outside the house about 5-7 times a week (there were food hawkers at the entrance to our complex). Our kids could always choose what they wanted to eat and they became wonderful eaters and very adventurous with food. If we go to a new restaurant, they will choose things we can share, safe things (that they know they like) and new things to try. Gal and I are very proud of them for that. For our birthday, each of us chooses any restaurant we want and this had worked since Eden was 3-4 years old.

Choosing what to wear

Kids can choose what to wear. We had this thing sorted since Eden was about 1 year old. I would show her two sets of clothes and ask, "Which one you want to wear today?" and we never had fights over clothes. Although she did not pick the two options, she felt she was making a choice.

I remember Eden at the age of 5 in Texas during one of the hottest days of the summer, going to her daycare with boots and a wool sweater. Everyone asked me, "Why did you let her?" and I said, "I believe she needs to make her own choices about what to wear and she will learn from it something that words cannot teach". And she did.

We have three rules about wearing clothes:

1. They must not be torn
2. They must be clean
3. If there are uniform requirements, we follow them and do not waste energy fighting them (even though we do not like the uniform concept)

Other than that, follow your own desires, make your own choices until you find the right thing for you.

Deciding which way to travel

Every morning, when we drop Eden off at the bus station, we stand in front of the light and have two choices: we can go straight and drop Tsoof off at the bottom entrance of his school or we can turn left and drop him off at the top entrance. Every time we stand at the light, I ask the kids, "Straight or left?" and they have about 30 seconds to decide. Anything they say is good, so it has become a game. In the first weeks, it took them time to reply and I would make the choice myself, but after a while, they became so fast that they answer in a flash.

Pocket money and choice

Pocket money is a wonderful way to give kids opportunities to practice choice. They need to plan, they need to wait and they will need this skill for the rest of their life. In our family, pocket money is given as soon as the kids can count to 10. Eden was so good at it, she saved lots of money. As I was her bank, I realized she had lots of money and never used it. She was 10 years old with over $1,000 (this is what happens when you start saving when you are 2-3 years old).

I realized she was good at saving, but not good at using her money (I did not write "spending", because I do not think that using and spending at the same). I went o her and said, "Eden, I would like you to take $100 and use it to do something you love. Money is not for saving. It is for using and enjoying". She said to me, "There is nothing I need. I don't want to use it". So I realized Eden lived in a home where there was always money, she never needed anything and she had everything she wanted, so her "money-using muscle" was very weak. I tried to convince her that this was for her own good and when that did not work, I told her she had a month to use this $100 or I would take it out of her account anyway". She was angry with me and said, "This is my money. You can't do that!" That was true, but I did not reply. After two weeks, she said she wanted to have a haircut and at the end of the month, she bought herself 2 pairs of jeans. She was just 10 at the time and since then, she has used her money wisely and enjoying life very much. She is also very rich for her age with lots of savings.

See also Young Kids and Money and Ronit's Parenting Bible: Money.

Pick a party

Having a (birthday) party is a wonderful way to help kids practice choice. I know that some people are afraid of allowing kids to choose, but I think it is OK to give the kids limitations and tell them to choose within those limitations. No, you do not have to spend a fortune on it and have 150 kids in your balcony, eating just junk, but you can allow your child some freedom on their special day. You can tell your kids your limitations and then work with them. They can choose a theme, they can choose who to invite, they can choose the invitation style, they can choose whether to make a cake or to buy one (and what kind), the decorations, the goodies for the goodie bag, the games and lots more.

How to spend time

All kids must learn to manage their time. Managing time is another way of saying "choosing well how to spend your time" and this requires practice. When kids are young, their parents manage their time completely and gradually, they are asked to take more and more responsibility for this. The first thing we can do to help kids practice good time management is to give them a sense of time, which can be done even without them being able to read a watch. When they play, come to them and say, "We are going to dinner in 10 minutes", then come after 5 minutes and say, "It's a good idea to wrap things up now. We are leaving Donna's house in 5 minutes". This does not have to happen to the second, but when you do these things, you are telling the child they can choose what to do with the last 10 minutes of the game.

When the kids are older, you can say, "Would you like to do math before dinner or after dinner?" or "What is more important to you now, doing your assignment in science or finding information about the famous person you need to write about?" The questions will help the child weigh the two options and this is a very important skill.

A Choice of Entertainment

When you go to the video store, your kids probably want to take half of the videos and watch them day and night. You can say, "You can only choose one movie a week and it must be G or PG rated, but choose any movie you like".

On a 2-week school break, when your child really wants to watch 4 movies (which you are OK with the rating and everything), you can say, "We can watch one movie a week. You can pick any movie you want to see this week and one more to see next week". If you think one of the films did not get great reviews, let go. Kids enjoy different things. It is OK for them to go watch a movie and say, "It wasn't very good". Do not be tempted to say, "I told you so", because that is external pressure. You can say instead, "I'm happy you've watched this movie and that you've developed your critical thinking". Sometimes, we need to see bad movies to learn what is good and what is bad. I promise they will make better choices next time.

I believe every area of life can provide opportunities to let your kids practice choice and this requires us, the parents, to let go of our desire to control our kids and to appreciate the process that every person must go through in order to gain confidence in their ability to make decisions.

Join me next week for the next chapter of Kids' Declaration of Independence and I will share with you some techniques for making choices.

Happy parenting,
Ronit

You may want to read

• Kids’ Declaration of Independence: Decision Techniques
• Kids’ Declaration of Independence: Teaching about Choice
• Kids’ Declaration of Independence: How to Give Choices

Independence is all about making our own choices. The choices children make are small at first, but we all know that one day they will need to make big choices and our job as parents is to help them enjoy the process and trust their own judgment.

How to give your kids choices

1. Start early. When your kids are very young, it is much easier to give them choices, because they are not sophisticated enough to notice that your choices have boundaries around them. For example, if you want them to drink their milk, you can say, "Do you want your milk in the blue cup or the green cup?" It may take more than one time to get them to realize they have a choice, but you get them to drink the milk and give them a choice at the same time.
2. Suggest instead of forcing. When Eden was only 1 year old and wanted to get her bottle from the kitchen counter, she would bring a chair and climb on it to grab it. Instead of bringing her the bottle to "save" her the trouble or freaking out she was "risking" herself, we watched her carefully to make sure the chair was stable and congratulated her on this creative way of meeting her challenge. When she struggled to each while cooking with me in the kitchen, instead of telling her to bring a chair and stand on it, I would suggest, "Maybe you can bring something to make you taller". Although I always thought she would bring a chair, she sometimes brought a big strong box or some other thing instead. Eden is 22 years old now and an excellent problem solver, which I think is a very important skill on the road to independence.
3. Do not impose your choice. Making something sound like a choice does not make it one. For example, "You have to drink the milk now. Would you please drink it?" is not a choice! It sends a message that you have no respect for your child's preferences and you are abusing your parental power. Real choice carries no artificial consequences, only natural ones, and the only one making it is the child.
4. Always give your kids choices within your boundaries. Never give choices you cannot live with, because this will start a war. For example, if it is freezing outside and you want to strengthen your kids' choice muscle regarding their clothes, do not offer them a short-sleeved shirt as an option, only two warm options. Instead of saying, "There is no way on Earth you are going to wear a dress today", which shows how powerful you are, say, "It's a cold day today. What do you think? What will be most suitable for you today, the long shirt with the bunny or the shirt with the truck? I trust your judgment". Yes, it requires you to think about what is important to you and what the boundary is. Once you figure that out, it is much simpler to find choices to suit.
5. Never give prizes for preferred choices. It is very important to present the choices as equally as possible and let the child make a real choice. When you give incentives for choosing one option, you are not really giving an options, you are bribing. When you bribe your child to choose what you prefer, that is similar to forcing. You make it hard to choose! To notice when you are doing this, pay attention to your statements. If they contain any conditions, as in, "It's your choice, you can get an A in math and I get you an iPod or you can be slack in your math and have to buy the iPod from our own money", be careful! Bribing always has a hidden threat and that hinders good decision-making, not to mention your child's trust in your.
6. Never, ever, ever criticize your kids' choices. We all make choices we think are good and none of us are fortunetellers. Choosing badly is how kids develop perspective. If they experience criticism, they learn not to trust their own judgment and when you are not there, they criticize themselves and develop a fear of failure, which is the exact opposite of independence.
7. Never say, "I told you so". When you give your kids a choice and things do not come out the way you or they expected, saying "I told you so" is another form of criticism and a sign that when you gave your child the options, you were not ready to live with consequences of their choice. This way, instead of teaching your kids to be responsible, you are teaching them to avoid responsibility. When you present the choices to your child, lose the attachment to the outcome. Let it go. Whatever happens, there is at least a lesson in it.
8. Limit the number of options. Research has found that people (grownups and kids) gets confused when the have too many choices. Giving lots of options does not make you a better parent. Instead of taking out half the things in the refrigerator and asking your kids to choose what they want to eat, take out 2 things for young children and 3-4 things for older ones. The older they are, the better they get at choosing.
9. You can give options even to a 22-year-old. When I tell people that I give my teens and even young-adult Eden choices, they find it strange. I think mainly because they think of it as a form of manipulation, while I see it as a form of respect and a way to help them learn to make choices and grow their independence. What I do is involve them in decisions that affect the entire family. Some of the decisions we make as parents affect their life greatly and I believe they should have a say. Gal and I give them the choices out of the ones we think are appropriate and let them choose the one that seems good for them. Usually it gives us a chance to talk to them about limitations, about compromise, about regrets and about how to consider different options, skills that are much better experienced than lectured.
10. Show genuine interest in your kids' opinion. It is easy. Just ask their opinion. Do not say you will do what they suggest, only that you would like to know what they think and take it into consideration. We have always asked our kids' opinion on important topics that concern all of us - moving house, the new dining room wall color, holiday destinations and activities and even how to use our money best. Sometimes, if we find that we have very different ideas about what to do, we even vote! This always gave them the feeling they are respected. We have strategies for allowing each member of the family to contribute to the decision making (even Noff who is 10 years old) and to sum up the ideas and thoughts to one choice. I believe this contributes greatly to not having conflicts between parents and kids. If you are wondering whether I like everything they do, well, no, I do not agree with all their choices and sometimes, I say, "No TV", but I always suggest (better) alternatives.

Join me next week for the third chapter of Kids' Declaration of Independence and I will share with you some ways of giving kids opportunities to choose.

Happy parenting,
Ronit

You may want to read

• Kids’ Declaration of Independence: Decision Techniques
• Kids’ Declaration of Independence: Teaching about Choice
• Kids’ Declaration of Independence: Opportunities

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

Birthdays are a great time to take stock and count our blessings. This month, I counted lots of success while preparing to celebrate my birthday. Some people do not believe me when I say I have not been successful all my life. In fact, until the age of 16, I was anything but successful. Many people believe that change takes a long time and I thought so too until I changed. It only took two months going from being a total failure and being kicked out of school to being successful, being a school captain and starting on the path to a scholarship for excellence. The failing Ronit would say it was just luck. The successful Ronit would say it was a change of mindset. On the junction between the two Ronits, I put up a mental guard that will help me monitor my mindset. This guard was in charge of reminding me the painful truth about the difference between winners and whiners.

Life is full of battles. From the first second we come into this world, we have challenges to conquer. Babies have the most challenges. Without the ability to speak, satisfy their own hunger, take care of a wet or smelly bum or change the temperature, they are fully dependent on others. Yet, although they lack the ability to satisfy their basic needs, they never consider quitting.

With crying as their only tool for communication, they win most of their battles by whining. Unfortunately, this is when they also develop the belief that whining is a good way to get things in life.

Whether this mindset will stay with them for life or change depends on the baby's social agents, especially the parents. If they consider the crying baby to be a complainer ("What's wrong? Why are you crying so much? It's not the end of the world"), he or she will grow up to be a complainer. If they see crying as a form of communication ("Yes, Mommy is here. You're right. You're all wet and Mommy needs to change your diaper"), he or she will grow up to be a communicator. When those two babies grow, they will both have the desire to be successful, but one of them will go for it and the other one will complain about not having it.

I have made a huge shift in my life (and quickly) when I took the time to reflect about the way I think. I examined those who were successful in my eyes and those who were losers (sorry) like me and found 10 things that were different between them.

Choice vs. Chance

I discovered I always believed I think the way I think because of my life circumstances and never considered that my circumstances were due to my way of thinking. I looked at successful people as being lucky and since luck is beyond our control, it saved me the hassle of choosing. I complained about my bad luck and nothing more. I cried about my horrible life that I did not choose. I expected my parents to fix my problems and they could not do it, so I blamed them for that too.

It is not chance, it is choice that determines your destiny. Make the choice to be successful and know that winning any battle requires making decisions. Some decisions may be tough to make, but not choosing is a choice too. When you make a choice, you may not be successful, but it is much better than letting circumstance make the choice for you. At the very least, it is an opportunity to exercise your choice muscle and it is gives you a sense of control.

Done vs. Should Have Done

I also learned I used a lot of "should" in my language. In good times of motivation (that only lasted for three days), I said, "I should have studied for a test", but did nothing more than get angry with myself for not studying for a test. I had many "tomorrow I will" and my life was full of things I should have done but without much doing. I used to beat myself up for not doing what I should have done. That self-blame was the price I thought I should pay those who expected too much of me and it was a great way to get them off my back.

If you find yourself regretting things you should or should not have done, make sure it is not a token statement. Every "should" is like shooting yourself on the battlefield of life. It does not take you anywhere. It is another form of whining about not doing something. Remember, you cannot be both winner and whiner.

Commitment vs. Maybe

When you lose in battle, the first thing that happens is you lose confidence and stability. When talking to losers about the future, they are very hesitant and say "maybe" and "if" and "who knows".

Although winners are not better fortunetellers, they face the future with a lot more certainty. Winning gives you the confidence you can and losing makes a hole in this confidence and a belief that maybe you cannot starts sprouting.

The difference between winners and whiners is not in the number of failure experiences but in the way they handle failure. Winners do not let a failure change their core belief in themselves. They are committed to learning how to do things differently until they succeed. Losers consider every failure as proof they are losers and they whine about it until they believe that they are.

Responding to Stress

We do not choose many of our life's battles. They come and only sometimes, time makes them go away. Most of the time, we have to win them or they will knock us out.

Stress is one major battle that most people must go through and winners and losers respond differently to stress. Successful people see stress as part of life, which can be made to go away, so they take ownership, are accountable, take responsibility and focus on their actions to get themselves through the stress.

Unsuccessful people see stress as part of their bad lot in life, which they can do nothing about, so spend most of their energy on whining about the stress to get sympathy. They deny their part in creating their own stress, make excuses and blame the whole world for their misfortune. If you just listen to them and the level of their whining, you can tell exactly what is happening in their life.

Responsibility vs. Blame

In my dark losing days, I reacted to pressure exactly like this. My failures had nothing to do with me. I explained all my life's failures with excuses for why I was the way I was and blamed the whole world for everything wrong in my life - my parents, siblings, teachers, friends and anyone else around me. I whined so much about circumstances and about others that it left no space for taking responsibility over my own actions.

When I meditated on my life for about two months, I discovered that blaming others gives them power they never had. I was giving them power and taking away power from myself. I sat for two months and asked myself, "What do I do that contributes to this?" and although it was hard to answer, after the brutal honesty, I felt powerful. Motivation did not last for 3 days but for weeks and every week, it increased, because I stopped whining about what others did or did not do and started focusing on what I did or did not do.

Responsibility is only heavy when you do not understand how much power you gain from it. The reason we talk about taking responsibility is that no one can give it to us. It is something we have to take.

Chunking Down vs. Chunking Up

I discovered that I faced the battles of life differently to those who were successful. When I faced a challenged, I chunked it up in my mind. I took the tiniest problem and made a mountain out of it as an excuse for being unable to handle it. I looked for reasons not to face my problems and dedicated lots of time to whining about my misfortune.

When I looked at those who were successful, I realized they had problems too, but they chunked them down and split their problems into tiny parts that were easy for them to manage. A scary exam was just 5 lessons. Every lesson involved some reading and doing some homework. Some of the reading was done in class and doing homework every day when the material was fresh meant doing a little bit of easy stuff.

I tried it once and it was magic, so I have used it ever since. Even today, I manage overwhelm the same way. A great technique I learned in the army was "Everything can be divided into 3 parts". Every part can be divided again into 3 parts. Try this:

1. Write what the problem is, e.g. "I don't have time"
2. Write 3 things that contribute to this problem, e.g. "work, housework, tired"
3. Take each items from step 2 and write 3 things that contribute to it, e.g. "Work: my wants me to stay over time, I leave early not to get into traffic, I bring work home. Housework: it takes time to shop, dinner takes a long time, I clean by myself every evening. Tired: I go to sleep late, I get up early, can't sleep in on the weekends, because of the kid's activities".
4. Take each item from step 3 and find solutions for them, such as setting a limit on work and notifying your boss, involving the kids in cleaning or preparing dinner and taking turns with your partner driving the kids on weekend mornings.
5. If any items are left without a solution, split each of them up into 3 parts and try again.

If you do this with every problem, you will find your life's bottlenecks and shift from whining about your problems to solving them. Try. It always works.

I think my biggest awareness was that winning and whining cannot live together. It is a question of focus. You can only focus on one at a time. When you whine, you focus on the problem and on what does not work. When you focus on finding solutions, your mind starts finding them faster and better and soon enough, you are on the winning side.

A challenge whiners have is not being aware of their whining tendency. If someone draws their attention to that tendency (by telling them they are complainers, procrastinators, lacking responsibility and problem oriented), they shift from whining about some topic to whining about the person telling them to stop whining.

If you have a whiner around you, it is a good idea never to take on yourself the responsibility to help them. When you support them, they will drag you into their whining mode, but they need to help themselves. Remember, their socializing agents have taught them that crying was a way to solve problems and they are only doing what they can. You cannot change other people. They need to be willing to let go of the person they are in order to be the person they want to be.

If your whiner is one of your children, it is a good idea to shift their attitude as early as possible. Here are 5 ways to help them:

1. Be a role model. Pay attention to your own whining tendency and control it.
2. When a child whines, explain that this is not communication and say, "Tell me how you feel" or "What do you want?"
3. Tell your kids stories about whiners in your life so they can learn the connection between whining and losing by looking at someone else.
4. Teach them the difference between winners and whiners and play a game of analyzing behavior by asking, "Is this a winning or whining behavior?" The more your kids watch other people, the easier it will be for them to come up with their own winning formula.
5. Give them opportunities to experience many small successes that will leave no room for whining.

At the age of 16, after being able to compare my whining attitude to my winning attitude, I came up with a magic question that functions as a guard, a police officer that helps me assess my situation and alert me when I am going back to the my losing habits. On everything that happens in life, good or bad, I ask myself, "Am I winning or whining?"

Be happy. Happiness is a choice!
Ronit

You may want to read

• Stronger Together
• Competition, Perfection or Happiness
• R.E.S.T.E.C.P

Do you not feel sometimes that "growing up" also means losing something?

I do!

For a long time, I held the belief that being around kids would remind me that I needed to unlearn some things in life and go back to the source, to the original state of trusting life, unexplained, to laugh at silly things and possess a strong belief that "everything is going to be all right". Kids are great reminders of this state.

Nobody grows old merely by living a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul
- Samuel Ullman

Please do not get me wrong. There are frustrations, tears and problems for children, but most of them can be fixed with simple things like a kiss, a balloon or just a suggestion of a better option to choose. The younger they are, they easier it is to make kids happy. My two new nephews who live on the other side of the world and I see in photos, in videos and on Skype, remind me of this purity, this innocence and joy. Every time I talk to them, I find out how much they have learned from the previous week and realize that their mothers, my two younger sisters, probably learn lots more every day.

It is funny that for most of my childhood, I thought that as a kid, I needed to learn from the adults in my life. The older I get, the more I believe it is the other way around. Although we do not want to admit it, we learn a lot from our kids and the best lesson is how to be happy.

I think kids can teach us a great deal about happiness. Kids do not have more opportunities to be happy. They have a better definition of happiness.

I think the main problem grownups have is that their definition is very tough and contains too many "only", as in "I'll be happy only when I earn/get/have/feel/can/do <something>". Kids, on the other hand, have lots of "every time" and "every opportunity", as in "Every opportunity I have to laugh makes me happy" or "I'm happy every time I go on break".

I think kids, as young and inexperienced as they are, have a good understanding that "grownup" is the not the same as "mature". From their perspective, being a grownup means you have grown out of your childhood and they feel sorry for you. For them, being a grownup only says that more time has passed since you were born. Unfortunately for some grownups, it says nothing more.

Learning from kids' perspective

Kids look at another kid who is 3 years older than they are and think they are "older". When my daughter Eden was in high school and about 14 years old, she came home one day and said, "An old man came to talk to us today", and told us about the session with that man. Gal and I thought his stories and the session topic did not seem like they came out of an old man's mouth, so we asked her, "How old was this man?" She thought about it for a while and said, "About 32, I think". We were roughly 40 at the time and felt we were half way to the grave for her.

Eden was just being a kid, but she taught me a lesson in perspective (one of many lessons). It was that we all measure other people in comparison to ourselves. When I was 16 and one of my best friends' dad died, I felt sorry for him and said, "Well, he is about 40 years old, so at least he was old". Now, when I hear about a 40-year-old man dying, I say, "Oh, that's so sad, because he was young".

Kids can teach us many lessons if we are only willing to listen, stay open and understand, if we just change the perception that time is the only parameter needed for growth and that growing wiser is better than growing older.

Here are 20 things we can learn from kids (but I believe there are many more).

20 things we can learn from kids

We can learn to laugh from kids. It is very healthy to laugh. Some say it is a great medicine, I know so many adults who could use this medicine. Do some laughter therapy and you will see.

We can learn from kids to cry and forget everything three seconds later after getting a kiss.

1. We can learn from kids to miss school during school holiday. I know many people who can get sick just thinking of going back to work after a holiday. My mom used to say that after a holiday, she needs 3-4 days to rest, but kids area ready for action again.
2. We can learn from kids to get up at 6am on weekends to enjoy their day off and make the most of every second of it. I know many adults who use the weekend to sleep in (I do not have that pleasure, because we have something that starts early every weekend).
3. We can learn from kids to look in the mirror at messed up hair and clothes in weird colors and say "cool" to the reflection with a big satisfied grin. I have learned it from my kids, although I do not do it so well (yet).
4. We can learn from kids to draw for the fun of drawing without the need to please anyone or criticize every creation.
5. We can learn from kids to make everything into a game - to see life as a playground, the living room sofa as a jumping castle, the bathtub as an ocean and the dining table as the palace ceiling - oh, what a life we could have!
6. We can learn from kids to fight with a friend and forget the fight after half an hour. How many times do we fight with another adult, then forgive and forget? I think the divorce wars would end if kids had to handle it.
7. We can learn from kids to sit in the bathtub for an hour and enjoy the bubbles without thinking of all the things they need to do (or have not done) this week.
8. We can learn from kids to get into the freezing water of the pool or the sea and still have fun. Oh, I remember myself in the water, my lips blue and shaking from the cold and my dad says, "You are freezing", and me smiling, running back to the water and calling out, "No, I'm not". I wish I could do that now. I need a warm bath temperature to get myself into the pool very slowly.
9. We can learn from kids to enjoy sleep over with friends tremendously and not worry about what food there is to eat or how clean their room is. Hosting people is a chore for adults - it brings up performance anxiety and they wonder what the guests might say about then and their home, whereas kids just focus on the happy time they spend together.
10. We can learn from 2-year-olds to say, "Me, me, I can do it by myself" when doing something new and difficult and feeling very proud of ourselves for trying.
11. We can learn from kids that breaks and friends are the only reasons to go to school, which makes the learning a byproduct. Can you imagine every adult going to work thinking they are there for the breaks and the social interaction and work is just a side effect? Oh, that would be awesome!
12. We can learn from kids that when you lie, Mom and Dad can tell, so we should not try. Children discover very early on that Mom and Dad can "see their nose getting longer" even if they do not. Grownups still try lie and believe no one can see their nose getting longer.
13. We can learn from kids that breaking the rules does not kill you. If grownups thought that way, they would take many more risks and try many more things that seem scary at first.
14. We can learn from kids to want. Kids want everything. They walk around with a look of excitement on their face and they want everything. Grownups forget to want. During life coaching, they tell me, "Life isn't about what you want", and I have to keep telling them that life is only about what they want. You are entitled to want. How on Earth can you get anything if you do not want it?
15. We can learn from kids to live in the moment. I am not sure why kids can do it better than adults do. Maybe because they have not experienced enough frustration and failure and if this is the reason, oh, I wish so much to learn from them to live in the moment, to the max, without thinking about the past or about the future so much.
16. We can learn from kids to be curious. I find the curiosity of children fascinating. Most adults do not check new things because of curiosity. They will check things when they have a need for them. If they do not see an immediate need for something, they will not put too much effort into it. I can see the point in saving time and energy, yet I think that sometimes, curiosity brings us surprising results and opens our mind to unimaginable experiences.
17. We can learn from kids to tackle new things with courage. While most grownups perceive the new as a threat, kids will try more times. And on the topic of curiosity and courage, here is a true story for you. A very rich man in India put computers with touch screens in the wall around a slum. He wanted to know how people would respond to this flashy machine with lights that they had never seen in their life. Everyone, old and young, came closer and looked at it, but did not touch. Then, some kids came closer and touched the screen, trying different things until they figured out what they needed to do to get to some games that they had also never seen before in their life. Can you imagine how many new things "mature" people do not experience because of this fear of the unknown?
18. We can learn from kids to entertain ourselves. You see, the older we get, the more we become dependent on TV, computer, cinema and other people to keep us entertained. Kids, on the other hand, do not really need gadgets. They can have lots of fun playing with a blanket or a rag doll. It would be so much easier if we could settle for simple things to entertain ourselves. Moreover, we can learn from kids how entertain themselves cheaply. You see, kids can have lots of fun with one balloon and keep themselves happy with a pack of balloons that costs a dollar, while grownups spend a fortune on keeping themselves entertained. Grownups are expensive to maintain...

We destroy the love of learning in children, which is so strong when they are small, by encouraging and compelling them to work for petty and contemptible rewards, gold stars, or papers marked 100 and tacked to the wall, or A's on report cards, or honor rolls, or dean's lists, or Phi Beta Kappa keys, in short, for the ignoble satisfaction of feeling that they are better than someone else
- John Holt

Give yourself permission to learn from those who are smaller and younger, because their fresh perspective on things that grownups consider complicated can lighten up your stressful life.

I am sure you have some ideas of what else we can learn from kids. Please share them with everyone below.

Let's grow younger and happier,
Ronit

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My schooling was a nightmare for my parents. I was not a good student (to put it mildly) and my parents really suffered for it. I was not very good in my academic studies, I had social problems, I had behavior problems and the whole school experience was very painful for me.

However, after being kicked out of school after 10^th grade for failing too many subjects, I became a good student and won a scholarship for excellence. I then realized that my parents could not have made life easier for me, because they had no rules about school to guide them. They wanted me (and my siblings) to go to school because this is what everyone did and because in their mind, not having education pre-destined you to a life of sweeping streets and collecting garbage.

My personal experience contributed much to my parenting bible. As I went through college, the rules and commandments about school and studies became much clearer.

I am particularly proud of my school commandments and of having kids whose schooling is one continuous ecstasy. Yes, their schooling was not a regular one, because they lived in different places around the world, learned in special programs (some of which I ran myself), skipped grades and did other extraordinary things. But this is what schooling is for me and I am happy and proud that my schooling commandments brought my kids to think of their schooling as the best thing that has ever happened to them.

I have over 1,000 rules related to school and studying. I will share 10 commandments with you today and I hope they will give you inspiration.

1. School/Day Care Center is the best place to learn social interaction - even the best mother in the world is no substitute for social interaction with other kids. Send your kids to a place with other kids as early as age 1. Do not keep kids at home with one parent or one carer. Home interaction, even with 5 siblings, cannot match up to the rich and varied social interaction needed for life.
2. Academic achievements are a product of emotional intelligence - schooling is not about academic achievements but about using them to find talents and boost confidence. Find a school that focuses on your child's physical and emotional health and wellbeing. Stay away from schools that only care about academic achievements, because they ruin the creative spirit.
3. Expect your kids to have high academic achievements but stay away from perfectionism - when you expect a lot of your kids, they usually perform better, but if your expectations are too high, the pressure blocks them. How can you tell? If your child is happy with their academic achievement and you are too, you are supporting and encouraging. If your child is happy and you are not, you expect too much. Happy kids learn better. Remember that.
4. Learn your kids' communication style - kids absorb and process information in different ways and learning is not the same for everyone. If you know your child's best way to learn, you can teach them how to learn better. Kids perform better in the subjects that are part of their communication style. Accept it! Help them accept it too.
5. Your kids' knowledge is your responsibly - never say it is the teacher's/school's responsibility to teach your kids. You need to make sure they can learn! You pay for the school's services through your taxes (and/or privately) and you are therefore a client. You must make sure you get good service for your money. Do not put your kids' future in other people's hands. They are there to help you, not to replace you! Parents are irreplaceable!
6. Grades are for teachers, not for kids - test results are not only an indication of how well a child has learned a subject but also how well the teacher has taught it. Grades are a combination of both the teacher's and the student's abilities and of how well they communicate their styles and needs. Never treat your kids' report card as a way to tell them how good they are. They are always good, regardless of their grades!
7. Homework is a requirement, not an option - homework is given to help the learning process. Homework must be done completely and all other activities (hobbies, friends, TV and computer games) can come after. Dedicate time for homework. Help your kids manage their assignments. Life is full of assignments (although later on, we do not call them "homework") and the more practice they get in completing them successfully, the more successful they will be in their life.
8. Reading is the most important learning vehicle - if you want your kids to have a good schooling experience, teach them to read well and help them read at enjoyment level as soon as possible. When they are learning to read, sit with your kids and read books with them so they will be at the top of the class at reading. Top of the class does not mean they get the highest scores. It means they always read at a higher level than expected for their age. Why? Because it means they will be able to absorb more information in the same amount of time.
9. Teach your kids to touch-type - regardless of what the school does, teaching your kids to touch-type is your responsibly and equips them with a tool that they will need for life. I added this to my commandments during a journalism course, when I realized the speed of typing with two fingers was an obstacle to my success. I gave my kids a touch-typing program in 1^st grade and told them it was Mommy's assignment that they must complete. When Eden was in 12^th grade, a group of friends came over to complete a project and the other girls typed with one finger. I then knew exactly why Eden's scores were higher than the rest. When you type each letter separately, your level of expression drops significantly and everything takes you much longer. At that point, the carving of this commandment in my biblical tablets got deeper.
10. Make an effort to find the right school for your kids rather than compromising on the local school. School is where your kids will spend many hours of their childhood life, so do not compromise on the school because of the location or price. Instead, compromise on where you live or on the type of home you live in and pick the best possible school for your kids. The best school is not the one that is famous for being highly academic but rather a school that their philosophy matches yours and will be the best value for your money (remember, you are paying anyway, either privately or though your tax).

I was very lucky to learn about school from the teacher's and principal's side to understand how parents can contribute greatly to their kids' school success, but I am sure that these commandments are nothing more than common sense things that every parent can examine and find ways to incorporate in their own parenting bible.

Join me next week for the parenting commandments about money.

Until then, be a happy parent!
Ronit

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• One School Fits All – NOT!