Family Matters

Posts Tagged ‘Emotional Intelligence’

There are many parents out there who spend much of their time with their children trying to get them to do certain things, like homework or chores, or to teach them how to do things “right”, like spelling words correct or spreading peanut butter without making a big mess. If you ever see these parents in action, there is one thing that jumps at you – they are stressed and almost everything their kids do makes them jump.

And that is no way to live. It is not good for the parents and it is not good for the kids.

What happens in these situations is that the parents try to control their children. In fact, they try to control the fine details of what their children do, say and sometimes even feel. They tell themselves and anyone else who will listen how important it is to get all the answers on every assignment correctly. That is how they justify the hours of grilling their kids over homework. They explain the long-term impact of passing a basketball using the scientifically proven motion on their kids’ sporting future. That is how they justify the yelling from the sidelines and the intensive drilling at home.

But how important are these things really?

Who are they really important to?

And what are the effects of this controlling behavior on the children, the parents and their relationships for the rest of their lives?

2012 is approaching and we would like to wish you a happy new year. There are so many cooking shows on TV and we have decided to write out wishes for you as a recipe for a great and happy new year.

May your next year be very tasty!

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.

If you have a school-aged child, even in Prep (or whatever you call the year before First Grade), you probably already know all about Literacy and Numeracy. Education systems seem to be so focused on teaching kids to read, write and work with numbers they cut Music classes, Art teaching positions and other “non-essential” subjects and put enormous pressure on children with standardized literacy and numeracy tests.

In Australia, there is now something called NAPLAN – National Assessment Program for Literacy and Numeracy, officially described like this: “Every year, all students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 are assessed on the same days using national tests in Reading, Writing, Language Conventions (Spelling, Grammar and Punctuation) and Numeracy”.

This means that absolutely NOTHING else matters to most of the teachers and parents of students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9. After having quite a bit of fun in Prep and Years 1 and 2, the poor kids in Year 3 are taught things by the book, tested every week, deprived of play time, music, art, sport and extracurricular activities and subjected to constant pressure to perform. State Education ministers go nuts from it, so Department of Education executives go nuts from it, so principals go nuts from it, so teachers go nuts from it, so students go nuts from it.

The same thing happens all over again 2, 4 and 6 years later.

And that is really bad.

Because learning should be fun and because all that stress actually blocks learning.

As with most things in parenting, prevention is a better approach than putting out fires. Prevention is done when you are calm, cool and collecting, while putting out fires is always when things are heated and you and your kid are both emotional and confused. Teaching your kids techniques that will help them make good decisions quickly will make them more independent and ensure they will be able to fulfill their own needs. In return, this will reduce your parenting burden and make you more confident they can manage once they leave home.

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”.

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.

There is something natural and inspiring about the way young children handle diversity before they are corrupted by media and the heartaches of life. I think there is much we can learn from them about acceptance.

I have been heavily involved in diversity education for years, helping teachers, parents and students learn to accept the differences among people rather than being afraid of those who are different from them. I write programs, run activities and deliver presentations to help them recognize that even behind a person who seems very different there is a human being just like them.

Last month, I saw with my own eyes how this lesson could be taught without lesson plans, without intention, just by letting circumstances unfold and allowing kids to observe.

It was Sunday and our Diversity Tent at the Queensland Multicultural Festival was full of children doing arts and crafts. My daughter Eden (22) came to help me set up early in the morning. When the volunteer who promised to come and help did not show up, my 10-year-old daughter Noff also spent the day with us, helping kids her age and younger draw and paint. We wrote the kids’ names in different languages and they were all very happy and excited to see their names written differently.

About half way through the day, a 12-year-old boy came and sat at one of the tables. A gorgeous little girl, who was about 4 years old, wandered over to him and climbed onto one of the seats. The little girl was teeny tiny and did not have any hair. She had a tube taped to her nose with a band-aid. She wrote her name, Joelle, on one of the bookmarks. She was beautiful and it was obvious she was sick and had come straight from hospital for a day of fun at the festival. Everyone looked at her with sadness, feeling a bit uncomfortable. Her brother, who sat next to her, looked up from his coloring and said, “I’m Ashton and this is my sister. She has cancer”.

Bam!

From time to time, 10-year-old Noff makes me so proud I just have to write about it. This girl inspires me so much I want other parents and kids to be inspired too. To me, these are the things that make the world a better place. This time, Noff showed how to be a good friend.

Noff’s school has a special unit for children with various disabilities. These kids spend much of their time in “normal” classrooms and go to the special unit for additional support, specific exercise and maybe a little bit to get out of classroom competition.

At the same time, the school includes these special students in every extracurricular activity – choirs, school plays, instrumentals bands and even dance troupes. We are amazed and moved to tears watching the little brave souls get up on stage with walking frames or in electric wheelchairs during concerts and performances and pour their heart out, their faces beaming with joy.

Some time ago, I picked Noff up from school and she said that one of the special education teachers had approached her and a few other girls for a secret mission. She said, “She wanted us to help one of the girls without telling anyone about it. She said the girl needed someone to help her get from the special unit to class and back and someone else to protect her in the playground from bullies”.

“Wow”, I said, “Are you proud she picked you?”

“Yeah!” she beamed at me, “And straight away, I asked her if it was Kelly [not her real name] and she looked surprised, but I know it’s hard for her to walk all the way to the special unit and back with all her stuff and I know some kids are picking on her”.

Many parents understand the importance of helping their kids make good choices, but they are not sure how to go about it. This post is dedicated to those who want to promote their kids’ independence and help them develop an emotional backbone and confidence, but do not know how.

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.