Lately, I have had many requests for kids' coaching from parents who were concerned about their kid's behavior. When I asked them to tell me why they thought their child needed coaching, I discovered the most of these kids' behavior "problems" were the result of teaching difficulties.

Teachers, as most people forget, are just human beings with a big task. If you hang around teachers long enough, you will find out teaching is not an easy profession. Teachers have the ability to make a huge difference in a kids' life, but they can do it in a good way or in a bad way. They can instill passion, motivation and interest or kill them for life.

So what can we do about this as parents?

Since teachers come and go and you remain the stable educator in your kids' life, it is your responsibility to add your support to the great teachers and compensate for the troubled ones.

Over 15 years of schooling (give or take), your child will meet many teachers. In the early years, they will have fewer teachers and their teachers will be more holistic in their work and will be more involved with the child's emotional and social life. As your child grows, his or her teachers will be more specialized and will be less and less involved in the kids' life, which is a shame, because teens require stronger role models and more social and emotional support.

The good news: no matter how old your child is, you are there for them!

Over years of schooling, the chance that your child will have 100% excellent teachers that cater for their every need and interest and motivate them is very slim. Even if you choose the best school, your kids' enthusiasm to go to school every morning will depend greatly on their teachers' ability to motivate and interest them.

Finding the source of the problem

It is very important when trying to solve any academic, social or behavior problem, to find the source. If the source is the kid, the required solution will be different than if the source is a teacher who is angry, boring or just not suitable to your child's communication style.

Unlike what people think, when parents face such a problem, they tend to blame their kids first, which only makes things worse. Kids who behave normally starts developing a negative self image when being blamed for not succeeding in school - "you are lazy", "you didn't do your homework", "If I were the teacher I would be upset too" or "you need to study harder for your exams".

As a special education teacher, I can tell you that overcoming a learning difficulty is much easier than overcoming negative self-image. Whatever your kid's problem, blame is NOT a good idea. You must always keep yourself on the same side as your child if you want to help.

Symptoms of a problem at school

The first thing you need to do is recognize that your child has a problem. It is good to have your antennas tuned to find out when it starts. Usually, kids show signs in their behavior and language.

1. If they complain a lot, listen to them! Every kid has a complaint pattern, so study your kids' patterns and when something changes, find out why.
2. If your child is sick too often, this may be a sign that he or she is disturbed about something. Try finding the source: exams, someone at school - child or adult, social anxiety, sports, not keep up with school work, etc.
3. If your child is very emotional, cries too much, seems too sensitive or feels insulted immediately, this is a sign that he or she is struggling emotionally and needs support. Try to find the need that is not fulfilled.
4. If your kid's academic achievements drop, this is a sign that something is happening. Any significant drop (two marks) is a sign that something is happening.
5. If your child starts saying negative things about himself, like "I'm stupid", "I'm not good at this" or "I'm lazy", this is a sign that he has already developed a negative self-image and that something is definitely wrong and needs fixing. Do not allow your kid to say bad things about himself and try to find out where he got the idea in the first place.
6. If your child does not want to go to school, this is the ultimate sign. It is OK to say, "I don't want to go to school" when they are tired or when there is a special occasion they do not want to miss, like going to the airport to pick their grandparents up or watch a sibling perform on stage, but if every day is a challenge, the kid has a problem and need help!

There are two approaches to finding out that your child's teacher has teaching difficulties. One is to move your child to another class and the other to keep them in the class and help them handle the situation or compensate at home for what is missing in class.

If you move your child to another class, you hope to get a better teacher but your child's ability to handle different teachers will be reduced. However, if you keep them in the same class and help them cope, you risk your child dropping in academic achievements or losing the desire to go to school at all.

In my opinion, the two approaches need to be implemented in order. First, it is better to help the child handle the situation and compensate at home and when things gets out of control - for me, this is when my kid does not want to go to school - the next level is to move them to another class.

Our Daughters' teacher

This year, I had to really walk my talk on this. My 9-year-old daughter Noff has a teacher who is the opposite of what she needs. When I heard she was going to have a male teacher, I was very happy, because I believe every student must experience a male teacher at least once in their school life, but when she started complaining and crying and changed her behavior, we knew something was going on.

Noff is a brilliant student and a very confident girl. She is colorful and friendly and loves dancing, moving and singing. On the first day of school, there was absolutely nothing on the wall - no pictures, no posters and no signs. On the adjoining class' door, there was a sign with the name of the teacher and the names of all the kids. The parents from Noff's class stood there feeling unsure they were even in the right place. Her teacher did not even write his name or "Welcome" or the board.

We said to Noff, "Maybe he's the kind of teacher who wants the kids to decorate the class instead of the teacher".

The first week of school, she came and said Mr. M talked about being organized and did not want to see anything outside the "tidy tray" (the tray under the kids' desk). She said, "What is he talking about? His table is so full of stuff, he can't find anything in the mess and he wants our stuff in the tidy tray?!"

We said to her, "Maybe it's just the beginning and he has lots of paperwork to do".

Then there was the form system. When you misbehave (Noff said this included making the smallest sound or even sneezing), Mr. M gets upset and gives you a yellow form. Yellow forms go home to be signed by the parents. 3 yellow forms lead to a green form (go figure) and 3 green forms lead to a red form, which is when the principal takes over.

We said, "Noff, this is not the end of the world. If he is the kind of teacher who is sensitive to noise, just don't talk when he does and you'll be fine. You always get along with your teachers, right?" We what did not say was, "Why on Earth would anyone who cannot handle noise become a teacher?" Do you think she knows this is what we think? I suspect she does, but why make things worse by saying it?

Things got worse when Noff sat down to do her homework and said to me, "I don't know how to do this" (adding up 3-digit numbers).

I looked at her and said, "Of course you know how to do it. You and I have already added up 6-digit numbers, so 3 digits are a piece of cake for you".

Noff was still stressed. She started carrying and saying she could not do it. I sat next to her and said, "OK, let's do it together" and as I sat with her, I realized her teacher had given his class a crowded, messy sheet with not even enough space for the answers.

Many things happened over the first 10 weeks of the school term. Every time, we gave Noff some explanation for Mr. M's messy, black and white, rigid style of teaching, but we quickly realized she was having a problem.

Two years ago, Noff had a teacher who was exactly what she needed - a fun, artistic, singing and dancing teacher. Every day was a fun day. She got up in the morning and went to school happy, bright eyed and excited. That year, we had no requests to stay home at all.

Last year, Noff had a teacher who was good for her. She was not as jumpy and jolly as the one before her, but she was artistic and very encouraging and Noff loved going to school. Last year, Noff asked to stay home once or twice, but this happened because she was tired.

This year, she asked to stay home 6-7 times in a single term. Gal and I talked about it and realized we needed to give her other reasons to go to school. This is what we found to be working.

1. We asked her what she loved doing with Mr. M and she said he did science experiments and she loved them, so now we pay more attention to her stories about science and are very supportive when she needs to bring something to school for an experiment - egg cartons, plastic cups or whatever.
2. Since Noff is in a choir, we remind her on nights before choir days, "Choir tomorrow. How exciting" and when she comes back from school that day, we ask a lot about the choir.
3. We registered her for an after-school Art class, which made her very excited, and we talked about it and she brought some work home and we did it together, so Wednesdays were fun days, because she had Art.
4. We registered her for dancing, so the night before, we prepare her clothes and she is very happy and excited and she comes home and shows us the dance moves, which makes Fridays cool, because she has dancing.
5. Her school runs a Dance Fever program, which teaches the kids dance during school hours. Last year, Noff won the prize for the Most Groovy Girl because she danced so beautifully and inspired her friends. So we remind her on Dance Fever days she is going to have a fun day and it works!
6. On one of the days, Noff goes to after school care with her best friends (they are not in the same class), so that gives her something to look forward to.
7. We do our best to come up with exciting things in her schooling. When the students in her class formed clubs, we helped her make cards with the name of the club she made up. When she wanted to invite friends to her birthday party, we encouraged her to take the invitations early so the kids would talk about her for a while. We use every tiny thing we can think of to make her happy and interested in going to school.

I have to say that compensating for a teacher with teaching difficulties is not easy and requires a lot more work, but I believe our role as parents is to make sure Noff's teacher does not kill her enthusiasm and the most important thing is to recognize she is her normal self and she has no difficulty.

This term was much better. Out of 7 weeks, Noff has only asked to stay at home twice and both times were after very long evenings when she was tired. So it seems like she is managing. But if it things gets worse again, we may have to go to Level 2.

Tell us what would you do if your child says he or she does not want to go to school?

What is your approach to teaching difficulties?

Happy parenting,
Ronit

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• Literacy, Numeracy, Emotionacy
• Ronit’s Parenting Bible: School

[If you are interested, this is John Parker's MySpace page. Listen to "Modern Life"]

The performance lasted about an hour and while we were listening and watching them sit on stage with a beautiful grand piano, double bass and a drum kit, Gal said to me, "Just look at them and you'll be able to tell their communication style".

It was very funny, because all three of them played for about an hour 6 or 7 Jazz pieces they had composed themselves and they played the whole time with their heads tilted to one side.

To be good musicians, people need one of the two communication styles or both of them - Auditory, which means you perceive the world mainly through sounds, and Kinesthetic, which means you perceive the world mainly through movement and feeling.

Visual and digital (the other two communication styles) people can still enjoy and play music and can be quite good at it, but they can never make it a lifetime commitment, because playing requires too much effort and does not create enough pleasure for them.

One very distinct thing auditory people do is tilt their heads as if they are directing their ears to the source of the sound. Doing this also reduces the influence of visual input and improves access to auditory memory. In my workshops, I can tell who the auditory people are because they do not have to look at me while I speak. They usually tilt their heads a bit to make it easy for them to listen.

It was so funny when Gal told me to look at all of them, because for an hour, they played every piece with their heads tilted to the side.

Composers are people who hear the music in their mind while writing a piece from scratch. They have a tune in their head and they are more likely to be auditory than kinesthetic, because they have to have very sophisticated auditory abilities, yet they do not require a lot of movement to compose.

If you have kids who likes music very much, who sing and make lots of noises and who tilt their head for no apparent reason, they may be auditory. Give them space and they may end up being wonderful musicians.

Happy parenting,
Ronit

You may want to read

• Teaching difficulties
• Should my child repeat a year at school or not?
• ADHD Must Be Contagious

Our youngest daughter Noff is a visual girl. She LOVES colors, drawing, dressing up, makeup (see the fingernails in the photo and the red bandanna), taking photos (from both sides of the camera) and gets all excited about bright and glittery things. She is so visual that she knows where everything is without having to go looking for it.

One day, we were all upstairs folding the laundry and I needed a flashlight. I posed a question to nobody in particular, "Where is the flashlight?"

"It's in the kitchen, in the second drawer, Daddy", said Noff right away.

So down the stairs I went to look for it, but the drawer was so cluttered with things and the flashlight so small that I called out, "Are you sure, Noff?"

"Yes, Daddy, just lift the sandwich bags and you'll see it behind the clippers", she replied confidently from upstairs, as if the drawer was right in front of her.

Sure enough, the flashlight was exactly where she said, and she is only 7 years old.

But just like most people, Noff also likes music. In our family, where her auditory brother does not keep quiet for a second and spews movie quotes and songs all day, she also wants to keep up with him and sing along.

Using the written lyrics could be one way of learning the words of the songs, but being so young, words are still not very easy and reading them quickly can be a challenge, especially when you are trying to sing in tune at the same time.

So Noff came up with her own (brilliant) way of remembering the words of one particular song. The words she wanted to remember were:

... love, love, love, love

Listen to the music for the moment people, dance and sing

So she drew herself a little note to help herself remember the words. This is what it looked like:

As you can see, there are 4 hearts for "love", followed (clockwise) by an ear for "listen", some musical notes for "music", a dancer's outfit for "dance" and a face with some musical notes for "sing".

Just in case you want to remember the words of "I'm Yours" by Jason Mraz, please look at Noff's note and play the video below.

If you are really serious about all the lyrics, the link below will open up in a new window:

Lyrics for I'm Yours by Jason Mraz

Enjoy!
Gal

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We sat at the table and I gave him a matching game and what do you know, I met another MacGyver, but this one was the first and unique in his kind - MacGyver Pro.

This is what the session looked like, or better to say, sounded like (I wish I could video myself to represent the whole scene properly, but I will do my best with the words):

Ronit: Martin, can you please find the pairs on the table?

Martin (looking around the table, smiling): Yes … is this a match? … no … this is not the same … what about this one? … no … this is purple … this is purple too … yes… yes … this is a match… (showing me a match and putting it on the board).

Ronit: Well-done Martin. Let's find another one.

Martin: Where is it? … (holding one card in his hand) … where is it? … this card had triangles … this one has a triangle … no … this one is blue and the other one is red … I need a blue triangle … oh … here is a blue triangle …

I write a note on my report: Auditory kid, "MacGyver", talks to himself.

I give Martin a 24-piece puzzle and ask him to assemble it. He says he likes puzzles and does them at home a lot. Mom, sitting next to him says, "Martin is very good with his puzzles".

Martin: I need a frame … where is the frame? … oh … here is a frame … does this go here? ... no … here … yes (finds the place and looks very happy with himself) this is not a frame … this? … not a frame … where does this one go? … this is the hair, it goes here … I have done a good job … I need two hands here …

I smile and write on my report: Auditory, MacGyver pro, talks to himself all the time (well, I did write many more things regarding the games but they were not as amazing as this).

The first assessment meeting (out of 3 - see my 3+1 kids coaching) took one hour and everything I examined looked the same (I mean, sounded the same). Martin verbalized his thoughts continually. In some of the activities he performed well for his age group and in some, he performed lower that expected. He was so cute and happy.

I had never, never in my life, having assessed hundreds of kids over 23 years of special education, met a kid whose mind was so wide open I could actually hear him thinking so clearly. I immediately thought of a wonderful research we can do with Martin to find out how kids think… a research to record thoughts…

Martin's mother called in the evening in distress, saying she had never noticed he was talking to himself all the time and expressed her concerns about this. I explained to her how auditory kids think.

Auditory kids think in words, they are in a constant discussion in their head and it is a wonderful tool for them to learn, to grow and develop. Please notice that I said "a wonderful tool". I mean it!

Most auditory kids have a social problem due to their difficulty to focus their listening on one source of sound. When receiving various auditory inputs, they are overwhelmed and mistakenly perceived as having attention deficit disorder. When I gave Martin numbers to repeat after me, he did this perfectly and well beyond the expectations for his age.

What teachers, friends and others think about auditory kids is a big problem for auditory kids and their families, because they fall into a trap of being considered "unable to concentrate" or "trouble makers". Martin, on top of that, will probably face the reaction of people around him as a "freak" because his auditory perception is extremely high.

In the evening, when I updated my notes onto my computer, I wrote: MacGyver is nothing compared to this kid.

PR: wait... I: wait... L: wait... LD: wait... I: wait... wait... C: wait... SD: wait...

You may want to read

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Do unto others as you would have them do unto you
- Matthew 7:12

The above quote is widely used by people as a "rule of thumb" for treating others. I must have heard it spoken to kids by their parents hundreds of times in different settings. But I am here to tell you that this way of thinking can get you into all kinds of strife and that if you review your relationships, you will find out how.

Think for a moment about the many ways in which people vary:

• Gender - Would you do unto a woman what you would do unto a man?
• Age - Do you treat your elders as you treat your kids?
• Job title - Can you use "that tone of voice" with your boss?
• Occupation - Are nurses the same as engineers?
• Religion - Say you are American, and say you are upset with Muslim at the moment and have your say in front of your Christian friends. Would you repeat the same things in the middle of a large mosque, in front of a couple hundred Muslims?
• Culture - Shaking hands is a form of greeting in western society, but would you also shake hands in Thailand? Burping is considered rude in many places and honors your host in others.
• Communication style - Do you learn best through watching, listening, analyzing or trying? Do they express themselves best through writing and drawing, talking and singing, debating the fine points or waving their arms and making faces?
• Love language - Do you feel loved when someone touches you, gives you a present, meets you for coffee, says nice things about you or helps you with the laundry?
• Experience - Would you ever say to a little toddler or a dentist, "What do you mean you can't write HTML code?"
• Taste - Jalapeño? Lemon? More sugar?
• Style - Jeans, mini-skirt or long dress?
• Political views - Better not go there…
• Favorite football club - Another danger zone.

I think you get it by now - people are different in many respects.

The world is fast becoming a small village and this should make us realize just as quickly that many of the obvious things we grew up with were only obvious to people like us. If we try them on different people, the results can be quite unpredictable.

But once we open to the idea of "to each his own", we start noticing that even within an apparently-homogenous society, people are individuals who may make different choices and may have completely different preferences to ours.

Being the quick thinker that you are, right about now you may be thinking, "Hang on a minute! Everybody needs to be loved, to be respected, to feel safe and all those other things common to all humans. I could just love people, respect them and make them feel safe, can't I?"

Well, no, actually, because although everybody wants the same feelings in the end, what differs is how they get them. Having a different perception of the world means people interpret the same actions and words in a different way and end up with different feelings to what you or I would end up with.

Well, isn't this bad luck! What do we do now?

Of course, trying to do the right thing every time for every person is just as unrealistic as assuming they are like us. It would take too long to find out what everyone in our life preferred, and most of the time, the answer would not matter that much anyway.

I believe that the key to the answer is in looking at a relationship as something that changes and grows over time. So we start out doing what may work and then fine tune as we go along.

Here is how:

1. When we first meet someone new, the most important thing is to keep an open mind and spend some time getting to know him or her. Open ("WH") questions solicit information from the other person, while we maintain control over the conversation by asking about what we find interesting or important.
2. Watch the other person's body language for reactions to what you say and expressions of how he or she feels.
3. Listen to the other person's tone of voice and note speed, pitch and emphasis on words to detect emotional responses.
4. Use the other person's responses to adjust your style. Gradually, the other person will feel more and more comfortable with you and the relationship will grow stronger.
5. As your relationship develops, there will be many times when you will say or do something the other person does not like. This is OK. There is no need to kick yourself when it happens, just to learn and remember for next time.
6. Many things you can do or say will be on a scale. For instance, you can be "upset", "angry" or "furious". As a general rule, it is best to "start small" and work your way up. Using words and actions that are too strong may offend, which can be unpleasant. Using words and actions that are too mild will be treated with anything between encouragement and ridicule, but in either case, you will know what to do next.
7. When you have said or done something that hurts the other person, backtrack quickly - apologize and ask for the other's guidance before you proceed. After all, your intention was good and this was just a misunderstanding.
8. In the other direction, it is important to pause when you hear something inappropriate from the other person and consider that it may have come from their perspective on the world and was not aimed at hurting you. It is just inappropriate for you. This realization should make most things a lot easier to deal with and remove much of the potential stress from the relationship.
9. Whenever some misunderstanding like this happens, let the other person know what you prefer. Even the most tolerant person on Earth has limits and it is good for the people around you to know yours.

Whatever happens, the main thing is to remember we all operate from our own point of view and our own beliefs and values and we all try to do the best for us. When we bump into somebody else, it is time to re-evaluate how we see the world and the other person, so just use it as a sign.

Do unto others what works
- Gal Baras

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Why do we need exams?

There are different uses for exams. We can use them

• to test the average knowledge of the class,
• to decide when to move to the next level, or
• to examine the teacher's performance…

Teachers are also divided into different categories:

• The teachers who want the kids to learn,
• The teachers who think the results are a reflection of them and do everything in their power to teach the kids to pass the exams (even if they have to take them 50 times), and
• The teachers who make the tests so hard that only God can get an A

In my opinion, most exams miss the most important part - the practical part. If we teach kids to pass the exam, we know that next time someone presents them with questions or numbers on a piece of paper, they will be able to answer them but they may not be able to take the learning into the real world and apply it.

Unfortunately, many exams are just memory tests. The sad thing is that the older the students, the more memory and less application they are required for them to perform. Tell me how many times during high school you have learned real-life applications for Sine and Cosine? Tell me how many times during high school you have had to manage money, even the little money you earned or even virtual money?

As a mother and a teacher, I am not happy at all with the way the school system uses exams to find out how well my kids remember what they have read or heard from the teacher. Like me, every parent who is unhappy like me has two choices:

1. Declare that you do not like exams and that success does not depend on people's ability to remember things and keep telling your kids that exams are not that important.
2. Help your kids pass the exams.

I am going to leave you the choice regarding the options you have. I myself chose the option that is somewhere between the two. I tell them what I think about exams but I ask them to be the best they can be and I help them at home to improve their memory to make it easier for them to excel in their schooling.

If you want to help your kids improve their scores too, use the ideas below.

Tips to improve memory

Contrary to what most people think, memory is something you can improve with practice. It is like a muscle. The more you use it, the stronger it gets.

1. Aerobic fitness was found to impact aspects of memory. Make sure your kids are physically active. You can encourage them to play outside, have a sporty hobby and if you have a time limit and they are too busy, jumping on a trampoline or jumping rope for 10 minutes a day can do the job.
2. It is easier to remember something if you connect it to something you already store in your memory. For example, if you have to teach kids to remember how to write a word, link it with another word they already know. "Sight" and "might" are like "night" - easy.
3. Many kids fail their exams because of stress, and not because they do not know the answer. Stress is a serious obstacle to good memory. Teach kids relaxation techniques to reduce stress. Explain to kids the importance of quiet time to help them calm down. Breathing and all meditation techniques will work like magic to improve their memory.
4. One of the things that hinder kids trying to remember new information is distractions, which introduce "noise" to the memory. Teach your kids to do one thing at a time. When they study for a test, it is better not to watch TV at the same time. When they are learning new words for spellings, it is better not to eat at the same time. Doing one thing and doing it well is called focus.
5. Memory is like a muscle, so work it! Reading, doing crosswords, mazes, scrabbles, word searches, puzzles, Sudoku and other challenges will improve their memory.
6. Teach your kids to make lists to help themselves remember things they want to do. Tell your kids that "The opposite of forgetting is writing down". Encourage them to use calendars, diaries, whiteboards or special lists on special papers.
7. Help your kids find the best time to learn. Some kids perform better in the morning, so if they need to memorize something challenging, help them get up in the morning half an hour earlier. Other kids think better after dinner, so clear the evening for them to study for their exams.
8. When you are active while learning, you remember more. You can help your kids remember things by developing activities around their learning or by asking them to teach you what they've learned.
9. Understanding your kids' communication style can help a lot in helping them remember. If your kid is visual, make sure they use colors and pictures. If your kid is auditory, make sure they talk about what they need to remember. If your kid is kinesthetic, make sure they are allowed to move while learning and that they feel physically comfortable. If you kid is digital, make sure they have enough information and it is presented to them in a structured manner. Each kid has their best way to learn. There is no point in talking about your way to learn if your kid has a different style. Introduce your ways to remember. If your kid finds it valuable, cool, but if not, help them find their way.

In your kids' life, they will be asked to remember many things. Some of the expectations will be just repeating something they have memorized and others will have a bit more value. Nevertheless, they will be assessed many times based on their memory and school, though it expects them to memorize things, will not teach them memory techniques (at least not as part of the curriculum. I think we are lucky some teachers find it so valuable they teach it in-between lessons). It is your responsibility as a parent to give your kids this valuable skill.

Ronit

You may want to read

• Should my child repeat a year at school or not?
• Self Esteem Mini-Course (2): How School Promotes Low Self Esteem
• Literacy, Numeracy, Emotionacy

Last week, after posting Self Esteem Mini-Course (part 6), I got this comment from Chuck Bluestein referring to his post called What Causes a Lack of Self-Esteem in Americans. According to Chuck, the lack of physical touch in infants is the source of the problem.

Well, Chuck, I agree with you that physical touch is essential for kids' physical and emotional growth. I even think that parents who think they are "spoiling" their babies by holding them in their hands are being unreasonable. Yes, babies needs to be hugged and touched, but the real problem in our society starts when they grow a bit and Mom and Dad think it is inappropriate to touch them anymore. It reached a stage where grown-ups who lived together in the same house for years shake hands when they see each other. I try from time to time to imagine my kids as grown-ups. I have changed their diapers! I cannot imagine myself shaking their hands when they become parents. Since they were babies, I have hugged them and said, "I can hug you and love you as much as I want".

However, Chuck, I do not believe that "hearing" about something can convince people to behave in any way. People have heard everything there is to hear, they have all the knowledge in the world but it just does not sink in, because of the many filters they have added to their identity over the years. This is neither right nor wrong, it is just a fact. We go through life and come up with filters that help us survive.

And I still think there is no such a thing as "the right way" (I think Special Education professionals are "programmed" to react like this to the terms "right" and "wrong"). People always choose what seems to be the right way at the time. Not one ever says, "Well, here are 7 options for raising kids, let me pick the wrong one"…

I love Mr. Miyagi from "Karate Kid" and I think I would have said, "When the student cannot understand something, it is only because the teacher did not present it properly", but bad teachers? I do not think there are any. No teacher on Earth ever becomes a teacher in order to damage kids. No teacher ever says, "Well, I have 7 ways (I love the number 7) to teach, let me choose the lousiest one". Teachers (and parents are teachers too) teach the best way they can. We need to give them more strength, more confidence, more support and no judgment.

Chuck says, "This lack of self-esteem is not because American parents do not love their kids. It is because they never learned how to raise infants. The way that kids are raised now is described in the book, Revolution from Within: A Book of Self-Esteem by Gloria Steinem (1992). This tells how children are alive to serve the parents and the parents are perfect and always right and it goes on and on".

I agree with Gloria Steinem that most parents have never learned how to raise infants, but they have never learned how to raise toddlers or teens either, they have never learned how to establish a relationship with a partner or take care of their finances or do home maintenance, although they have to do it all their life. What is new about that?

I would like to suggest that you take all the Amer-Indians, put them in the middle of a busy city and see how much self-esteem they will have there. Kids who grow in a small community with a different dynamic can continue to raise their kids the same way for over 100,000 years.

The kids we have today, the kids whose parents have Internet connections and go on the computer to read the great posts you and I write, live in a super fast world with changes every day, all day. Even if they wanted to keep their life the same way for a week, they could not do it.

When you say 100,000 years, it is funny. My 6-year-old just came back from school, excited that she had learned how to change the colour of text in Microsoft Word. My husband than told her he had met his first computer at university and we had our first computer at home when he was 26. In just a short time, life has changed for all of us. Do you think that, if we wanted, we could say, "Nah, I do not like this life. Too many changes. I want to go back to living like 100,000 years ago"?

As much as I believe that touch is important, I want you to know there are kids who cannot stand the feeling of being touched all the time (and Chuck, there is nothing wrong with these kids). You are describing a community of people who are kinesthetic and benefit from physical touch, but this does not mean that everyone does.

Some kids who will cry if you put them in a sling, because they will feel limited, whereas others will feel warm and safe. I have three kids and each is different in their need for touch. I find that natural. Yes, physical touch contributes to people's self-esteem, but I wish they could have remembered the hugs they got in their infancy. I wish there was a tank of hugs and touch that they could carry with them to adulthood. It is wishful thinking but far from being real. People need hugs and physical touch all the time - infants, toddlers, teens, parents, growth-ups, old folks - everybody. There is magic in the infant years, but hugs are not that magic.

If you believe that whenever the baby cries it is because he is in pain, you might find it hard and painful to raise kids. Kids cry as a form of expression. This is what they know and it is very good that they cry. Life is beautiful, but not if we immediately give them their desires all the time. They are just babies learning about life. Kids are not servants, nor are their parents. Everyone in this life wants to satisfy their needs and sometimes, there are conflicts of interest. For example, kids want to sleep in your bed and you want to make love to your partner tonight. Oops, what is more important now, your feeling of love, your partner's feeling of love or your kids' feeling of love? In every conflict of interest, parents are just a little bit more experienced than their babies are. Just as on planes, they tell you to put your mask on first when there is an emergency, it only makes sense to me that with self-esteem, you would do the same. Your kids will certainly learn to live by doing what you do, so teach them to take care of themselves by taking care of yourself.

If you teach kids that when they are not being held, they are not loved, you are teaching them the most horrible thing. The best thing is to tell them that they are loved no matter what and that there are many ways to express love and physical touch is only one of them. I hope no kid in the world will adopt this way of thinking, because we are not held most of our life, and life would be miserable if touch was the only way to express love.

Teen depression is not caused by not being hugged and touched in infant years but because parents think it is valuable to touch their kids when they are cute babies, but when the cuteness disappears, the hugs and the physical affection disappear with it. Many teens do not get touch from anyone close to them.

So Chuck, as much as I think that touch is essential for people's growth and wellbeing and as much as I think the early years are crucial, I do not agree that this alone is the source of self-esteem in people, although I wish you were right!

Happy ongoing parenting is the answer,
Ronit

You may want to read

• Hugs: The Ultimate Antidepressant
• I See You
• To Teach Is To Touch a Life Forever

I call these people "MacGyvers". Do you remember the TV series with this guy who was narrating the whole time? We heard his thoughts all the time wherever he went.

This happens to me a lot. I see people on the street moving their lips while they walk. As funny as it looks, these people have an advantage.

If you are concerned when your kids talk to themselves, rest assured they have an advantage over "normal" kids who do not talk to themselves.

A research done on young kids found that preschoolers perform better when they talk to themselves. The finding was that "78 percent of the children performed either the same or better on the performance task when speaking to themselves than when they were silent".

The research found that telling kids to be quiet while they were learning was actually disturbing the kids' natural "private speech" or "self talk" and limited their performance.

My son Tsoof is such a "MacGyver". He talks all the time (and I do mean "all the time"). If he has an audience, cool, and if he does not have an audience, it makes no difference. His brain is so full of thoughts (and jokes and songs and musical notes and comedy skits and movies) that if he did not talk about them, he would probably blow up. He has taken "self talk" to the extreme. He is a wonderfully talented, funny, joyful kid but our friends say they do not think they could have survived living with him in the same house for more than two seconds.

Every time I hear this, I think about the special education kids I work with. Do they have a problem or is it just the reaction of the people around them, who cannot survive living with them in the same house (or class or playground)?

If you take my son and put him in a different house, this will most likely be a formula to manufacture a "troubled child". It would take less than a week for him to start thinking that something is wrong with him, when in fact, nothing is wrong with him, he is just an auditory kid, with a superior sound recording machine. He could not have been so talented without this ability (and without us being tolerant to his constant sound production).

Kids find natural ways to deal with to things in their life. If they are kinesthetic, they move a lot to help themselves think. If they are digital, they ask a lot of questions. If they are visual, they decorate their notebooks to make them look nicer, and if they are auditory, they talk to themselves to slow down and serialize their input. Auditory and digital kids are at a relative disadvantage, simply because there are not many of them in our society. Research about learning styles has found that there are only 20% people that are auditory, while kinesthetic are 40% and visual 40%. That research did not recognize the digital style, but estimates are that only 5% of the population are auditory-digital.

Being different is not a problem

Being only 20% of our society makes auditory kids a minority. If you have an auditory child and you feel they are different, you are right, but being different does not mean they have a problem. The problem starts not with the fact your kid is different but when they start thinking there is a problem with being different. As I have said before, when working with a troubled child, most of my work is dedicated to repairing the kid's damaged self-image.

Talking to yourself is a very helpful technique for auditory people in general, but useful to deal with stress for everybody. It is almost the same as sitting on the therapist's sofa and putting some order in the mess in your head.

So next time you are with yourself in the shower or after a hectic day at work, use the space and time to put some order into your life by talking to yourself, and when your kids ask about the noises coming from the shower, be proud to say you have been talking to yourself.

You may want to read

• What Are You Saying to Your Teens?
• Hugs: The Ultimate Antidepressant
• More Control – Less Power

What happened?

If you are like everyone else out there, you imagined a pink elephant and maybe, maybe managed to chase it away. I agree, I was very cruel putting the pink elephant in front of you and asking you not to think about it, but hey, life is the same - we see things around us and cannot choose to “not see" them.

Many of my clients, who go through deep understanding of the pink elephant concept, say it is a lifetime revelation for them and an essential ingredient for a good relationship.

A couple of clients came to me for parent coaching because of a problem they had with their teen boy, and were very surprised when we went through Pink Elephants. They said, "We tell him every day NOT to hang around bad kids, but saying it only puts the focus on those kids we want him to stay away from".

The day after our session, the mother sent me this email:

Dear Ronit,

You won't believe what happened after we left our session last night. I was home for 3 minutes and so many Pink Elephants came out of my mouth… It is so hard!

It is hard, I agree.

During the session, I ring a bell every time anyone uses a pink elephant. This is annoying, but if you try it for 10 minutes, you will find out that we all use many, many pink elephants in our language. We are so programmed to express our thoughts with negatives that no wonder our world is so angry and upset and our relationships suffer greatly.

Pink elephants are the things we do not want in life, but focus on just the same. Pink elephants are all the negative words we use, like "unacceptable", "don't forget" and "no smoking". By thinking of them, we do exactly the opposite of what we want.

When we are not happy with something, we use more pink elephants in our language. If you want to try, write a letter to someone about something you are really upset about, and count how many pink elephants you have there (reminder: pink elephants are words with "no", "don't", "un", "not", "lose", etc). Now, try to rewrite it with a focus on what you do want instead of what you do not want. Yes, this is not easy, but it is possible.

During the teen years, parents are not happy about many things. Their teenagers look for ways to experience life, they struggle with boundaries, with pressure and with finding their uniqueness and many parents lose control of their kids' life at that stage. This is the danger zone, when the parent–teen relationship is filled with pink elephants.

Frustration is good food for pink elephants. When things do not happen the way we want them to, we use them a lot. Parents say to their kids, "I do not want you to do drugs", which gets the teens thinking about drugs. Teens say, "I don't want you to look at my stuff", which makes their parents really curious.

Both parents and teens want good things but use the wrong methods to get them.

Let me give you an example of the communication gap between parents and teens. If you tell your kid, "I don't want you to hang around bad kids", you are saying exactly what you mean, but your child's brain (which cannot not think of a pink elephant) hears, "I want you to hang around bad kids".

It is what happens to most people when they see the sign "Wet paint. Do not touch!" and they touch the paint right away.

The reason this thing happens is that the brain first records "touch" and only then tries to block it (just like you did with the Pink Elephant – the elephant appeared and you tried to chase it away). Since "not touching" is undefined, the only thing the person can do is touch.

When you use pink elephants with your kids, this is very confusing for them. They hear you saying, "Watch TV until late", but then you get upset with them for doing exactly what they think you told them to do.

Here are some of the pink elephants parents tell their teen kids:

• [Don't] talk back to me
• I'm [not] happy you've failed in math
• Your friends, who smoke and drink, are [no] good for you
• [Don't] drink and drive
• [Don't] smoke

Exactly like the couple who wanted to save their teen from falling real hard, you can too, if you just change the focus to what you want your teen to do rather than what you do not want them to do. It is hard at first, but liberating and very positive in the end. Focus on what you want!

Post your alternatives to the statements above in the comment box to practice, but also to give others some ideas.

Happy parenting,

Ronit

You may want to read

• Happy Parents – The Magic Formula for Happy Kids
• 10 Ways to Encourage Your Kids
• Inspiring True Story for Parents

This question usually comes up after parents are informed by their child's teacher that the child is not keeping up with their schoolwork. However, although the indication given is academic, the problem is most often emotional.

If the reason for the child's poor performance is academic, I believe there is no point repeating a year. If there is a real difficulty, time is not the cure! It is better to offer special support to the child during and after school, or in extreme cases, in a special school.

However, if the question regarding repeating is because of emotional difficulty, then repeating a year is always going to help the kid go through their emotional development at a pace that is more suitable for them without the clock ticking "Today, you are 7 years and 124 days old, so from today you need to behave this way".

There is much confusion and disagreement about kids' emotional development. Many parents think that maturity is tightly linked to date of birth, as if the body has a clock that changes status with the birthday party.

Using dates as the criteria to moving from one class to another does not always suit kids' emotional development. A kid whose birthday is in January is no match for one who celebrated their birthday the previous June, although they are in the same class. The amazing thing is that even a child celebrating their birthday in January may not be as emotionally developed as another born on the same day.

The reason kids are distributed between classes based on age is that it is easy for the teacher and the system, but it is not necessarily good for the kids. If kids were distributed based on emotional development, there would be more composite classes with a 3-year spread.

There are points in a child's schooling when it is easier for them to stay back another year than other times. Essentially, the earlier, the easier, so the day care and prep years are the easiest to repeat. This is because kids are not aware yet and are much quicker to adjust to the new situation. The boost in performance will boost their confidence and they will simply do better for the rest of their schooling.

In later years, it is best for a child to repeat a year at another school, allowing them to avoid the failure stigma. If the child's family stays in the same place, such a transition happens naturally only when moving from primary to high school.

The third option is to put the child in composite classes, if those exist at their school. This way, the kid can work comfortably at the academic level that is suitable for them, while having a wide range of kids. They can choose older friends or younger friends in a composite class, where the accuracy in choosing the right emotional buddy is higher, not to mention this provides better preparation for real life (how many people do you know whose partners, family members, friends and colleagues were all born in the same year?).

Many parents adopt the approach "They'll grow out of it". My opinion is that if your child struggles, it is best to take action before getting to school, so keep your eyes and ears open when they're little!

You may want to read

• Should I Choose a Single-sex or Mixed School for My Child?
• Happy Kids Learn Better
• Ronit’s Parenting Bible: School