In a book called The Lonely Crowd, David Riesman wrote in 1950 that people could be split into two groups. He said that the inner-directed person "has a trustworthy character and builds his life on the stability and security of his family. Usually, he believes in the Judeo-Christian faith". The other-directed person, on the other hand, is "dependent on the approval of others, especially experts. They are consumed by a quest for personal happiness, so that ... anything becomes permissible if it makes me happy".

Yes, this is an old book, but I read this quote this morning in a much newer book on personal power and relationship skills, so the notion that our pursuit of happiness makes us selfish and self-centered is still very much alive today.

So what's the deal? Does personal happiness equate to selfishness? Does the search for personal fulfillment make us lonely?

"Pooh!" the bear snorted, "Again I say pooh!"
- The Big Brag, Dr Seuss

Being a selfish happiness seeker is like drilling for oil in your own back yard. No matter how much oil you find, the yard will never be the same, your house will stand out from the rest and none of your neighbors will remain your friends. It is like cutting down the trees in the Amazon and making a quick buck, but destroying the future of your children and their children.

Happiness is not the same as instant gratification. It is not the same as temporary joy, excitement, elation or even comfort. Happiness is a state of mind that permeates everything in your life. It must be sustainable.

If not, all we have left is the pursuit, and that makes for a very hard and disappointing life.

So how can you tell if your focus is on the right sort of happiness and that you are not wasting your time on becoming more and more self-centered and self-serving?

I suggest that whatever you do and whenever you have a decision to make about a course of action, you use the following questions:

1. Is it good for me?
2. Is it good for others?
3. Is it good for the Greater Good?

Those who stop after the first question may very well make selfish decisions that hurt them in the long run, hurt others and ruin the future. But those who keep going through the list and assign the same level of importance to all of the answers make decisions that will lead them to more and more happiness over time.

Notice that these questions are all based on your personal interpretation of what is "good", who are "others" and what is the "Greater Good". It really does not matter how you see each of these, the simple consideration of other people, future generations, some kind of a moral system and/or society in general will always yield better decisions with more sustainable outcomes.

You see, the world is a very (VERY) large mirror. What we see in the world is a reflection of what is inside us, at least in some way.

Let's say your life is stressful and you decide to go on a 6-week meditation retreat on a mountain in India. Your partner will have to take care of the kids and your family will miss you terribly, your customers will get no service for a long time and your business will suffer from this, which will later hurt your ability to provide for your family. Sure, it will make you happy, at least while you are meditating, but at what cost?

By realizing the effects on others, you could instead learn to meditate at home, spend some time every week doing Yoga, possibly with your partner and children. It may take you longer to relax fully and feel pure and healthy, but you will find a lot more support around you to sustain your journey.

One of the worst trends today is divorce due to one of the partners being unfaithful. Every couple's life involves pressure and even conflict. Finding a fresh person and satisfying our hunger for attention and love with them may be a quick and easy way to temporary happiness, but at what cost?

By realizing the effects on others and on us in the long run and by looking at our society and seeing what this trend is doing to it, you would see that taking personal responsibility for your actions and investing in your existing relationships is a more sustainable approach. After all, there is no guarantee the new person will keep making you happy for long either.

As a parent, you may be happy when your kids play quietly, particularly if others see this as testament of your good parenting. So if your little boy starts throwing things around, you may feel he is stealing your happiness and making you look bad. You can call him "naughty" and do your best to "discipline" him, but at what cost?

Although you may feel justified in "setting him straight", when he stops trusting you and avoids your company, your will regret your actions and may not be able to recover from them. Moreover, if you examine the behavior of other kids whose parents react in a harsh and self-centered way, you will realize your influence on the world in which your kids grow up. It can be a place full of "naughty" people who feel bad about themselves or a place of trust and respect for all.

By realizing that your best parenting asset is your child's faith in you, you could try to find out what troubles him and guide him towards peace of mind.

Similarly, many parents link their happiness to their children's academic performance. If your teenage girl's grades begin to drop, you can nag her to do her homework, tell her she is lazy, forbid her to go on Facebook and ground her for weeks. You may see yourself as providing order and proper priorities to your daughter at a time of hormonal unrest, but at what cost?

By realizing your support role in her life, you could make her feel safe enough to pour her heart out and tell you her boyfriend broke up with her, let her cry a little on your shoulder and reassure her you will always be there for her. This will teach her how to handle grief and disappointment and validate her emotions.

All too often, there is a conflict between our immediate satisfaction and our long-term happiness. That is just how life works. What is good for us right now is never just that. We are surrounded by people with different interests, beliefs and desires that still matter. And even the people who live far away often have some influence on us (like those clearing the jungle trees in Indonesia or those who make our clothes in China).

So practice asking the questions above. First, you will have to think about every answer carefully, but over time, it will become second nature, like riding a bike. And just like riding a bike, it will make you happy.

Have a great life,
Gal

You may want to read

• Sharing and Caring
• More Control – Less Power
• Questions, Questions

I have a friend who goes on a men's camp every year. When his boys were young, he went by himself and felt very supported there. As soon as his boys turned 13 and were allowed to go with him, away they went together and spent a great time bonding - singing, dancing, doing physical exercise and watching performances. He has been nagging me to come with him on that camp for a few years now, saying there is something special about the freedom and "safe space" it provides.

So far, I have not gone.

In the past few months, Ronit worked with several boys whose father had died or spent a lot of time away from home. Whenever we talked about them, I kept having the feeling that although they were young (5 to 8 years old), they felt like little men. I felt they saw themselves as somewhat responsible for the wellbeing of their family and had to fill the very large shoes of their absent father.

That was not enough either.

But this week, Ronit said to me, "You should write a bit about the role of fathers in particular. If I write it, it will be like a lecture, but if you write it, it will be real". And then, out of the blue, I got a newsletter from Fathering Adventures, letting me know they now offer adventures not only to fathers and sons, but also to dads and daughters.

So I thought, "OK, that's it. I'd better write something on this topic".

Now, I am not a stereotypical man. I am not competitive, I never pick a fight, I do not drink, I do not swear, I love to cook, I work at home and do many homey things, like driving the kids to school, helping with homework, reading bedtime stories and so on. The main manly quality I have is the need to protect my family all the time and everywhere.

But I used to work long hours away from home and provide the main income, I used to be short-tempered when I was home and I used to be completely out of touch with what my family was going through. Even on weekends, it would take me until late on Saturday to get work out of my head so I can relax and participate.

When Eden was little, I was a very dogmatic and clueless father. Ronit was great (she was a very natural mother), so she took care of Eden, thinking it would be OK, because Eden needed a female role model anyway. In fact, Eden needed my company. In the evenings, when I told her it was time to shower and go to bed, she would refuse and we would have a big struggle, which ended in her agreeing to have a (long) bath instead of a (short) shower and me sitting beside her and listening to her tell me about her day.

Later on, I learned that fathers provide a very important role model to their daughters - that of a potential partner. In fact, the best way to ensure your daughter chooses a decent fellow for a husband and a decent father for her children is to be a decent husband yourself and a decent father to your children.

One of Eden's favorite things was to walk hand-in-hand with me. She would hold my hand and look proud, which made me feel great. She is 23 now (her birthday is tomorrow) and still does that.

I thought that was a natural thing many fathers did, until I heard a story from a friend of ours who is a great father about his 16-year-old daughter. He said, "She and I were walking along the beach and she reached out and held my hand. I realized it made me uncomfortable. I was thinking about what others might think about me walking around with a beautiful young girl. I wondered about the psychological stage she was in and whether holding my hand meant something, um, you know. Then she looked up at me and said, 'Dad, I love walking hand-in-hand with you like we did when I was little. I hope we never stop'. It hit me that as far as she was concerned, I would always be her father, no matter how old she was or how old I was, and that I made her feel safe and loved by holding her hand".

Are you having a soft moment?

When Tsoof was about 3 years old, he discovered soccer. After that, he wanted to play soccer all the time. Between the ages of 3 and 5, a time of endless energy, as soon as I walked in the door in the evening, stressed and hungry, the only thing I could do was play soccer with him. Ronit and Eden took care of dinner and I took care of Tsoof.

This was what you might consider a typical father and son relationship, involving sport, but Tsoof also started playing hand drums at that tender age and being the musical parent (I am auditory and Ronit is not), I also played with him, took him to classes and supported his musical development.

Noff is a lot more like Ronit, but I stayed home with her for a few months when she was a year old and I get to spend the most time with her more than I ever did with her older siblings while working corporate jobs. She is the most independent of our children and that is something I encourage her to be. You can find several posts in this blog about how she inspires me.

I believe that one of the biggest challenges fathers have in modern Western society is that, being the main breadwinners, they engage with their kids at the worst possible times, when they are at their wits' end, just wanting to sit down and shut everything out for while. In this state, the last thing they want to do is care for someone else.

I believe that if you ask any father, he will tell you he wishes he could show his children who he really is. That notion of "who I really am" means that every father acknowledges the effect of his circumstances on his relationship with his kids and feels in his guts that under different circumstances, he could have a great time with his kids and get a lot closer to them.

One idea is to go away with your kids to a place where circumstances are vastly different from your everyday life, where you and your children will go through something meaningful and special and where you will be able to pay close attention to one another for a few days in a row.

The video below is a bit overly dramatic for my liking, but every word spoken in it is gold, especially in the testimonials. The adventure packages include accommodations, food, kayaking, hiking, snorkeling and group coaching. There are weekend and 5-day adventures and there are adventures for "father and son" or "dad and daughter".

[Disclaimer: we get nothing from showing you this, other than the satisfaction of doing something good. While I was watching the video, Ronit jumped up and said, "That's a great idea for <one of her clients> and his son", and then picked up the phone and called him].

If you decide to give Fathering Adventures a try, please come back here and post a comment to let everyone know how it was.

Happy parenting,
Gal

You may want to read

• Ronit’s Parenting Bible: Role Model
• Ronit’s Parenting Bible: Love
• Ronit’s Parenting Bible: Who’s in Charge?

Computer games are not a dirty word if they support the development of the player. When a child plays a puzzle on the table, their cognitive skills are stretched as much as when they play a puzzle on the computer.

I remember preparing hundreds of pages that ask the kids to circle the "odd one out". Now, they can play many computer games that are way more colorful and varied that reuse the same "cards" for the children to choose from. I was limited by the number of stamps and my drawing ability and used lots of paper to allow each child to have enough pages to experience and learn. Now, any simple computer game can give the kids endless opportunities to find the odd one out, with great graphics, sounds and animation.

Some computer games are very effective at teaching kids cognitive skills. If you choose games that are not violent, no one needs to die and the player develops some skills or learns some strategy (not pure luck) then there is a good chance they will be effective as a teaching tool.

A research done on elders in East Carolina University's Psychophysiology Lab reported a sizable improvement in cognitive abilities among older adults who played casual games, like Bejeweled.

"The initial results of the study are very intriguing, in that they suggest that the 'active participation' required while playing a casual video game like Bejeweled provides an opportunity for mental exercise that more passive activities, like watching television, do not", said researcher Carmen Russoniello, "Future applications could include prescriptive applications using casual video games to potentially stave off Alzheimer’s disease and other dementia-type disorders".

The difference between what we used to do in the past and what happens now is that I knew the kids' level at any stage, because I needed to facilitate their learning, and now they move quickly and parents and teachers do not have to sit with kids while they are playing to monitor progress or time spent in front of the computer.

If you monitor the time your kids spend on the computer and make sure there is a good balance between machine interaction and human interaction and if you use the computer as a helper, not a substitute for your presence, you could realize the benefits of using computer games to sharpen your kids' minds and ... have fun yourself!

Happy parenting,
Ronit

You may want to read

• Raising Grownups
• Poor Busy Kids
• The Mean Average

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?

In parents' defense, I would say it is probably the way they were brought up themselves. I even think many are doing better than their parents did, considering the circumstances. They do not know another way (unless they have read enough of this blog).

In a strange way, by trying to control our children, we give them power over our levels of stress and our emotional wellbeing. By nagging, correcting and micromanaging them, we give THEM control over us. They simply use our obvious motivation to throw us to the mat and pin us down.

Ronit and I had a couple of good friends with a 5-year-old boy who refused to eat "good food". His mom begged, threatened and then offered a bribe. "If you eat your lunch/dinner/food, I'll buy you a big ice cream", she would promise. He would then say, "No, I want my ice cream first. I'll eat the food after". She would buy him the ice cream, he would eat it and then refuse to eat anything else. She would go absolutely nuts, but then do the same thing again the following day.

She was so eager to get him to eat some healthy food, she made a big deal out of it, so he leveraged it to get what he wanted every day and twice on Sundays (literally). She cared so much about how his eating habits reflected on her parenting quality, she put her little son in charge of her self-esteem.

This kind of situation is very scary for the child. It means the parent does not have a sense of priority and enough self-confidence to be in charge. Kids view their parents as almighty and being able to shake them so easily makes them unable to rely on the parents for their own security.

So what should parents do?

The secret to trading failure to control with real power involves developing a personal perspective, having clear priorities, focusing only on truly important things and assuming a coaching position.

How to develop a personal perspective in parenting

As always, start by finding a quiet time and place, then relax by taking a few long, deep, slow breaths. Once you are calm and your head is clear, imagine the last scene in which you tried to control your child and ended up pulling your hair out.

Freeze the scene, as if everyone in it suddenly turned into metal or stone (ice is too cold). Now, float out of your body and position yourself opposite the image of you. Take a good look at your face and your body language. It is very likely you will recognize a fear in yourself, which you have not been aware of, but seems to be the source of your pressure during the scene.

Ask yourself, "Why do I really want my child to do [whatever it was]? What was I afraid would happen if he/she didn't do it?"

In many interpersonal conflicts, at least one party considers their views universal and absolute. Often, by accepting them as personal preferences, the conflict goes away. In a struggle with your kids, it is important to realize that although you may believe you are doing what is best for them, you are always first and foremost serving your own interests. When you are afraid of something, you become defensive and uncompromising. That is just human.

Now ask yourself, "Realistically, if I said and did nothing that time, what is the worst thing that could happen?"

In our friend's case, her son would have become hungry over time without ice cream, which would have given her enormous power over him, because then he would have eaten anything she allowed him to eat. If only she overcame her fear for 30 minutes or so...

How to have clear parenting priorities

No matter how many times we ask parents this question and no matter how we present it to them, what parents want most for their children is happiness. They just want their kids to be happy. The rest is just ways to get there.

Now that you are calm and being honest with yourself, ask yourself, "Would my kids be happier if I taught them how to do everything right or if I let them experience life on their own?" Again, consider the most recent incident or perhaps the most common conflict with your kids for perspective.

As a minimum, children need to be healthy and safe. Beyond that, they need to be happy and learn how to stay healthy, safe and happy on their own. Anything we force them to do that serves another aim hurts everybody.

In our friend's case, the little boy became less and less secure and more and more defiant, searching for the point where his mother would finally provide a boundary for him. He was not happy, she was not happy and his father was not happy. A few years later, the couple split and the boy went to live with his dad.

How to assume a coaching position with your kids

Kids are just little people. They are people in the making. From the minute they are born, we need to treat them as individuals. They are not us. They are not part of us. They grow up in a different world and have different needs and different physical and psychological abilities and limitations.

If we deal with them to serve our own happiness, this will often result in conflict. They may not be able to explain it to us, but they can feel it.

But if we do our best to help THEM get what THEY want out of life (using age-appropriate methods, of course), there will be fewer conflicts, our kids will feel safe and supported and life will be good for everyone.

A split second before responding to anything your kids do or say, stop, breathe, look at the scene from a neutral position (do the scene freezing exercise above until you get the hang of this), find the response you believe will make everybody the happiest and then act.

If you do this for a while, your kids will learn to trust you. Then, when you need to stop them from doing something they shouldn't, they are likely to just follow your guidance, because you always look after their best interest. This belief in you, this trust, this confidence, is the real source of power in parenting.

So stop controlling your kids. Relax, focus, let go and be powerful.
Gal

You may want to read

• Questions, Questions
• Ronit’s Parenting Bible: Role Model
• Nagging Your Kids

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

Most parents find this annoying and challenging and resent their budding grownups for "bugging" them with their doubts and endless second-guessing. Those same parents typically frowned at them when they were 1 year old and walked around, pointing at things and asking, "What's this?" When they were 2 years old, their parents became frustrated that they wanted to do everything themselves, and when they were 4, the parents were upset because no matter what happened, they kept asking, "Why?"

But these tender ages, along with the rest of childhood, are a time of discovery, and questions keep our kids' mind sharp, teaching them about the world at their own pace and according to their own interests. In short, questions are good.

There are several types of questions, each with its own advantages and disadvantages, and all very useful in parenting and generally in life.

Open questions

These are useful for getting another person to speak and for getting more information. They often begin with the words what, why, when, who and how (collectively known as "WH Questions"), but they may also be presented as statements, such as "Tell me about..." or " Give me examples of..."

As parents of very young children, we may not always be able to use these questions, simply because our kids do not have the words to answer and describe what they want, feel and think. As they grow up, we need to pay attention to this and gradually ask more and more open questions to develop the kids' verbal expression.

Open questions inspire trust, because asking them is a sign of interest and respect. For example, when your child is late, asking the open question "What happened?" creates a safe conversation space and invites the child to share their story and possibly their feelings.

Closed questions

These questions require a yes or no answer and are useful for checking facts. They contain a statement on the part of the person asking and the only question is whether the other person agrees with that statement.

Closed questions (or "Yes/No Questions") can help us guess what very young children are trying to say and thus help them express themselves. However, when the child has to answer too many closed questions without "hitting the point", they will become frustrated.

Older children may view closed questions as an attempt to control the conversation, which they sometimes are. As parents, we should use these types of questions sparingly and check the assumptions we put into our questions carefully for any personal bias.

Closed questions are a great way to reach an agreement. By breaking up disagreements into parts and asking yes/no questions that solicit a positive answer, more and more common ground is established in preparation for the "little things" that remain to discuss.

Of course, when parental control is required, closed questions, such as "Do you understand?" may be in order, particularly to gain acknowledgement and avoid the later "Oh, I didn't know" routine.

Probing questions

These are used to determine facts, to verify understanding and get clarification. As human communication is widely open to interpretation, clarifying question are a great way to avoid jumping to conclusions.

I often hear people describe conversations they have had with someone that upset them and talk in generalizations. The questions "What exactly did he say?" or "What were her exact words?" help me help them reconsider their interpretation and feel better about the whole exchange.

After the second probing question, the other person may start to feel as though you are doubting them in some way or even suspecting them, because the conversation begins to seem like an interrogation, so use this type of questions only to clarify the important bits.

Hypothetical questions

Sometimes, we need to assess another person's abilities, preferences and limitations, but we cannot put them through an actual experience for some reason (too expensive, too risky, etc), like in an interview situation. With kids, we sometimes want to prepare them for the future in a safe environment and ensure they will do the right thing in a real situation.

Hypothetical questions, such as "What would you do if someone called you a bad name?" or "What would you do with a million dollars?" can help us achieve that. There is no risk and no cost involved in thinking about the answer, but the discovery process can help a lot.

As parents, we sometimes need to help our kids deal with anxiety about a new school, a new friend or some unknown situation ahead. We can break the situation into steps, ask, "What can you do if this happens?" and guide our child towards a confident way to respond, until the anxiety is gone.

Hypothetical questions should fit the child's age and experience. Also, dreaming is good, but to keep them focused on the present, remember to bring the conversation back to "What now?"

Reflective questions

When your kids (or anybody else, for that matter) have a strong emotion, they may be too focused on expressing it to notice what they are saying. By paraphrasing their statements and acknowledging their feelings in the form of questions, you are reflecting their words in a non-confrontational way and giving them a chance to deal with their emotions.

Reflective questions, such as "So are you saying you were hurt by what happened?" make the other person feel validated and accepted, because there is no judgment in the question. Sometimes, using more accurate words can make them feel even more deeply understood and supported by helping them understand their own feelings better ("you were hurt" instead of "I feel bad").

Be careful to reflect only things you have actually heard. Using information from other sources or taking a stand are not reflective and will likely cause the other person to clam up and feel even worse.

Leading questions

This type of questions is used to gain acceptance of your own view. If you say to someone, "You're going to be OK with this, right?" they may not like to disagree. You can also ask little understanding questions in the lead-up to presenting your "inevitable" conclusion.

When dealing with children, leading questions help them see the way you reason and gives them the confidence you know what you are doing. You can also use them to guide your kids in social situations towards the best way to express themselves, as in, "That was a really great dinner, wasn't it?"

The outcome of leading questions depends on where they lead, of course, and on the assumptions built into them, but they can be a powerful and gentle teaching method for you as a parent.

Questions that determine the answers

Ronit runs a presentation that demonstrates the danger in questions and the potential of using questions to manipulate. She displays a series of photographs of some real people and asks the audience to write down their answers to some questions. She then reveals the correct answers and the audience discovers just how biased their answers are.

But this is a deliberate exercise, in which the questions about the black man with the dark glasses are different from those about the young woman with the heavy makeup or the old man with the moustache.

In much the same way, reporters on TV pose pointy questions in their interviews, which children should learn to spot if they are ever to form their own opinion on the world. The modern world masquerades many manipulative statements in the form of questions and a good way to remain in control of our minds is to be aware of this and notice the effect it has on us.

Questions are good for parenting

Besides modeling questions for your kids, it is a good idea to encourage them to practice asking questions too by accepting their questions happily and providing good answers.

Questions are one of the main tools used in life coaching. Instead of giving the client advice, a life coach guides the client in exploring their own feelings and developing their own solution with questions, thus maintaining a professional position and ensuring the client's ownership of the solution. We believe that parents are their children's life coaches. Ask and you shall receive ... happy kids.

Happy parenting,
Gal

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• Lost in Translation
• Ronit’s Parenting Bible: Role Model

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

In the past three weeks, he has had many awards night, celebrations, final concerts and farewell parties. During those events, Tsoof received many awards for excellence, for leadership, for showmanship, for his contribution to his school, his friends and his community and we felt honored and blessed for his talents, his kindness and his love for what he does.

You seen this in the movies: the parent of the star performing on stage is sits in the crowd, looks around and tells everyone that sits next to them in excitement, "This is my son" Well, this is how we felt at every event. Tsoof is so talented and so famous we introduce ourselves as "Tsoof's mom/dad/sister" and we were very proud.

At the end-of-year Performing Arts evening, as the winner of the prestigious title "Performing Artist of the Year", Tsoof opened the night and said, "Good evening. My name is Tsoof. I am a school captain, Vocal Harmony and Wind Symphony captain, a member of the Senior Percussion Ensemble (Mac-cussion), Show Choir and Big Band. Thank you for coming this evening".

Gal, Eden, Noff and I sat the whole night proud as peacocks for being associated with him.

That was his last performance with all his ensembles, where he said goodbye to those who had contributed greatly to growing his talents, enthusiasm and passion for music - his music teachers. Three of them had been his musical mentors and had taught him for eight years, through both primary and high school.

David Adelt had been his percussion teacher and mentor since 5^th Grade. Lee Norell had been his band conductor since 5^th Grade and his composition and voice tutor in 12^th Grade. Jody Lutherburrow had been his band conductor since 5^th Grade. Tamara Luski had been his Vocal Harmony and Show Choir conductor and his classroom music teacher for the past 3 years. Sandy Armstrong had been his Performing Arts Coordinator and Music Extension teacher for the past 4 years. From every stage he performed on, he looked at these 5 teachers and thanked them for supporting and developing his talents.

As you know, teaching is not a very prestigious profession. The financial rewards are not that impressive, but the emotional rewards are enormous. When your students are successful, it is a record of your teaching ability.

When we sent our kids to school, I knew that some of the teachers they would meet on their journey would influence their life. I never dreamed it would be such profound impact, carved on every musical piece he writes, every tune he plays and every song he sings.

It is very rare that you have the same teacher for 8 years, let alone 3 of them. If they are great teachers, you can easily explain the excellence.

It was the end-of-year concert and I watched Tsoof performing in most of the numbers of that night. I looked at his teachers and realized they were sitting there, much like us, with teary eyes, proud as peacocks. Every one of them thanked the parents for supporting their kids in their musical pursuits and I whispered, "Thank you!"

Dear David, Lee, Jody, Tamara and Sandy,

I thank you for teaching my son about commitment and that getting up early in the morning, when it is still dark outside, is worth the effort.

I thank you for telling my son over and over again that he needs to play and sing for himself and not to please his parents, as that has developed his self-motivation.

I thank you for being role models for my son. Thank you for being generous with your time and modeling how putting your hand up to help others can make you a better person. Thank you for showing him that giving is the best way to receive.

I thank you for teaching my son that real winners are not those who get the best part or win the competitions but those who have the courage to stretch their boundaries, to try, practice, learn and compete with others, even if they don't have a chance to get the first prize.

I thank you for inspiring my son to embrace every opportunity and make the most of it.

I thank you for being so professional and having high expectations of my son, because I believe that his professionalism and excellence is a result of this constant stretch for excellence.

I thank you for not giving him "discounts" and lowering your expectations just because he had a busy schedule and other things to do. Thanks to this, he has proven to himself he can excel in academics too, despite his being so busy with music.

I thank you for teaching my son to be humble and setting an example of accepting others and their abilities without making fun of them or judging them.

Thank you for teaching my son teamwork, because the success of the ensembles in every piece played or sung was the result of everyone's ability to put the success of the team above their own.

Thank you for allowing him to wear his hat, grow his hair long, keep his uniqueness and show others around him that respect is something that comes from within and the urge for self-expression can be channeled in good ways.

Today, at the graduation ceremony of the Class of 2011, I wanted to say to you that as his teachers, my son spent more time with you than he did at home. I am a proud mother and I couldn't have done it without you.

Thank you so much!

To honor these teachers, Tsoof put together a band of friends to play an original song written by Andrew Butler, Jamee Seeto and Tsoof. They rehearsed for hours and at the final concert, they asked the teachers to sit in the front row and played their song for them. Unfortunately, there were some technical glitches, so when we got home, I asked Tsoof to record a simpler version of it. It is called "Goodbye" (temporary name) and describes the students' feelings about leaving their teachers.

Enjoy,
Ronit

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• Ronit’s Parenting Bible: School
• Beautiful Kids vs. Brutal Honesty

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