Are We Clear?

Some time ago, my daughter Eden had a very busy time with her Event Management studies, work and social life, and Ronit and I tried to keep up with her by asking for her plans and then keeping each other up to date.

One day, Eden said to me “I have no classes tomorrow”, and I thought she might be spending the day at home, catching up, and maybe we can spend some time together.

In the evening, when we were talking about the next day, however, Ronit said to me “Eden is going to study tomorrow”.

“That can’t be”, I said, “She told me she wasn’t going to study”.

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Tips for a Stress-Free Lifestyle (2)

This entry is part 2 of 7 in the series Tips for a Stress-Free Lifestyle

Last week, I started the series “Tips for a Stress-Free Lifestyle”. I welcome you to the second part of the series and hope you find great tips to reduce stress in your life and move to “the happy zone”.

Tip #11: Duplicate important keys

Forgetting is something that creates lots of stress. It happened to me once that I could not find my house keys (I had forgotten to take them with me when I left the house). Make copies of all your keys. Bury a house key somewhere in your garden. Have a duplicate car key somewhere apart from your key ring.

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Kids Shopping for a Feeling

Among the roles of a parent, the one role that parents do not like very much is being a bank. How many times have you heard yourself say, “Do I look like a bank?” or “Money does not grow on trees”? At one point, every parent wishes they could give their children everything they desire, until they realize that not everything their kids want is what they actually want to give them.

The “Daddy, buy me!” syndrome is a modern disease of our materialistic world. Once upon a time, everyone was poor and the heroes of our old stories were of a time when people always shared their last remaining bits of food with animals and people who “needed it more”.

Nowadays, in our world of abundance, there are advertisements everywhere, encouraging people to buy things they really do not need. Those ads treat everyone as if they had an enormous budget and try to convince you that you cannot possibly live without this and that even your “Daddy bank” cannot stand in your way.

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Parenting the Socrates Way: Types of Questions

This entry is part 3 of 3 in the series Parenting the Socrates Way

Over the last two weeks, I presented the technique of parenting the Socrates way through questions. The first chapter introduced the benefit of asking questions. The second chapter discussed the right and wrong questions to ask. This week, we will explore the types of questions that you can use to stimulate thinking, creativity, focus, proportion, clarity, motivation and growth in your children.

“An honest man is always a child”
– Socrates

Open questions – Questions that make kids think.
For example, “What do you think?”

Closed question – Questions that can be answered with “yes” or “no”.
For example, “Would you like to come with me to the shops?”

Why questions – Questions that go deep in order to find reasons (and can encourage the kids to give excuses or to blame someone, so be careful about them).
For example, “Why are your hands dirty?”

Rhetorical questions…

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Ms Self Esteem has an Identity Crisis

This entry is part 12 of 20 in the series Self Esteem Mini-Course

The term “self-esteem” comes from a Greek word meaning, “reverence for self”. “Reverence” means “respect, admiration, worship, awe, astonishment and amazement”.

The “self” part of self-esteem, as I have described in the early chapters of this mini-course, includes the values, beliefs and attitudes that we hold about ourselves.

The “esteem” part of self-esteem, means having “high regard” or a “good opinion” of our values, beliefs and attitudes.

Whether you choose the two simple words “Self Esteem” or the 3 Greek words “reverence for self”, it seems that self-esteem, for most, is having an identity crisis and is in urgent need of therapy.

Since launching this course, I have had many questions about the definition of self-esteem. It is amazing to discover how diverse and deep the meanings can be (well, any discovery is amazing). So I have decided to take Ms Self Esteem (some will say it is a Mr) to the experts to discuss this crisis.

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Tips for a Stress-Free Lifestyle (1)

Stress free lifestyle: hot tea and a flower

This entry is part 1 of 7 in the series Tips for a Stress-Free Lifestyle

According to scientists, stress is the number 1 cause of mental and physical problems in humans in the 21st century. I think we are so stressed because life today is much more complicated than previously: there are too many options, too much stimulation and everything goes so fast. Way too fast.

If you go to the doctor because of your weight, he tells you to reduce your stress.

If you go to the doctor because you cannot get pregnant, he tells you to take care of your stress levels.

If you have a heart attack, your doctor tells you to work out your work-life balance to reduce your stress and tension.

If you have headaches, the doctors prescribes a vacation.

Conclusion: stress is caused by doctors!

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Sarcasm – The Weapon of Helplessness

Ronit and I have a very good friend, who has been in a difficult personal situation in the past couple of years. He feels very frustrated by his circumstances and sees himself powerless to break out of them and live a happy life again.

Often, when he talks to other people, he uses sarcasm.

For example, one day he was contacted by a large company, which I was not familiar with. He got excited about it, but wanted to seem like he was keeping his cool, so as not to get disappointed if he did not get an order from them later on. So he said to me, “Gal, I just got off the phone with company XYZ”.

“What is this company?”, I asked.

“Oh, it’s just a small company nobody knows”, he said in a seemingly casual tone.

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Divorcing Your Parents (Poll)

I get many questions about parent-child relationships and thought it would be a good idea to have a poll about your relationship with your parents. How is your relationship with your parents? Do you think your parents have done the right things by you as a child? Have you ever considered divorcing them?

I have been talking (OK, writing) a lot about parenting and relationships and I believe that the way our parents bring us up has an enormous effect on our attitude towards our own children (for good and for bad).

You think of the word “divorce” as describing the situation when a couple is going through a relationship breakdown. However, parents and kids (even grown-up kids) go through what I like to call an “emotional divorce”.

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Ronit Baras’ Success Experience Theory

Kids having a success experience at the computer

This entry is part 11 of 20 in the series Self Esteem Mini-Course

The more success experiences kids have when they’re young the higher their self esteem. Your role as a parent is to provide your children with opportunities to succeed.

Many parents ask me about their kids’ self-esteem. It’s hard for parents to accept that the kids they love so much and worked so hard to raise the best way they could, may still have low self-esteem and that it affects their happiness and success in life.

Parents who are on a quest to have happy kids, need to take into consideration that much of the self-esteem is developed during childhood. This takes us back to the early years, which I believe are the most important in our development.

This does not mean that self-esteem cannot be changed at any other time in life by choice. It just means that your child, just like you are doing now, will have to make extra effort to change it later.

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Are Your Kids Stress Free?

Stress is considered the number one killer in our society. Whereas in the past, a healthy lifestyle included eating well, sleeping well and exercising enough as the main characteristics, today, being stress-free is another important one.

As a parent, I am sure that you feel stressed many times a day. Juggling home tasks, quality time with your partner, work and attending to all your kids’ needs can be demanding. Stress becomes part of everyday life. Stress is a feeling of tension or pressure because of something that happened in the past, something that is happening now or fear of something that might only happen in the future.

Stress and constant pressure can make you unhappy and unhealthy. The most common problems associated with stress are insomnia, migraine, indigestion and depression.

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