Martin (not his real name) came with his mom to an assessment with me. He stood at my door, the cutest redheaded 5-year-old, with a cheeky smile. He looked down, but whenever he lifted his head, I could see that his eyes were smiling.
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.
Many parents struggle with keeping their kids busy. One of the things parents hate hearing the most is “I’m bored”. Parents are very busy nowadays and feel they need money to give their kids what they want.
Weekends and holidays are the main stressful times for parents and many of us need a holiday after the holidays to recover, because keeping the kids busy can be hard work.
But in fact, there are many fun and exciting activities you can do with your kids with little or no money at all. You just need to look around a bit.
There is a wonderful story of a young girl who believed in miracles. I thought it was a good idea to bring it here so you can read it too and be inspired.
Two weeks ago, I wrote a post about my experience with a group of 3-year-olds. I managed to convince them (it wasn’t a hard work at all and it was a lot of fun) that they had magic in their little hands. It was magic that from that moment on, those young kids used their small hands to comfort each other and felt very powerful.
I remember a childhood story about a teacher who wanted to make her young students happy by planting a “bubble gum bush”. She planted some bubble gum wrappers with the kids and when they came two weeks after, they found a small bush with bubble gum hanging from its branches.
Kids behave differently at home and parents wonder many times about the difference between them and the teachers. Some parents are surprised when a teacher says, “Your child is an angel in my class”.
I remember my mom coming home from a parent-teacher meeting in my sister’s class and saying, “It was as if we were talking about a different girl” (she did not say this about me, because I was trouble in both places).
Over 23 years of teaching, I have been asked many questions regarding school and home, teachers and parents.
Some parents have aggressive kids. Some parents have nice kids, who behave aggressively sometimes.
Teens, for example, because they are in “the argumentative age”, have more conflicts with their parents and this creates an endless cycle of disciplinary action, which creates arguments, which bring more discipline and then more arguments…
Not all kids know they need to be easy to parent. When they are born, no one tells them they need to do everything their parents expect of them. Or what to do when there are conflicts of expectations.
Read Aggressive Kids »
It was Monday morning when I brought my green sprouting container to school. A group of 3-year-old kids ran towards me to see my “surprise”. I opened the plastic bag and took it out. The idea had come into my mind after my Reiki course.
Barbara McGregor, my Reiki teacher, had told us that kids, have life energy in their hands naturally and my brain had clicked. Even if they did not, I could always make sure they did…
“What is this?” they asked excitedly.
“We are going to do some magic”, I told them.
Read Magic in Little Hands »
Whether we like it or not, parents are human beings. What can we do?
So sometimes, we have bad days. Sometimes, we need something to be proud of, because otherwise, we would feel pretty bad about ourselves. Sometimes, we just need reassurance that things will get better, preferably thanks to us. This is why we have kids.
If you are working a full time job, fostering aspirations of promotion and glory, you may be spending much of your time at work, or at least being preoccupied with it. When you come home, you are not in the best of moods, your head is filled with things that still need to be done, by you, for which the due date has not moved, despite the sad fact you have not done them today.
Read While You Were Sleeping »
This week, I have read (again) an alarming statistic about the rate of divorce and the devastating effect of divorce on children. When I think about my parents, I know I need to thank them in every way I can for being able to handle all the conflicts between them and reach their 50th anniversary.
Conflicts between parents are inevitable. After all, Mom and Dad are two separate people, coming from different backgrounds and sharing life together – a house, romance, kids and finances – in hope of making it the best experience ever.
In research done in 1982 (R.E. Emery) and 1990 (E. Mark), it was found that even young kids are strongly hurt by their parents’ conflicts. It is actually possible to measure parents’ anger through their kids’ psychological, behavioral an emotional state. When I worked with groups of 2-4 year-olds, I could tell when there was tension at home or when one of the parents was away from home.
Read Monkey See, Monkey Do »
When my daughter was born, I did not attend a sleeping school to learn about good sleeping habits. Sure enough, we were so excited with the arrival of the new baby that we tried to spend every second with her. When she was 11 months old, we discovered that we did not have a life.
Eden was a “no-sleep baby”. She just did not want to go to sleep. Once she closed her eyes and stopped moving, she would sleep really well, so I am not complaining, because this meant that I rarely had to wake up in the middle of the night. But, the difficulty I had was in getting her to go to bed and fall sleep.
Even now, when she is 19 years old, we still see every night the struggle between her body and her mind. Her body tells her to go to bed and her mind still thinks that sleeping is the greatest waste of time.
This week, I had a talk with my 19-year-old daughter about leaving home. Because some of her friends had left home and then had to come back due to financial difficulties, we talked about the emotional aspect of “going back home”.
When we talked, she told me about the feelings of shame, failure, disappointment and many other negative feelings that would be associated with having to go back home. It was after this talk that I realized there is one more thing I want my kids to know.
The following is a very true story.
Read Things I Want My Kids to Know: The Door is Always Open »
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