Best Mother’s Day Gift: Time for Self-Care

It’s Mother’s Day again this weekend and the quest for the best Mother’s Day gift is on. This time, I want to inspire mothers around the world to give something to themselves, and you can help.

As a mother, I find it very hard to take time for myself. I am so used to giving and giving and giving, maybe I forgot how to take. You see, I am self-employed and the balance between work and life is mine to control. Some say it is easier. I think it is harder.

I had my first business straight after I graduated from college and I was already a mother by then. It was tough, but it made me efficient. When my kids were young, I never protested. I accepted that giving was part of my role. Over time, I learned to take time for myself in the spaces between being with my kids, my husband, housework and my job, and gradually increased it.

Time for ourselves is short in our society and as hard as it is to admit, mothers have even less of it than anyone else.

Why mothers?

In our society, mothers are in charge of many aspects of family life. I do not really like the stereotypical jokes about what mothers do in the time it takes dads to say “Jack Robinson”, or what happens when mom is sick vs. when dad has the Man Flu, but there is a lot of truth in them.

One of my clients protested this for a long time. She was in charge of her household and family life for 4 years. When she was ready to get back to work and asked her husband to be with the kids for one evening a week, he did not manage.

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How to Have a Good Day Everyday

Every day may not be good but there is something good in every day

Martin was a gorgeous 7-year-old who came to me for child coaching. His mom called and said she felt she could not help him. He never had a good day. He did not even know what one looked like.

After an abusive relationship with her husband, she divorced him and moved away to start a new life. They had been living in a nice place and their life changed dramatically.

For the first six months after they divorced, Martin’s mom insisted on taking him to see his dad, but his dad did not show up. When his dad did show up, he was angry and aggressive and Martin refused to spend time with him.

Since his dad did not care whether he came or not, his mom decided to stop putting pressure on them to see each other. “Martin is way better than before. He used to cry and have nightmares, but it’s much better now”, she said.

Still, six months passed and Martin was angry, negative and grumpy and life was tough on him. He never smiled, the whole world was bad, it is everyone else’s fault and every tiny thing made him blow up with anger and throw temper tantrums. After years of abuse, Martin’s mom told me she needed help, because she felt she was losing her son.

So first, we played “If I were a wizard”.

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How to Join Your Kids’ “Fun Club”

We don't stop playing because we grow old. We grow old because we stop playing

Last week, I worked with a 7-year-old kid and when I asked him what mom or dad can do to make him happy, he said, “Be fun”. When I asked him if he liked his teacher, he said with a big smile, “Yes. She’s fun!”

I have heard this phrase from children many times. For them, fun is a currency. This is how they measure their relationships with their parents or with other people. First, you need to be fun. Then, you fit on a scale from “a little fun” to “great fun”.

The opposite of fun is old

I have written about the fun incentive as a motivation tool. It is also a trust tool, because it is a fantastic way to build rapport with your children. From working with many kids and raising my own children, I know that if you are not fun, you are old! Every time they say it, I feel I deserve it.

So as a parent, you need to get into your kids’ “fun club”. If you are in, they consider you as a partner for life and you can instill many thoughts, beliefs and ideas in their mind, as the best role model. If you are not at all in the club, you stand no chance.

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Why (and When) You Should Not Ask Your Kids “Why?”

Woman looking up in front of a blackboard full of question marks

Recently, I ran a professional development course for teachers and we had a big discussion about the simple question “Why?” When I told the participants we had to consider the use of this question carefully, they were confused. To them, “Why?” was an open question that allowed children to express themselves.

Why should we consider not allowing kids to express themselves?

When asked “Why?”, all the people in the world activate a mechanism in their brain that searches for the answer. Even if you ask the question and give the person a long time to find the answer, their brain will not rest until it finds the answer.

Therapists and teachers can make very good use for this when they want to develop mindfulness and critical thinking skills.

But “Why?” is a bad question when someone has done something we wish they had not done, like mess up the carpet, break our favorite vase or forget to do their homework.

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Emotional Intelligence Helps Raise Stress-Free Kids

We would all love to have stress-free kids, but we don’t. In fact, most parents today are stressed about their children’s stress level, which is a Catch 22.

My philosophy is that what we feel as parents is projected onto our children through very sophisticated neural mirroring functions that we all have. So stressed parents raise stressed kids, and when kids are feeling anxious or stressed, we feel even more stressed. This is a never-ending vicious cycle.

I think high emotional intelligence is the cure for stress and parents need to focus on increasing their own emotional intelligence and that of their children.

You are probably asking yourself, “What is the connection between emotional intelligence and stress-free kids?”

High emotional intelligence is the ability to recognize our own feelings and manage them. So if our children recognize our stress, they can learn ways to deal with this situation and can grow up without taking our feelings on themselves.

As hard as it is to admit, our children are stressed due to their relationships, schooling, academic achievements, digital connections, peer pressure and intense exposure to the media. This is part of their everyday life, and as their parents, we need to seek alternative ways to medication in order to switch this pressure off.

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How to Switch Your Parenting from Preaching to Teaching

The best teachers are those who show you where to look, but don't tell you what to see - Alexander K. Trenfor

In Parenting is Teaching, not Preaching, I explained why kids resent parents who take too long to explain things and why a relationship based on lecturing your kids is not healthy and makes the kids just not listen to you.

Today, I share five tips that will make the communication and cooperation at home better for you and show you how to switch your parenting from preaching to teaching.

1. No Pink Elephants

Parents are used to telling their kids what not to do. The words “don’t”, “stop” and “no” are very common in the parenting vocabulary. Unfortunately, using them only makes the child do more of what you are trying to stop. Read Beware of Pink Elephants for more.

Rather than telling your kids what not to do, tell them what you want them to do and notice how their behavior changes dramatically.

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Parenting is Teaching, not Preaching

Boy in tree with Batman symbol on his forehead

Last week, I ran a parenting workshop and parents’ biggest frustration was “My kids don’t listen to me”. Everyone in the workshop shared this frustration whether their children were toddlers or teens. It took me some time to change the focus of the workshop from complaining about it, which is suitable for psychology or “recovery”, to thinking about what we can do about it and how to move forward, which is more suitable for coaching or “discovery”.

Going through life is like sailing a ship and being its captain (see Sailing the Ship of Life for more). When we complain, it is like dropping an anchor, and when we consider what to do about the situation, it is like raising an anchor and moving forward. Progress may be slow at first, but it is better to move than to be stuck.

Parenting is just the same.

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Does Classroom Technology Improve Academic Achievement?

Technology, including classroom technology, is a very important part of our life in this day and age. When I had my first computer at the age of 24, my kids were born in a house with a computer that everyone could access whenever they needed. Today, we all have our own laptop and mobile phone (which is technically another computer).

Do you think that this technology improves their academic achievement?

I have been wondering for a long time whether the introduction of more classroom technology translates to higher academic success.

Recently, I saw some research done by The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), whose mission is to promote policies that will improve the economic and social well-being of people around the world. OECD ran an international study on the impact of introducing computers into the classroom on academic achievement and their conclusions were alarming.

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I am not Black, You are not White and We are not Labels

I have been doing diversity education for the last ten years. The more people I saw, the more I realized how important this work was. For some unknown reason, people like labels. They think that labels help them define the world. I believe they shrink the world, limit thinking and restrict our range of experiences.

When I was 21, I was greatly inspired by one of my psychology teachers at university. She came to class and asked us, “Who are you?” At first, we thought she was weird. Well, she was weird (at least this is how we labeled her), but the more we discussed this topic, the more we realized that this weird question was all about the labels we put on others to help us define ourselves.

In one of the classes, she asked me, “Ronit, who would you be if your parents gave you a different name?” I looked at her, unsure if I had understood the question. I was puzzled for a while, and then said, “Me!”

In our psychology classes, we discussed identity and how the labels we give to everything around us limit the range of the experiences we have. At one stage, she told us to move around the room based on our labels. She asked all females to move to one side, all males to the other. Then, she moved us around based on other labels we are given in everyday life, like height, age, race, religion, the area of the country where we grew up, etc. It didn’t take us long to realize that labels divide us into groups, and when this is done, it is very easy to control us.

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The Importance of Traveling with Kids

Traveling with kids is great fun. This is me and my kids posing on the beach

Traveling has been part of my life in the last 22 years. It started with a move from one country to another with a 4-year-old daughter and ended up being a passion. Last month, Gal and I went on a 3-week road trip with our 2 younger kids, Tsoof, my 20-year-old son, who had just graduated from university, and Noff, my 14-year-old daughter, who was starting 10th Grade. This road trip it reminded me again that taking kids out of the comfort zone of their rooms, TV, computer, mobile phones and friends, and introducing them to a different world, can do magic.

Recently, I worked with a couple (let’s call them Bob and Matilda) who had a conflict. He dreamed of taking the kids (16 and 14) on a 6-month road trip and she was shocked and concerned about the kids not going to school during that time. Bob had memories of his family, at the age of 9 years old, taking 6 months off to travel in England and he wanted to give his kids the same experience, before it was too late. Matilda had memories of a different childhood, in which she was never ever allowed to miss school, not even for a day.

I understood them both.

I grow up like Matilda did. We were not “allowed” to be sick (my mom had to work, my dad had to work, and we had no one to stay with us at home), so we didn’t miss school. I have to say there was something good about it, because in my adult life, I’ve never missed work or study due to sickness.

I also understood Bob, because I had traveled with my kids and witnessed the huge growth we all went through as a family and as individuals. I guess when you experience it once, you understand the value of it forever.

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