Education System on Trial and Found Guilty

Until I studied Education, I had not questioned the education system. I do not think I’d had the tools to question it. But by the time I graduated (in Special Education), I had realized something was wrong. It was easy to see this while working with kids who were different (both gifted and those with learning difficulties).

Why?

Because special education kids did not fit into the “education box” and the school system did not cater for them. It got worse when I realized, thanks to my amazingly wonderful teachers, that the system just did not care for any of the kids, because every child is special and different in some way. The system cared for itself.

It was devastating!

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How to Develop Kids’ Thinking: Ask the Right Questions

Parents often ask me how to develop kids’ thinking, so that they grow up to be successful and happy. My answer is: ask the right questions.

Beliefs form the boundaries around our thinking. They separate between what we think we can and cannot do. What we believe we can do is within the boundaries of our thinking. We call these “empowering beliefs”. What we think we cannot do is outside the boundaries of our thinking. We call these “limiting beliefs”.

We are all limited in the way we think. Why? Because we do not know what we do not know. Think of the brain as a map we design from the moment we are born. We are exposed to many things and form beliefs that we use to navigate life.

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Singing Family Full of Joy

Noff with a microphone and Tsoof on guitar

On my happy list, I wrote, “It makes me happy to listen to my kids singing”. This was true even when they were babies. I remember my youngest daughter Noff joining us in Alicia Keys’ song Fallin’ when she was one year old. She always joined on time and it made us all very happy.

Singing is a very sensitive thing for me. Well, it was very sensitive. Today, when I run workshops or stand in front of a big crowd during my presentations, no one can guess that years ago, when I was young, I sometimes had no voice. Speaking was difficult for me and singing was not even an option.

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How to Keep Negativity Away from You

Girl looking worried while giving the thumbs up

Last week, in Toxic People and Why You Should Stay Away from Them, I wrote about the kinds of people we should stay away from when we feel they are damaging our self-esteem. In this post, I will cover some ways to keep those people away from your heart and minimize their influence on your mind.

The main difficulty we have with energy consumers is that we take their negative influence with us, even when they are not present physically. By taking it with us, we spread the bad vibes to other areas of our life and affect other people in our lives negatively.

Think of this negativity, as a virus that spreads and damages people’s self-esteem. To overcome the virus, you need to find its source and then, make sure it will not spread.

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Disrespectful Behavior is a Mirror: Talk With Kids, Not At Them

A handshake surrounded by the word respect

“Kids today are very disrespectful” is a common phrase I have heard a lot lately. Parents and teachers are very frustrated about this issue of respect. When children exhibit disrespectful behavior, they get into lots of conflicts and trouble and their ability to learn and absorb information is limited.

Respect is a very popular topic at home and at school. Most parents and teachers demand respect and by that, they do not understand that respect is earned and works like a mirror. When your behavior is disrespectful towards children, they will have no respect for you either.

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Experiences, not Possessions: How to Best Spend Money on Your Kids

If you wonder how to give your kids the best life possible, do not buy them things. Instead, give them great, exciting experiences. Research shows they will remember special events and adventures longer and relive the joy and excitement again and again.

We live in a world of abundance. If you want to understand how much you have today, all you need to do is think of how your life would have been 50 years ago. I like asking myself, “What did my parents not have 50 years ago that I (or my kids) have today?” It is a good lesson in perspective.

Unfortunately, not every person who asks this question reaches the same conclusion. Some people feel grateful and other feel fear. Grateful people, who feel that they are fortunate, tend to appreciate what they have and care for it. Fearful people panic and start to accumulate things. No matter how much they accumulate, they are never happy. Fear takes away the joy of what they already have.

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Children with Auditory Processing Disorders or Not?

A brain made from words marking the different brain functions

I went to study special education to help children and adults with learning difficulties. When I started my journey, over 30 years ago, I thought there were many people with learning difficulties. I still think there are, but in the past, I was convinced they were “organic” – physical, possibly genetic – and therefore hard to change.

Now, after seeing so many children and people of all ages, I think that social attitude creates or aggravates the problems in many cases. Many people have small difficulties that are blown out of proportion and labeled as disorders.

Auditory processing disorders are very popular and easily labeled, even among very young children. Every year that passes, I hear about younger and younger kids with auditory processing disorders. Recently, I even talked to a mother whose son was one year old and she insisted he had an auditory processing disorder. I am qualified enough to know that I cannot assess a child for APD at one year of age.

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Body Piercing: Laws Without Teeth

My eldest daughter Eden wanted a body piercing in her belly button when she as 15. She was already in 11th Grade and some of her friends had them. When she said that it would be beautiful, I could not disagree. It would be beautiful, but the thought of her damaging her body was very unattractive to me.

At first, I felt a bit hypocritical. I had my ears pierced when I was young. In my neighborhood, kids had their ears pierced when they were one to two years old. I was “old” (6 or 7) and did it at my neighbor’s house. At the time, it was not a choice but a social obligation. Back then, this defined me as a girl.

I got my second piercing when I was 21. This was my choice. It was a compromise, because having seven earrings in one ear was the norm at the time. Still, I did it due to peer pressure. It was accepted, it was common, it was cool and it was pretty.

How could I blame my daughter for wanting to do the same 25 years later?

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Assertiveness: Keeping Things Private

In order for us to be assertive, we need to create clear boundaries between us and other people. In the previous post about assertiveness, I explained that assertiveness is the ability to express our needs and desires without hurting others and that this skill is important, yet nobody learns it at school. In this post, I will describe the things we do (and should not do) that sacrifice our own best interest and let other people into our personal space.

In order to be assertive, we must understand that everyone is entitled to his or her own thoughts, beliefs and actions. At the same time, we do not have to accept them as applicable to us. We should always stick to the things that are important to us and take care of ourselves first.

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Be Your Child’s Speech Therapist with Mouth Gym

Over the last 30 years, I have had a chance to see many children with speech difficulties. Children who do not speak properly may sound cute at first, but this might become an obstacle as they grow up. At some stage, their parents stress about it and take them to a speech therapist or a speech pathologist.

But parents can fix some of the speech problems very easily. This post includes my tips for fixing one of the major speech difficulties – physical sound production. Hundreds of parents around the world have used them and changed their children’s life. If your child has trouble pronouncing words, you do not need a speech therapist.

Using the suggestions below will do the same for your child.

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