Tips for a Stress-Free Lifestyle (4)

Welcome to the 4th part of the Tips for a Stress-Free Lifestyle series. I hope the tips from the previous posts were helpful for you. Remember, all you need is 3-4 tips that will make the difference in your life.

Tip #31: Time for everything

When you do something, focus on doing it. When you eat – eat! When you take a shower – shower, and when you read a book – read a book. When you are on holiday – have fun and focus on having a good time. When you enjoy something and do it 100% instead of doing too many things at the same time, you can significantly decrease your stress levels.

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Things I Want My Kids to Know: The Door is Always Open

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.

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Great Expectations

When I was training to be a life coach, our instructor said to us that our level of disappointment is related to the gap between two things – our expectations and the facts. Although this may sound simple in principle and you may be saying to yourself, “Well, of course”, stop and think about real-life situations where you find yourself disappointed and you will soon see the problem.

I went out to lunch with a few other future life coaches, and one of them, Sarah, told me about some challenges she was having at the time with her teens. Sarah was married for the second time and had two teens of her own and two teens who were her husband’s kids. Most people would already cringe at this stage, right?

Anyway, Sarah said that her kids were well organized, but her husband’s teen daughter was “very messy” and kept leaving her clothes on the floor, which drove Sarah bonkers. When Sarah tried to confront her stepdaughter about tidying up her room, she got the “You’re not my mother” treatment.

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97 Positive Thoughts for Your Kids

All parents want to give their kids all that they wish. Happy thoughts and a positive mindset are the tools to get them everything they want in life. Here is a list of thoughts you want your kids to have.

Before introducing them to your kids, try to find out what they think now, and slowly shift their thoughts towards better ones. Remember, what they think will determine how successful they will be financially, academically and socially. It will determine their appreciation and wellbeing.

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Best Parenting Quotes that Will Change Your Life

Great parenting quotes are an awesome way to inspire ourselves as parents. These words of wisdom can help change our life and the life of our kids.

As you may know, I love quotes (and if you’ve had a chance to read my book or my life coaching website, you know). Since I was young, I believed that the quotes we choose to adopt help us plant thoughts in our mind.

If we choose inspiring, motivating and encouraging quotes, we develop have an inspiring, motivating and encouraging mindset. If we choose sarcastic, pessimistic and disappointed quotes, we will have exactly what we bargained for.

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Tips for a Stress-Free Lifestyle (3)

So far in the “60 Tips for a Stress-Free Lifestyle” series, I have outlined some tips that could help make life easier to deal with. I welcome you to the third part of the series and hope you find the tips to be valuable and effective ways to reduce stress.

If you are a parent, remember that your stress levels have a direct impact on your kids’ wellbeing. Take care of yourself. Calm parents find it easier to raise calm kids.

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Talk to the Heart

One day, I got a phone call from a mother, who was interested in our child coaching. I talked to her for a while to get a good understanding of her situation. During this conversation, we talked about things that were application to many parent-child situations, which I have since repeated with many parents, so here it is for everyone’s benefit.

Margaret: I have a problem with my teenage son, Jeff. He is 13 years old and I have completely lost control of him.

Gal: How do you mean?

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Just Wait Until Your Kids Become Teens

About 16 years ago, I went to visit a family member, who had her first child at the age of 42. I was very happy for her and traveled for 2 hours to see her precious new baby.

She was so overwhelmed by the 10 days of the “mom experience” she had had – sleepless nights, initial breastfeeding pains and crying – that for about 3 hours, she kept saying to me, “Ronit, just wait until you have a baby. Then you’ll see”, and I just smiled.

You see, motherhood can be hard at first, but when she said that, my own daughter was already 3 years old and I loved every minute of raising her and considered it a lot more rewarding than difficult.

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Kids are Disappearing: Ideal Family Size (poll)

I have been asked many times about the ideal family size. It is funny, but the answers to this question change every couple of years.

World statistics show that population growth is slowing down and that the desirable family size at the moment stands at 2.1 kids (2 kids and an arm…). In Iceland, Guatemala and Taiwan, people prefer to have bigger families, with an average of 3 kids per family.

While most people believe the family size depends on women’s preferences, the world statistics find that men and women mostly agree on the size of their family. Only in France, Singapore and Lithuania do women have a slightly greater desire for a larger family than men.

In the USA, the ideal-sized family between 1936 and 1967 had “3 or more children”. In 1973, this dropped from 3.6 down to 2.8 and in 1980, it dropped again to 2.5.

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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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