Family MattersPractical Parenting Blog

Kids and Humor

2 boys laughing

Kids laugh a lot but not everything is funny for them. Watching them can teach us a lot about the complication required to understand humor. The younger the kids, the clumsier they are at telling jokes, and many of them do not think jokes are funny at all.

In the early years, kids laugh at things that do not seem funny at all to the adults. At the age of 6 or 7, kids discover humor when they start to understand the double meaning of words. Only at that stage, when their language develops enough, do they have the capacity to shift from one verbal meaning to the other.

This understanding is so important that they can never get to the punch line without it.

Read Kids and Humor »

Happy Kids Learn Better

Child learning

For many years, gaining knowledge was the reason kids were sent to school. Knowledge, for many years, was king.

In today’s fast world and overwhelming information, we see many kids in school that have great knowledge but not the ability to succeed in their schooling. What do you think the reason is?

Emotional intelligence was researched during the 70s and the 80s when Howard Gardner wrote in his book Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences about his Multiple Intelligence theory. Basically, based on Gardner’s theory, people can have talents and exceptional abilities in areas other than academics.

Read Happy Kids Learn Better »

The Be Happy in LIFE Kids Coaching Program

A row of happy kids

Last month, I wrote about the reasons we as parents need to appreciate and use coaching as a parenting tool.

Today, I would like to tell you a little bit about how it all started for me and introduce the Be Happy in LIFE kids coaching program.

It all started 18 years ago, when I wrote the Garden of Eden program, which put most of the emphasis emotional intelligence. I started an early childhood center with kids aged 1½ to 4 and proved that excellence depends on the teaching, not on the kids.

In the 2 years that followed, the kids at my center accomplished things that blew their parents away. They put together puzzles with many pieces very quickly, they built elaborate constructions, they painted the walls, they recognized written words and lots more. Oh, yes, and they ate healthy food and boasted about it.

Read The Be Happy in LIFE Kids Coaching Program »

The War on ADHD

Boy concentrating on homework

This is great! A couple of weeks ago, I posted my thoughts on ADHD in ADHD Must Be Contagious. This started quite a bit of a discussion on a site dedicated to ADHD families, in a post titled “Life coach wonders if ADHD is contagious”.

The author, who has kids with ADHD, agreed with some of my points, but did not agree with others. Others made some strong comments, describing their own experience as hyperactive individuals or their relatives.

I believe that awareness is very important and we need to discuss our agreements and disagreements regarding ADHD in order to find a solution for us all – kids, parents and teachers.

Read The War on ADHD »

Kids are Like Fish

Gold Fish

Kids are like fish. No, not because they are pretty and cute (although they are pretty and cute) but because their ability to grow depends on their environment, much like fish.

Did you know that fish will grow to the size that will be supported by their surroundings?

If you put a fish in a small bowl, it will grow to fit the size of the bowl. If you take the same fish into a small pond, it will grow bigger. If you move it to a lake, the same fish can grow to be big, really big.

Kids also have this fishy characteristic. For them, life is a fish bowl and they depend on the grown ups in their life to find a good size bowl to call home. They also depend on the grown ups in their life to “clean the water” and supply them with “food”.

Read Kids are Like Fish »

Happy Parents – The Magic Formula for Happy Kids

Pregnant belly with hand prints

In Israel, there is a form of communal living called “Kibutz”, where children live in a room with other kids almost from birth and are being cared for by a carer. In that arrangement, parents came to spend time with their kids before and after work, met them for breakfast, lunch and dinner in the communal dining hall but the kids spent most of their life with their carers and friends and hardly ever slept at “home”. A research over 40 years found the most amazing thing – although those kids spent fairly little time together with their parents, all of them declared that their parents had the biggest influence on their life.

Read Happy Parents – The Magic Formula for Happy Kids »

ADHD Must Be Contagious

Active little boy laughing - that's not ADHD

Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD) is very trendy. If you search on Google, you will see that there are 34,800,000 hits for it (this is today, but I am sure tomorrow it there will be more, if only because I am adding this post…). It is amazing that as the years goes by, the percentage of kids and people with ADHD goes up.

Do you have an explanation to this?

In this post, let me try to give you some explanation to this inflation in the diagnosis of ADHD.

Read ADHD Must Be Contagious »

Kids Coaching? Of Course!

Girl smiling and playing guitar - kids coaching can do this for you too

Why wait until your kids are 40 and miserable? Is it not better to give them a head start in life?

Why let them develop ineffective habits? Is it not better to help them develop powerful ones instead?

Read Kids Coaching? Of Course! »

Dare to Dream

Cocktail on a tropical beach

For many people, dreams are the fluffy clouds we see at night when we go to sleep (well, in fact, only the visual people imagine a picture while dreaming).

Another dream in daily use is the wish. We wish for things and by this we tell our subconscious that this is what we want.

Every special event in our life triggers dreams in peoples’ mind. Birthdays, a new job, moving to a new house, a new year and every other new thing that has a feeling of a beginning, has the power to trigger such dreams.

Funny, but we can, if we dare, dream every day of our life.

Every day is the first day of the rest of your life

Read Dare to Dream »

Proud as a Peacock

Peacock

My daughter is celebrating her 19th birthday this week. It is an exciting time for us both. Can you imagine? 19 years!

Sometimes, when I try to remember her crawling on the floor or saying her first words (which was early, very early), I have only vague memories.

She is so big now (she is taller than me, but that is easy), yet she is still young and acts like a child. She is so mature, yet she is naïve.

Our kids’ birthdays are a wonderful way for us to take stock of our parenting. Every year, they grow and mature and learn about themselves, we do too. We learn about our achievements or our challenges and it makes us better people, better parents.

Read Proud as a Peacock »

Get Happiness by Email

Sign up to receive posts by email and get my free mini-course Seven Emails with Seven Secrets for Seven Weeks to boost your personal development




    Join Us on Social Media

    Books by Ronit Baras

    Be Happy in LIFE logo
    Book your private life coaching with Ronit Baras and learn how to be happy in life

    Girl speaking at student leadership programLeaders are not born. They are made. Bring this Student Leadership Program to your primary school or high school and you will create a community of empowered, inspired student leaders, parents and teachers.