Family Matters: Practical Parenting Blog

Home Alone: How Not to Have a Boring Time

Recently, I had the opportunity to experience being by myself for a whole month. My son and my husband went to Africa for a drumming camp and I stayed home with my youngest daughter. She is 17 years old, independent and enjoying her time off between finishing high school and starting acting school, so I was mostly by myself, but I did not have a boring moment.

The last time Gal was away was over 12 years ago, when he went to be with his mother on her last hours and I stayed home with 3 kids. My youngest was 5 years old and I was not by myself at all.

Surprisingly, most of the people who knew Gal was away asked me how I managed being by myself. I didn’t really understand the question.

They asked me if it wasn’t boring to be on my own.

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Success vs. Talent: How I almost made the Olympic team

Some people think that talent is the only thing we need to succeed in life. I thought so too when I was young. I was very talented in gymnastics and I thought that talent was the only thing I needed. It was very hard for me to realize that talent was just a baseline and guaranteed nothing.

I’m all for helping our children find their talent, but finding it, and even pursuing it, is not enough for success. They need something more.

Not long ago, I had the honor of working with two amazing young athletes on the Australian Olympic team. They were both equally talented and had all the physical skills, but one of them had what it takes to succeed, and the other didn’t.

Working with them reminded me of my Olympic team adventure as a child and why talent is not enough for success.

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Make Your Bed to Make Your Day

Believe it or not, if you make your bed in the morning, it will make your day. You’ll be happier, clearer and more productive. There’s research showing it’s true.

I have been on a search for family tips from the moment I had children. Almost 30 years ago, becoming a mother made me realize that efficiency can help me a lot in managing work and home, and that being efficient gave me more time with my kids.

As parents, we need to choose how to balance our time across many important things. Slowly, we tend to let go of some things we care about for other things we find more important.

In my leadership training, I emphasize that life is not hard when we need to choose between things that are very important and things that are less important. That’s an easy choice! It is much harder to choose between things that are equally important to us. When children appear, we have to do that a lot, and that’s not easy.

This post is part of 24 in the series Handy Family Tips

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Best Family Quotes by Virginia Satir

The family quotes in this post were written by Virginia Satir, the mother of Family Therapy. I appreciate her and have learned a lot from her over the years, and some of her best quotes hang where I can read them again and again.

Virginia Satir’s quotes about family and her philosophy about family relationships have become a great compass for me. I would like to share them with you and inspire you to consider and adopt her ideas about family.

One of the reasons I enjoyed Virginia Satir’s work was that she started as an educator, and so did I. I have a soft spot for people who are educators as, because I think their spin on their work is different and more effective.

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How to Have a Hot Relationship

Having a relationship is like playing a game of “hot-cold”. We used to play it when we were kids. In this game, someone searched for a hidden object and we gave them clues by saying “hot” when they got close to it and “cold” when they moved away. I remember we used to say “steaming” when the person was very close and “freezing” when they were really far.

Relationships are exactly the same. If both partners are closer to fulfilling each other’s need, they have a hot relationship. If they are far from fulfilling each other’s needs, the relationship is cold.

When two people come together, each one is different from the other. They have a different history, different needs, different expectations, different styles of communication, different skills and talents. Yet, they find something in the other person that makes them attractive to them.

Think of attractive as “hot”, very attractive as “steaming”, unattractive as “cold”, and very unattractive as “freezing”. The scale from “freezing” to “steaming” can predict the quality of the relationship depending on where people sit on the scale.

I work with many couples who come for coaching to save their marriage or long-term relationship. Too many of them say that there is no warmth in their relationship. They have a freezing feeling which makes it hard for them to sustain the relationship.

This post is part 33 of 33 in the series Save Your Marriage

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Cruising for Perspective: What I Learned on a Cruise Ship

Some time ago, Gal and I went on a cruise together. It was the first time we had been on that type of cruise. What a wonderful lesson in perspective it was. Sometimes, we need a change of scenery to appreciate what we have.

Many years ago, we cruised from Miami to the Bahamas, but that was very short and the only thing I remember is that everyone gambled, and we didn’t like that at all.

The second time we cruised was when we lived in Singapore. Our daughter was 9 years old and our son was just under 3 years old. We took a cruise for three days with another family. They had an 8-year-old, a 5-year-old and a 1-year-old baby. We were at sea and things didn’t get as glamorous as we’d expected, because we had no babysitting arrangement and it was not very friendly to kids.

We ended up agreeing with our friends that one night, they would stay with all the kids and we would see the show and the next night, we would swap. It was two nights and apart from the excitement of being at sea and having “free” meals, it was hard work.

This time, we went on a cruise because our daughter had gone on a cruise with her husband and it had been a great experience for them. We booked a 7-day cruise and started asking friends and family about their experiences, which were mostly positive.

So, we went on the cruise and this is what we learned.

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New Year Reflection Activity Continued

The year 2019 is approaching. If you’ve New Year Activity: Reflection on 2018, you know why it’s important to take stock of your life and prepare for the next year.

I honestly believe that holidays, and time off in general, can help charge our batteries and help us gain perspective. I think we all should write goals when we are on vacation, or right when we come back, because we are usually wiser then.

Not everyone can take a long vacation, so here is a list that will help you gain perspective even if you can’t get a lot of time off.

Ask yourself the questions on the list below for a detailed reflection on the ending year in preparation for the year to come and have a great 2019!

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New Year Activity: Reflection on 2018

We are approaching the end of 2018 and our Be Happy family is preparing for a vacation. Every year, around this time, we take a month off to recharge our batteries. I believe that recharging our batteries is very important. It’s like eating food. We eat so we can get through 3-4 hours without food, and the quality of our food is important. For me, holidays are food for the soul and they give us the energy to survive the next year.

I think we are a lucky family, because we can take that time off. I do not take it for granted, because I know many people can only take the week of Christmas and New Year off.

I often measure the quality of the year by how many vacations I’ve taken. This year was a great year for me, because I took several short and long breaks. I am very grateful for being able to do that.

Every holiday is a lesson in perspective that allows me to examine my life and make changes for the following days, months and years of my life. I want to help you do the same, even if you can’t take a long vacation.

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Contentment and Gratitude: How Green is Your Grass?

I’ve written a lot about happiness and realized that some people just don’t get that happiness is an idea, a thought, an action you choose. On the other hand, unhappiness is the absence of that idea. One of the things that make people miserable is always comparing themselves to others.

I guess the reason we compare is that we learn it from our parents. It is an essential part of life and an important factor in our evolution. We must have a definition of what is right and what is wrong to navigate through life. If green, vibrant, healthy grass is the definition of happiness, then yellow, dull, dying grass is the definition of misery.

So, it’s OK to look at other people’s grass to find better ways to treat ours. But it’s not so good to believe that “The grass is always greener on the other side”.

Do you know why it’s not good? Because it’s not true.

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Self-Regulation in Your Marriage

Marriage is a give-and-take relationship. It succeeds when two people balance their own desires with those of their partner. If you have been married for a while, you know that this balancing act is not easy. It’s not easy because it requires regulation of thoughts, feelings and behaviors, and when this self-regulation takes too much energy, the person collapses and so does the relationship.

Regulation is a science. To understand why people reach this point of “no more” and consider separation or divorce, you need to know how to prevent yourself and your partner from reaching break point and how to separate external and internal regulation (self-regulation).

Regulation is the ability to control thoughts, feelings and behavior, instead of doing things on impulse. The more we practice, the stronger it gets, like a muscle. Once it is strong enough, it’s much easier to resist temptation and function according to a plan, rather than going with whatever comes our way or whoever applies more pressure. Just think of a baby that needs to hold his pee until he gets to the toilet. He needs to regulate his impulse to pee in his pants (or diaper).

Here are three research conclusions about self-regulations.

This post is part 1 of 33 in the series Save Your Marriage

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