There is a point in every parent’s journey where you ask yourself, “Why do I send my kids to school?” Over the last 33 years, I’ve worked with many parents. And I can tell you that most of them didn’t have a good answer to this question.
Have you ever reached this point in your parenting?
What was your answer?
What makes a good relationship? Are there signs of a good relationship? What questions would you ask to find out if a relationship is good? How to have good relationships?
Every year, as September gets closer, my husband Gal and I think about relationships. This year, in September 2020, we’re celebrating 40 years of friendship. We’ve learned over the years that friendship is a special relationship worth celebrating.
When you spend many years with one person, you learn a lot about them. But mostly, you learn about yourself and what relationships mean.
Parenting is one of the most important and difficult things we’ll ever do in life. And it becomes even harder when we doubt ourselves and stop trusting our own judgment. When others try to impose their methods of parenting on us, and we let it affect us, we have an even greater challenge.
I was lucky to start my parenting journey when our close friends didn’t have children and our family was too far away. Until our daughter Eden was 14 months old, Gal and I relied solely on our own judgment. We had no Internet and no people telling us what to do.
Eden was born after I finished most of my education studies. Although my course didn’t cover things like the best time to feed babies, or when to start giving solid food, it did help me build the confidence to raise her.
Read Practice Fearless Parenting Under Pressure: Do It Your Way »
Many parents stress about what their children choose to study and/or their career. So much so, that they fail to support their children in making the right career choice.
I didn’t know this was such an issue until my friends heard that my daughter wanted to be an actor. Almost immediately, everyone told me I should talk her out of it. I then realized that what children chose to study was an issue for many parents.
I guess I was lucky. I chose to study something my parents approved of, so no one ever said anything about it. Neither one of my parents had gone to higher education, so I was the first one to study. Everyone was just thrilled about it.
Over 20 years ago, people said to me that books were going to be a thing of the past. The prediction that we would no longer see any printed newspaper or book was devastating for me, because my desire to be an author and a journalist just didn’t seem right without them.
When I heard that, I grieved the lost experience of touching books, taking my kids to the library, smelling the printed paper and sitting in the kids’ corner, reading, enjoying the moment and imagining we are in a different world. Inside, I prayed it wouldn’t happen. At least, I prayed it wouldn’t happen too quickly.
I think my wish came true.
I’ve been in a relationship for 38 years, and I know it’s not always easy to speak your truth. When you bring two people together, they both need to compromise a lot and can’t easily balance the ratio between “give” and “take”.
Just recently, I had the chance to be on my own for 6 weeks when my husband went to drum in Africa. I realized that as partners and parents, we compromise many times, to the point where we might forget who we truly are.
When I say “compromise”, I don’t mean that anyone has any bad intentions. It happens naturally. When you live with other people, you can’t just do what you feel like doing. My son was also in Africa and my youngest daughter, who is 17, spent her time studying and having get-togethers with her friends, so she was not home either most of the time.
During those weeks, I examined 3 of my habits: sleep, eating and fun time. I realized I didn’t follow my natural cycles of sleeping, eating or doing fun things when my family members were around, because, first and foremost, I think of their timetable and their needs, and I juggle everyone else into a plan that would work. Me and my cycles are normally not part of the picture.
Don’t get me wrong. It was my choice. I just realized I had neglected part of myself.
In the previous post, Home Alone: How Not to Have a Boring Time,, I wrote about being on my own for 6 weeks, the many things I wanted to do and why being bored was not on my agenda.
Many people wait for a chance to be on their own, but when the time comes, they don’t know what to do. I think having a list of ideas can be helpful in that situation.
In this post, I have gathered 100 ideas for things to do when you don’t know how to entertain yourself. As you can see, I wrote some of the things I did recently. I could easily write 1,000 things, but I’m sure that after 100, you’ll get the idea.
You can repeat some of the activities, because you like them more than others. And even if you just pick some of them, you’ll have thousands of active and busy hours.
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.
Relationships are very sensitive. Bringing two people together creates lots of fun and joy, but at the same time, it creates conflict and pain. According to Choice Theory, we can develop habits that create more fun and joy and less conflict and pain.
Dr. William Glasser is an American psychiatrist I highly appreciate. He developed Reality Theory, which later became known as Choice Theory.
In the seventies, Glasser’s work was not widely accepted by his colleagues. While others thought that human behavior was affected by external sources, Glasser believed in personal choice, personal responsibility and personal transformation.
Other psychiatrists categorized certain behaviors as mental disorders and prescribed medication accordingly. Glasser believed he could teach his patients to make better choices to achieve better results.
He applied his theories to education, management and marriage. The examples I give in this post are relevant to marriage.
I often discuss happiness with my clients. They find it very awkward when I tell them it is possible to find happiness everywhere, including times of unhappiness.
Most people try to avoid unhappiness like the plague. They divide life into happy and unhappy and think they should move towards happy and avoid unhappy. This is good if you think of it as a process and direction, but not if you think of it as something that shrinks you. You see, we can grow from happiness and we can grow from unhappiness.
Trent was a 28-year-old man who worked at a petrol station. He was healthy, made good money, could pick shifts if he wanted to do something in the evening, had time for computer games and had some good friends.
On the surface, you’d think Trent had a very good life, but he didn’t. His friends were all professionals with university degrees, and he still didn’t know what he wanted to do in his life. He told me he’d never known what he wanted to do in his life.
One day, Trent had a weekend away with his friends, and although the time spent together was fantastic, Trent came back very unhappy. This was when he looked for a life coach and found me.
Book your private life coaching with Ronit Baras and learn how to be happy in life
