Unfortunately, there are a lot of things we should have learned at school, because as a society, we cannot rely on parents to be able to do it by themselves. For example, we cannot expect all parents to teach their kids literacy and numeracy because not all of them know enough and out of those who do, not many are also good at teaching.
Kids Making a Difference
When I was 16, I joined the school council and fought for kids’ rights and freedom of speech. People said it was because I was a Libra, but the teacher who coordinated my school’s leadership programs (school council, school newspaper and class representatives) told us we were the future and what we were doing was very important. We wrote protest poems, listened to Joan Baez, negotiated with school authorities to make sure our education went beyond learning math and literature and made a big difference in the life of our fellow students.
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One School Fits All – NOT!
As you will be well aware, most of the systems in our life are made to suit some standard, albeit nonexistent, person. We all have to follow the same laws, we are measured and compensated in the same ways as our work colleagues and our kids go to schools that treat them the same too. How annoying!
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How Life has Changed
When I was growing up, the world was a lot nicer. There, I have said it. There were no computers, no Internet (and I like both), cars were simple, roads were narrow, but life felt free and full of adventures. Now, there are way too many dangers everywhere. Or are there really?
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Do the Right Thing
Having lived in several places around the world and worked in multinational companies, I have a list of people who regularly send me interesting emails about family matters (mostly about being married), personal development, growing old and creating wealth. Every now and then, I get something from them I really want to share with others. One of these emails was a lecture by Barry Schwartz about wisdom and motivation.
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Confession of an Author
Although my mom could not read properly, my dad read a lot of books. He was a crossword puzzle and word search person and eagerly solved everything in the daily and weekend papers when I was a kid. Most of the books in our home library he won by sending his answers to the newspapers. Inside each one was a sticker saying he had won this book as a first, second or third prize. So you see, for me, books were rewards since before I was able to read.
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Kids Need Friends
Many couples choose for the man to work and “win the bread” and for the woman to stay at home and raise the kids until they are old enough to go to school. Often having 3 kids 1-2 years apart, the woman saves the family child care money for 7 years and then returns to the workforce.
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Homework Routine
Last week, I talked about the importance of parents’ involvement in their kids’ homework. Today, let’s discuss the homework day. Should kids get homework at all? Should they have homework every day? Whenever homework is needed? On Mondays? On Fridays? What do you think?
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How to Avoid Abusive Relationships
As your daughter grows older and develops a relationship with a steady partner, the feeling of losing control grows too. Being the mother of a young woman (OMG, she is 20!), I see a lot of value in teaching teenage girls the difference between healthy and unhealthy relationships.
I am sometimes surprised to meet new clients who cannot understand how they got themselves into an abusive relationship. As you can imagine, getting a women out of an abusive relationship is much harder than not getting into such relationship in the first place.
If you are the parent of a young daughter, you are probably asking yourself, “How can I make sure my daughter never gets herself into an abusive relationship?” The good news is you can! And if you do it before the relationship starts, you have a better chance of succeeding.
Switch
If you are like me, you often find yourself in an undesirable mental state, like panic, rage or regret. Having this strong emotion for a long time can create the wrong outcome for you, so you want to stop it, to break out of it, but how?
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