Pushing Your Teens to Find a Job

Only 3% of teens going into higher education straight after high school actually finish their choice of study and work in that profession for about 5 years after finishing studying.

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The Journey of Life

At a junction of life, in a world full of possibilities, Adam stood in the middle, struggling with making choices. He looked North and asked himself, “If I go this way, will I get what I want or not?”

For a while, he kept asking this question, but did nothing. The unknown was scary and he chose not to choose. Instead, he followed the herd, allowing the river of life carry him into the same stream in which everyone drifts and he lost his sense of identity.

One morning, Adam got up and found he had built his house in the middle of a junction. He was locked inside his own house and it did not feel right. His choice muscle was weak and, as the days went by, it was harder for him to move. He looked out the window, saw others going into their paths of life and felt stuck.

At that scary moment, Understanding he was a prisoner in his own house, Adam knew he had to regain control, focus and inspire himself to start a journey. He knew he had to change his point of view on life – it was a live show and not a dress rehearsal. He needed courage to play, to leave the junction and to take his first steps on the journey of life.

With his heart beating fast, Adam opened the door of his house. He felt the strong light stopping him at the entrance, yet he picked up his bag and bravely stepped out of his house, closing the door behind him.

He looked in his bag, wondering if the contents of this bag would last the journey. “Will the content of my bag help me find the way? Will it help me fight dangers? Will it help me scare the darkness away? Will I find companions to walk with me?”

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Irrational Rules of Living – Dependency

Children are born into this world needy and helpless. They are born without the ability to speak, without the ability to express their feelings clearly, without the ability to satisfy their own essential needs or change anything in their world. They are equipped with one skill to rule their world – crying.

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Do As I Do

In one of the newsletters I get regularly, I received a link to the article titled “Social media…dirty word or essential skill?” I am sure most parents with Internet access and a teen or two would vote for “dirty word”, considering their kids’ obsessive texting, chatting and emailing.

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Who Says Fast Food is Bad for Kids?

I think many children hear negative expressions about fast food, when in fact, not all fast food is bad. There are many kinds of fast food that are very healthy and can be made in a short time at home or at a commercial outlet. Sometimes, the faster it is to make the food, the fresher and healthier it is.

It is true there are many places where you can get fast junk food containing mostly fillers, sugar and fat, but why not change the whole concept of fast food and teach our kids that what is important is the quality of the food, not the speed of making it.

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How to Measure Your Life

If you are like me and like many other people I know, you sometimes ask yourself just how successful you are. Birthdays and New Years are typical opportunities to do this, but there are many other soft moments, when we find ourselves sitting quietly and thinking, “How is my life going?”

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How to Raise Food-Smart Kids

These days, when children’s eating habits have led to an increase in obesity, parents’ responsibility to raise food-smart children has increased too.

It is the quality or the nutrition in the food we give our kids, coupled with the teaching of good habits, that will determine our kids’ health as children and later as grownups.

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Decision Horizon

It is amazing to discover that more and more often, decisions we make are no longer long-term or life-long decision but very short-term ones.

My parents come from a generation in which they thought that when a decision was made, it was made for life. If we misbehaved, they thought we would misbehave our entire lives. When we did not want to learn (OK, when I did not want to learn), they thought we would hate learning forever. When we hung around certain friends, they were afraid we would be with those friends forever.

Not so for my kids.

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The Seatbelt is Your Friend

When my daughter started driving, I was scared to death. Talking to her and many of her friends, I heard some awful reasons why they did not want to wear seatbelts. I was also shocked that those who wore seatbelts were doing it just to avoid a fine!

Highway signs where I live warn, “Wear a seatbelt of wear a fine”. This makes young people think that the police are out to get people who are not wearing seatbelts so that is the best reason to wear one. In a way, I believe the authorities are promoting negative thinking about seatbelts with their choice of advertisements.

Instead of teaching people it is important to take care of themselves and wearing a seatbelt can preserve their lives, they scare them into doing it to avoid punishment. But I think that’s the wrong motivation.

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Matters of Life and Death

Throughout my childhood, I often heard my parents talking about “making the right decisions”. I remember wondering many times, “What are the right decisions?” I remember the strongest feeling I had from what my parents thought about the right decisions was that decisions were always a matter of life and death.

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