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.
Read Do As I Do »
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.
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?”
Read How to Measure Your Life »
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.
Read How to Raise Food-Smart Kids »
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.
Read Decision Horizon »
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.
Read The Seatbelt is Your Friend »
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.
Read Matters of Life and Death »
Last month, I went to visit my family. My mom, who is over 65, was not feeling very well. In fact, she was feeling horrible. She had been diagnosed with Diabetes and had to check her blood every day. For the whole month we spent together, I understood exactly why she had been sick for so many years and why she suffered from so many serious medical symptoms. You see, my mom makes allowances for every little unhealthy thing she does.
Read Health Allowance »
Here is a typical scene in many homes these days: you come in the door, pass by the living room and see the TV on and one or two kids holding something in their hand, with a wire leading to just under the TV. They kids are totally absorbed in what is happening on the screen and ignore you completely, while pressing buttons and pushing little levers on the box in their hands.
Read Parenting for Tomorrow »
Traveling is a great way to expend your internal world. In search of happiness, traveling is a good way to realize that happiness has no address. You only need to open your door and leave your comfort zone to find out you are carrying the whole world with you in your thoughts, your mindset and your actions.
Read Happiness Has No Address »
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