The Art of Listening: I Can’t Hear You!

The ability to listen is thought to be one of the major components of a good relationship. Whether you want to be a good parent, good partner, a good boss, a good friend or a good colleague, listening skills are your best relationship investment.

It is not as easy to listen as we might think. The common misconception is that listening is just passively lending your ear to someone. It is not. In order to be effective, listening has to be a lot more active than that.

Research suggests that men and women think different about listening. Listening cues like nodding, saying “yes”, “mmmm”, “uh huh” are interpreted differently by each gender. Men think they are an indication that someone agrees with them, while women think that they indicate how involved the listener is. So when women don not hear these cue, they think the man is not listen. When men hear these cue, they think the woman agrees with them.

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How to Overcome Shyness: Types of Shyness

Most people, young and old, have experienced being shy in social situations. Most people also seem to think they are shier than everyone else. Surprisingly, they are wrong. 98% of people think of themselves as shy. As children, some people lack the skills and lived experiences of coping in social environments, which makes them feel crippled and develop a sense of helplessness because of it.

Shyness can be debilitating. The good news is that it can be changed.

Shyness is a form of anxiety. The severity of the anxiety depends on the type of shyness.

Situational Shyness

Situational Shyness means experiencing anxiety in certain, specific situations. Examples include, during a test, in a big group, when standing on stage, while having to present or make a speech, when answering a question, having to think on your feet or trying to make a good impression. The main challenge in this shyness is the timing. It never feels like the ‘right’. You never feel ready to tackle the task before you.

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Ronit’s Tips for Developing Empathy

As the state director of the Together for Humanity Foundation, I meet teachers and students to promote diversity and good relations and I believe empathy is the key. If we all had more empathy, the world would be a much better place. With more empathy, families would be happier – there would be fewer divorces and fewer problems with children.

In my work with parents and teachers, I am often asked about empathy and how others develop it. I have decided to combine all the suggestions here. If you are working with children, if you in relationship and would like to develop your own empathy, or if you want to encourage empathy in your students or children, I hope you can make good use of this list.

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The Magic of Encouragement

Children will strive with encouraging. If kids were plants, their environment would be the soil while encouragement and support would be the water and sun they need in order to grow.

Children who receive positive encouragement grow up to have very strong emotional stamina. Their emotional intelligence helps them manage challenges, difficulties and failure. These skills form the basis of growing up to be successful people. Parents, teachers and caregivers are those who can give us these skills.

Here is a list of 20 positive feedback starters that encourages kids to keep doing something you would like to support and promote. You can change the ending to suit whatever it is you want to encourage.

“You’ve done a wonderful job at… picking up the toys”
“It was an excellent idea to… make a strong foundation for the Lego building”
“You must be very proud of yourself for… submitting the assignment on time”

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Proud as a Peacock (again)

Being a mother has been one of the greatest achievements of my life. Each of my kids is an achievement, and they are also big achievers themselves. Some say that it is a cycle. We, as parents, make our kids successful, loving achievers and in return they make us successful, loving achievers.

One of the best descriptions of my feeling towards them is pride. They do amazing things and I am enormously proud of them. I have come up with a theory that I like to call “Pride Therapy”. Every time one of my kids has an achievement, by proxy, I have also achieved something.

In my coaching and presentations, I sometimes ask people to describe their feelings as animals. I find it makes it easier to express these feeling. It does not have to be an animal that represents all your feelings all the time. Each feeling is a different animal. For example, you might be a panther in the office, and a sloth on a relaxed Sunday.

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Self Regulation: Tips

Self regulation is the ability to control ourselves and not do things impulsively. This skill is like a muscle – the more we practice, the stronger it gets. Once it is strong, it is much easier to resist temptation and function according to a “plan”, rather than going with whatever comes your way or whoever applies more pressure.

In the last two posts in this series, I explained the mechanism of self regulation and shared some research on its importance, particularly in parenting. Today, I want to share some tips with you on how to strengthen the self regulation ‘muscle’. It can be easy to find self control and be the role model you want to be for your children.

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Choice Theory: Happy Teachers

In the previous blog posts, I explained how to use the choice theory in the classroom, fulfilling the student’s basic needs. As I said in the blog post about business, bosses and managers, we can consider the teacher as a manager, the boss of the class, or the leader of the class.

I have been running workshops for teachers for many years. I am shocked 100% of the time to discover that 3 or 4 years of teaching degree focuses mainly on curriculum and lesson plans and nothing on the teachers’ emotional intelligence or leadership abilities. In 100% of all my workshops, the teachers feel disappointed the information was not available for them before they started their teaching career.

Still, we can all choose to adopt this method of teaching at any time. What I tell them is, “It is never too late to start choosing differently. In the past, you didn’t know about this, so there was nothing to choose from. Now that you have the option whether to adopt or not, you can practice your choice muscle.”

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Choice Theory: Happy Classrooms

Teachers can make the classroom a happy environment for children by addressing the basic needs based on the choice theory and making sure kids have a choice.

In previous blog posts on choice theory, I explained William Glasser’s theory that everything we do in our life is a result of our choice. It is applicable to parenting, business, management, and relationships. It is very applicable to education and the way classrooms are designed.

Unfortunately, most classrooms are not places where one can be free to follow the basic needs based on the choice theory.

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Relationships Set in Sand, Not Stone

Write your hurts in sand. Carve your blessings in stone

Relationships are very sensitive and needs to be cherished. Sometimes in life, they will be threatened. Every conflict puts a relationship to the test, and we have plenty of conflicts in our lives.

As part of my work as a state director of Together for Humanity Foundation, I often lead discussions with kids and teachers about ways to deal with conflict and how it impacts our relationships. One story we tell the kids is the story of the Sand and Stone. This is a story that is important to keep in mind for every relationship: parent-child relationships, couples, friends, work colleagues, countries, enemies and for any two people who are in a relationship.

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Choice Theory: Happy Business

In the last two posts on “choice theory,” I covered William Glasser’s reality theory and the seven deadly and caring habits and their impact on relationships and parenting.

Glasser’s choice theory helped not just individuals but also organizations like schools and businesses to enable management, workers, and students to take part in the system using internal motivation and avoid conflicts.

Every business transaction (and schooling is similar) is a transaction in relationship. We call good relationship a good business transaction, and conflict, anger, disappointment, and frustration a bad business transaction. For a business to succeed, it needs to establish good relationship between all participants and connect well. Glasser called it “Lead Management.” Using the choice theory in business, employees, managers, suppliers, and clients replace external control with internal control based on happy and successful relationship and are very much dependent on the managers, who lead the organizations.

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