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 »
As a parent, I’m sure you’ve heard the whine “It’s not fair!” more than once. I would venture a guess that your response on some occasions was “Well, life isn’t (always) fair”. But have you ever stopped to think about the idea of fairness and how it affects your life and the life of your kids?
For me, there are some issues with this idea of fairness. I’ve been thinking about it for a long time, and here’s how I see it.
The expectation that things will be fair is based on some external entity running things and making sure everybody gets their fair share.
Read Personal Power is Remarkably Better than Fairness or Justice »
As parents, one of the things we always worry about is what kind of a world we will leave for our kids. No matter how many times we vote and realize we can only cast one vote in millions into the box, we somehow still feel it is our responsibility to make sure that when our kids grow up, the world will be safe, clean and pleasant for them. It’s OK, it’s natural.
So let’s explore some things parents do “for their kids” and let’s see what they have to sacrifice in the process. If you have any more examples, I invite you to post them in the comment box below.
Last week, I wrote about the things that parents say that turn off communication between them and their teens. Today, I would like to talk about the buttons teens push to set their parents off and “make” them lose their minds.
From their early years, kids have an inherent sense of their parents’ weaknesses. They learn it by themselves – they do not need to go to school to study what works and what does not work. They are so sophisticated, they can tell you what works on Daddy and what works on Mommy, even if they are very different.
It is amazing sometimes to see a young baby, stepping as much as possible on the toes of his parents and making them behave in funny ways. This thing works both ways. Our children know us so well, they can make us do silly things out of joy or out of anger or guilt.
In my life, age 15 was the turning point. 4 months before my 16th birthday, I woke up and discovered that the life I lived was an illusion and I opened up to a new life.
For me, 16 was the sweetest thing there was. Life was divided into before and after – before my awakening and after it. Later on in life, there were many times when I wished I could send my 15-year-old self some wisdom to make her life easier.
Here are the things I would send back in time.
This week, I have read (again) an alarming statistic about the rate of divorce and the devastating effect of divorce on children. When I think about my parents, I know I need to thank them in every way I can for being able to handle all the conflicts between them and reach their 50th anniversary.
Conflicts between parents are inevitable. After all, Mom and Dad are two separate people, coming from different backgrounds and sharing life together – a house, romance, kids and finances – in hope of making it the best experience ever.
In research done in 1982 (R.E. Emery) and 1990 (E. Mark), it was found that even young kids are strongly hurt by their parents’ conflicts. It is actually possible to measure parents’ anger through their kids’ psychological, behavioral an emotional state. When I worked with groups of 2-4 year-olds, I could tell when there was tension at home or when one of the parents was away from home.
Read Monkey See, Monkey Do »
Noff is my 3rd child coming home with a note from school, which offers parents to pay their kids to read books. Since we arrived here in Australia, each of our kids has come home with some “incentive to encourage children to read” project, aiming to entice children to read more by participating in a “Readathon” – a reading marathon.
1. Kids go home with a form asking Mom and Dad to give them permission to participate in the marathon.
2. The kids need to go to grownup friends and relative (grandparents are the best victims for this) and ask them to commit to paying a certain amount of money for every book they read.
3. Then, the kids read as many books as they can.
4. At the end of the marathon, they bring the signed sheet with the payment and the money goes to the school.
Read Readathon: Pay Per Read »
When I was training to be a life coach, our instructor said to us that our level of disappointment is related to the gap between two things – our expectations and the facts. Although this may sound simple in principle and you may be saying to yourself, “Well, of course”, stop and think about real-life situations where you find yourself disappointed and you will soon see the problem.
I went out to lunch with a few other future life coaches, and one of them, Sarah, told me about some challenges she was having at the time with her teens. Sarah was married for the second time and had two teens of her own and two teens who were her husband’s kids. Most people would already cringe at this stage, right?
Anyway, Sarah said that her kids were well organized, but her husband’s teen daughter was “very messy” and kept leaving her clothes on the floor, which drove Sarah bonkers. When Sarah tried to confront her stepdaughter about tidying up her room, she got the “You’re not my mother” treatment.
Read Great Expectations »
All parents want to give their kids all that they wish. Happy thoughts and a positive mindset are the tools to get them everything they want in life. Here is a list of thoughts you want your kids to have.
Before introducing them to your kids, try to find out what they think now, and slowly shift their thoughts towards better ones. Remember, what they think will determine how successful they will be financially, academically and socially. It will determine their appreciation and wellbeing.
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