Family MattersPractical Parenting Blog

Make a list: Childhood Memories

This series about list making revolves around the idea of using lists to examine our life and our perception and to highlight the good things in life. This lets us can enjoy them, appreciate them and be happy.

In this post, I want to explain the importance of remembering. I did write “good childhood memories” in the original list of lists, but I think that the mere act of remembering, even if we recall some bad memories, helps in our personal growth.

It is funny that when I mention memories, people go to the past and start digging. Some people find it hard to remember childhood experiences. For some, the past is more vivid, while for others, it is vague and unclear. Some remember what happened and others only remember what they felt about what happened.

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Motivating Kids (16)

Here is another part for your list of affirmations, which you can use to remind your kids (and yourself) that the world is a great place to live and that they (and you) are great people who can do great things.

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Hidden Agenda

The world is full of different people, with whom we have relationships of varying closeness and intimacy. More often than not, we find ourselves in conversation with someone wanting to say something, but saying something completely different, because saying what we think would produce the wrong results. This even happens with our partner sometimes, not to mention the kids.

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100 Things that Make Me Happy

Woman listening to music and smiling

Gratitude is an excellent cure for taking life for granted. On the quest for happiness, appreciating what we have is a great way to shift from feeling sad, bad or frustrated.

In the Make a List series, I have written about the importance of knowing myself and presenting my identity to the rest of the world. I have written about the importance of friends in our life and how they have contributed to who we are today. I have written about why it is important to have long-term goals and desires and to plant self-fulfilling prophecies in our mind.

Today, I want to tell you why appreciation and gratitude are important skills that we need to practice-every day (yes, every day)!

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Motivating Kids (15)

I never, never, never give up. I keep trying until I achieve what I want. Determination is the highest quality of successful people. I am successful. I follow the rules and try to make my school a better place.

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How to Make Troubled Teens Relax: Change Your Parenting

Troubled teen girl

What are troubled teens? Could your teen be troubled? Can you do anything about it as a parent? What can you do? Get your answers right here.

In the past few weeks, I overheard talk about a teenager (let’s call him Jonathan). Besides being very talented, he used to be friendly and “normal”. But recently started to miss classes, show up late, fail various subjects and behave indifferently. One speculation was that he might have started using drugs.

I thought this was serious enough to report to his school through a friend of ours, who is his teacher. “Speculation or not, the school should look into it”, I said.

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It’s All Your Fault!

Pretty girl

Blaming is a natural reaction to feeling scared and overloaded, but it comes together with losing power. Zgalit was forever the most miserable girl in the neighborhood. She blamed us for nothing so much and so often that when her claims were real and valid, no one took her seriously.

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100 Things I Want to Be, Do and Have in My Lifetime

Young woman holding a photo of an old woman in front of her face - a lifetime perspective

Dan, one of my personal life coaches, told me about this list on the first sessions I had with him.

“When I was 18, my dad sent me to an evening with a motivational speaker”, Dan said, “He told us to write down 100 things we want to do in our lifetime. I write my list and put it somewhere. When I became a life coach, I found my list again and I was amazed at how many of the things in it I had already done “.

About a month ago, I started writing about list making and I was very happy to receive many encouraging comments about how effective and motivating it is for people to make these lists.

Today’s list is about looking forward into the future. The Roman philosopher Seneca said, “If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable”. Imagine yourself sailing in the ocean of life. You need to know where you are going, right?

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Motivating Kids (14)

This is another set of self-motivating affirmation ideas to add on to the list from Motivating Kids (13). Use them to gently implant positive, empowering thoughts in your kids’ minds and to build their identities as confident and happy people for life.

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Discipline

Young girl looking stubborn

Too often, I hear parents saying the words “kids” and “discipline” in the same sentence. Sometimes, they add “bad behavior”, “naughty” and “rude” for good measure. When I look at them, their faces typically express anger and their whole body language is tense and stiff.

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