Things I Want My Kids to Know: The Door is Always Open

This entry is part 3 of 7 in the series Things I Want My Kids to Know

This week, I had a talk with my 19-year-old daughter about leaving home. Because some of her friends had left home and then had to come back due to financial difficulties, we talked about the emotional aspect of “going back home”.

When we talked, she told me about the feelings of shame, failure, disappointment and many other negative feelings that would be associated with having to go back home. It was after this talk that I realized there is one more thing I want my kids to know.

The following is a very true story.

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Great Expectations

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.

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97 Positive Thoughts for Your Kids

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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How to Take Care of the Environment and Make a Difference

After hearing many people talk about the movie “An Inconvenient Truth”, we decided to rent it from the video library. We watched it with the kids and they were very surprised to see the world drying up right in front of their eyes.

I was not sure that it would have such a great impact on them, because, as kids, I thought they would be too preoccupied with school, friends and fun. Well, watching it was not fun at all, but I was very surprised when “Earth Hour” was announced and the kids wanted to take part in it.

They did not complain, they did not talk about computers or watching a movie, they did not even say anything when we suggested taking a shower in the dark.

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Talk to the Heart

One day, I got a phone call from a mother, who was interested in our child coaching. I talked to her for a while to get a good understanding of her situation. During this conversation, we talked about things that were application to many parent-child situations, which I have since repeated with many parents, so here it is for everyone’s benefit.

Margaret: I have a problem with my teenage son, Jeff. He is 13 years old and I have completely lost control of him.

Gal: How do you mean?

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Just Wait Until Your Kids Become Teens

About 16 years ago, I went to visit a family member, who had her first child at the age of 42. I was very happy for her and traveled for 2 hours to see her precious new baby.

She was so overwhelmed by the 10 days of the “mom experience” she had had – sleepless nights, initial breastfeeding pains and crying – that for about 3 hours, she kept saying to me, “Ronit, just wait until you have a baby. Then you’ll see”, and I just smiled.

You see, motherhood can be hard at first, but when she said that, my own daughter was already 3 years old and I loved every minute of raising her and considered it a lot more rewarding than difficult.

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Snapshots: Tracking Changes

Mom taking a photo of her daughter in a field of flowers

One of the hardest things to measure is change. Whenever we are not happy with something in our life, we want to change it. But then, sometimes for years, we look in the mirror and we can’t notice the changes we go through. Only while looking at photos from last year do we notice the changes. We are different, but we feel the same.

Have you ever looked at photos of people from your high school reunion and through “They look the same, but somehow different”?

Gal (my husband) and I looked at some photos of our high school reunion (which we have missed – poor us!). Some of our friends had glasses, some were bold, some “grew sideways”, some looked older and we realized that we must look the same to them, the same but different.

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Kids are Disappearing: Ideal Family Size (poll)

I have been asked many times about the ideal family size. It is funny, but the answers to this question change every couple of years.

World statistics show that population growth is slowing down and that the desirable family size at the moment stands at 2.1 kids (2 kids and an arm…). In Iceland, Guatemala and Taiwan, people prefer to have bigger families, with an average of 3 kids per family.

While most people believe the family size depends on women’s preferences, the world statistics find that men and women mostly agree on the size of their family. Only in France, Singapore and Lithuania do women have a slightly greater desire for a larger family than men.

In the USA, the ideal-sized family between 1936 and 1967 had “3 or more children”. In 1973, this dropped from 3.6 down to 2.8 and in 1980, it dropped again to 2.5.

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Are We Clear?

Some time ago, my daughter Eden had a very busy time with her Event Management studies, work and social life, and Ronit and I tried to keep up with her by asking for her plans and then keeping each other up to date.

One day, Eden said to me “I have no classes tomorrow”, and I thought she might be spending the day at home, catching up, and maybe we can spend some time together.

In the evening, when we were talking about the next day, however, Ronit said to me “Eden is going to study tomorrow”.

“That can’t be”, I said, “She told me she wasn’t going to study”.

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Where is the Center of Your Home? (poll)

For many years, I wanted a big house. Growing up in a small place, sleeping in the living room with my other 3 sisters, made me think that having your own room was everyone’s ideal.

So when I had to choose my own house, I thought I would make sure there was enough rooms for everyone. For a long time, I was convinced that this had to be what everyone wanted – their own room.

However, after having my first child, I found a small hole in this theory, and after each additional child (I have 3), this hole in my belief that everyone has a need for privacy only got bigger and bigger.

It was only last night though, when my 6-year-old daughter opened her homework book on the dining room table, that I realized it was time to let this perception go, because, in my life, it did not survive the reality test.

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