Little MacGyvers: Kids Who Talk to Themselves

Little boy talking to his image in a mirror

When I sit in my car, driving the kids to school or just on my way to the supermarket, I like watching people in their cars. Some funny people talk to themselves. Yes, I know. It may look like they are on the phone, but I am talking about the crazy people that actually talk to themselves.

I call these people “MacGyvers”. Do you remember the TV series with this guy who was narrating the whole time? We heard his thoughts all the time wherever he went.

This happens to me a lot. I see people on the street moving their lips while they walk. As funny as it looks, these people have an advantage.

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Whose Turn Is It to Wash the Dishes?

Many of the conflicts between parents and kids are related to household chores. What usually happens is that parents are (of course) responsible for the household chores and find it very difficult to handle everything by themselves, so they ask the kids to share the load of cleaning and taking care of the house.

In the stereotypical house, Mom is in charge of what happens inside the house: cleaning, washing and feeding, while Dad is mostly in charge of what happens outside: swimming pool, fixing and mowing. I believe that this separation of responsibilities is the source of the conflict between parents and kids. If one parent needs to do one thing and the other is the other, where is the sense of togetherness and where is the sharing?

I remember my childhood years, when cleaning the house was no fun at all. My mom left for work very early, my dad worked two jobs and we had to clean the house, over which we had many, many fights.

Fighting over who was going to wash the dishes was the “story” of my family. We would hate each other, tell on each other, fight and cry just to avoid washing or cleaning. There were five of us and even now, 30 years later, we all remember the nasty fights over house chores.

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Expect to Be a Happy Parent

One major difference I see between happy parents and unhappy parents is in the gap between their expectations and the fulfilment of their expectations. Basically, if your expectations are high and are not fulfilled, you will be disappointed and unhappy. However, if most of your expectations are fulfilled, you will be a satisfied and happy parent.

Expectations are one important factor of happiness. Byron Katie does some wonderful work (she even calls it “The Work”) on how our expectations can make us miserable if they do not match reality (read Loving What Is: Four Questions That Can Change Your Life).

Children living in a family with expectations that are too high to be fulfilled feel inadequate and develop a failure identity. For example, a family of musicians with high expectation from their kids regarding their musical aspirations and abilities would be devastating for a kid whose passion is playing soccer.

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100 Questions You Should Ask Yourself as a Parent

My mother-in-law once said to me that most people do not have a parenting philosophy. First they act and than they find reasons to support their actions. I was a young mother when she told me this and an educator and the philosophy of education was something I did every day and every hour and it was hard for me to understand what she meant.

In my parent coaching program, I can see every session what she meant. When I ask parents why they do things, most of them do not have answers. They either do not think about it or thought about it and picked the easy way – easy but painful in the long run.

There is a big correlation between having a parenting philosophy and having a happy family life and successful kids.

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Are Your Kids All The Same?

Kids in every family are different and this is a fact. Sometimes, when you try to find the formula for a certain behavior, it is hard to take one type of behavior from one kid and expect it from another one. You can’t even expect twins to behave the same because of a different dynamic between them and the different reaction of society towards them.

Many parents find it challenging to deal with different kids in the house because of the expectation that kids all behave the same.

Many parents in my parent coaching program talk about the differences in their kids’ behavior. I explain that the reason they have difficulties has nothing to do with the kids but something to do with the parents. Kids are not supposed to behave the same.

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14 Ways to Teach Your Kids Resilience

As much as we would like to defend our kids from the difficulties in life, from experiencing crisis, change or loss, we cannot! However, we can give our kids the tools to recover from difficult times when those hit.

Many people say to me, “They are just kids. What horrible things can possibly happens to them?”

My answer is, “Let’s not wait to find out”.

For children, what seems like a simple thing might be a horrible problem. We have good friends whose 18-year-old son took a gun and shot himself in the head because he was not accepted to the course he wanted.

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Research Says: Friends Improve Sibling Relationships

Family Matters says: your attitude can improve them even more.

In psychological studies, the age gap between siblings is very important and is used to explain many behaviors and relationships. Can you imagine yourself lying on the shrink’s sofa and complaining about your brother who came into your life too early and took all the attention away from you?

In a research published by the Journal of Family Psychology, Dr. Laurie Kramer, professor of applied family studies at the University of Illinois, followed 28 sibling pairs from the age of 4 to adolescence and found that “a child’s socialization with friends before the arrival of a sibling can predict a more positive relationship between the siblings”.

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How To Help Your Fat Kid Stop Being Overweight

Overweight child eating cupcake with blue icing

If you have a “fat” or overweight child, you know they suffer a lot from some associated problems. Many grownups carry feelings of self-loathing and self-disappointment following the negative treatment they got during their younger years.

Being fat is not only about what we eat. It’s also about what makes us eat more than what our body requires. A fat kid almost always suffers from low self-image too.

Overweight kids need a healthy, balanced eating plan, together with an emotional plan, which doesn’t damage their self-image any further.

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Would You Say "No" to Violence Against Children?

In one of my parenting workshops, I had a discussion with one of the fathers about the use of negative words and we talked about the slogan “Australia says ‘no’ to violence against children”. I explained that the brain records “Australia says to violence against children”, omits the “no” and focuses on “Australia”, “violence” and “children”. Paul thought it was a great slogan (and he did not work for the copywriting company who came up with the slogan).

At that stage, all the other participants already understood that “no smoking” only promoted smoking by focusing on the smoking, so pretty quickly, there was a lively group interaction going on.

This week, I got a video made by a great organisation, which presented the answer we were looking for in our discussion at that parenting workshop. What would you want people to focus on? We want them to focus on creating a child-friendly environment for our kids. We want them to be happy, to feel safe and to have good relationships with others.

The answer to (the pink elephant) “Australia says no to violence against children” is now “Australia says yes to a child-friendly environment for our children” and I love this new focus.

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Super Kids: When Academic Success is Just a Side Effect

Last week, on our way back home from a weekend at friends’ house, our 12-year-old son Tsoof asked if we thought he was a “super kid”.

In the past year, we talked to him a lot about three kids in his music department that everyone, including us, thinks of as “super kids”. They are older than Tsoof and are very very very smart and talented. All three of them are wonderful role models for him.

Well, this made us wonder about Tsoof too.

Tsoof was born 12 years ago in California after a lot of heartache and waiting. By the age of 4, he had already lived in 4 countries with two languages and travelled to 6 other countries as a fun-loving, happy and curious child.

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Little MacGyvers: Kids Who Talk to Themselves

Whose Turn Is It to Wash the Dishes?

Expect to Be a Happy Parent

100 Questions You Should Ask Yourself as a Parent

Are Your Kids All The Same?

14 Ways to Teach Your Kids Resilience

How To Help Your Fat Kid Stop Being Overweight

Would You Say "No" to Violence Against Children?

Super Kids: When Academic Success is Just a Side Effect

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