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The Placebo Effect: How to Treat Your Kids for Free

A jar of pills and a sign for placebo

“Using the placebo effect on kids is an effective technique to help them go through tough periods in their lives.”

This may seem like a bold statement, but when I learned about the placebo effect during my special education studies, I realized that the placebo effect activates the natural “pharmacy” we have in our bodies. When we believe something to be true, we make it true. It works the same when we take a physical tablet and when when we take an emotional tablet.

The more I explain what life coaching and emotional intelligence are, the more I realize how important the placebo effect is for my work. Most of my work is to plant positive ideas and beliefs in the minds of my clients. Once they hold on to those beliefs or ideas, I have done my job in setting them up for a better future.

The placebo effect works in the same way. You can plant an idea in your kids’ mind that they can do something, be healthy or be smart by giving them a sugar pill and telling them it will help them do or be what they want.

Actually, the placebo effect works for kids even when you apply it to their parents by convincing them that their kids are amazing and talented, because your pill will help them…

Read The Placebo Effect: How to Treat Your Kids for Free »

Published: September 15, 2015 by Ronit Baras
Last modified: March 2, 2020In: Emotional Intelligence, Life Coaching, Parenting, Health / Wellbeing Tags: kids / children, beliefs, health / wellbeing, research, personal development / personal growth / personality development / self improvement, guilt, focus, change, practical parenting / parents, special education, Life Coaching, school, aggressive, skills, story, success, assessment, emotional intelligence, positive, meditation, attitude

Parenting 101: Top Parenting Essentials

Happy parents with toddler and baby

After coaching so many parents, and raising my own kids, I have accumulated many essential parenting tips that I want to share with you. I hope you find them useful.

Take care of your happiness first. Just like they tell you on a plane, you should put the oxygen mask on your own face before helping your kids. If you want to raise happy kids, you must take care of your own happiness first. If you do not have oxygen, you are no good to your kids. Happy Parents Raise Happy Kids.

Be positive. It is very easy to notice what your kids are doing wrong but harder to pay attention to the great things they are doing. Parents tend to take the good things for granted. In life, you get what you focus on and parenting is exactly the same. If you focus on good thing, you will have more of them. If you focus on problems, conflicts, difficulties, bad manners, you will have more of them. If you notice your child doing something good, say it! Praise kids for being kind, congratulate them for making an effort, acknowledge their kindness and you will see more of it.

Read Parenting 101: Top Parenting Essentials »

Published: August 22, 2014 by Ronit Baras
Last modified: April 20, 2020In: Parenting Tags: values, emotional development, empowerment, positive, skills, practical parenting / parents, identity, literacy, money, change, leadership, success, happiness, kids / children, meditation, relationships / marriage, tips, how to, intelligence, self confidence / self esteem / self worth, role model, success experience, health / wellbeing, choice, family matters, focus, personal development / personal growth / personality development / self improvement, safety, decision making, school, education / learning, beliefs, compassion, responsibility, frustration, research, needs

How to Feel Good: Take Time Off

Ronit and her Mother

During a recent presentation, someone asked me to share some tips on how to feel good. In the first post of the series How to Feel Good, I shared the science of endorphins – the feel good hormones. In the second, I covered the science of smiling. In this post, I suggest another great way to feel good – taking time off.

Last year, I took time off from everything (home, work, kids and Gal) and went overseas to spend some time with my family. It was a wonderful reminder for me about why we have take time off to recharge out emotional batteries.

Taking time off from daily life can have a positive impact on our health and wellbeing. It helps us regenerate and start fresh. Sleep is the body’s natural way of giving us time off. It “forces” us to rest so we can function. Did you know that without sleep, we would die? If you want to torture someone, you do not need to hurt them. Just deprive them of sleep for 2-3 night. Just ask any mom!

This post is part 3 of 4 in the series How to Feel Good

Read How to Feel Good: Take Time Off »

Published: May 29, 2014 by Ronit Baras
Last modified: December 25, 2019In: Health / Wellbeing Tags: meditation, hope, health / wellbeing, anxiety, memory, personal development / personal growth / personality development / self improvement, how to, lifestyle, partner, holidays, relaxation, mobile phone, travel, sleep, hobbies, research, vacation, time management, mind, academic performance, diet, happiness, positive, focus, motivation, tips, school, relationships / marriage, stress / pressure

Self Regulation: Tips

Mother and son in conflict

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.

This post is part 3 of 3 in the series Self Regulation

Read Self Regulation: Tips »

Published: November 5, 2013 by Ronit Baras
Last modified: December 25, 2019In: Personal Development, Parenting Tags: focus, imagination, emotional intelligence, kids / children, meditation, tips, how to, personal development / personal growth / personality development / self improvement, control, hobbies, sport, practical parenting / parents, exercise, change, food, conflict, listening

Be Yourself: Who Am I?

When my clients come to the Be Happy in LIFE program and I ask them, “What do you want?” they are confused by my question. They could easily tell what everyone else wants. Their wife, husband, mother, father, boss, children. But they do not really know what they want. Often times, all they want is for something someone else wants to stop. I tell my clients that when you don’t have a definition of who you are, it is easy for people to offer their definitions, regardless of whether they suit your or not. If you are confident in who you are, your self-concept will not change because of something someone says to you. For example, if a friend comes up to you and says, “You are not a good friend because you didn’t come to my wedding”, you might think to yourself that you did not come to the wedding because you were being a good son and your mum was in hospital. Your definition of yourself as a good friend would remain, despite your friends feeling. Conversely, if you do not have a good definition of yourself, you will probably accept it as “fact” that you are just not a very good friend, because your friend said so.

Every person has an image of perfection that they wish to achieve. It is an image of the perfect person, someone who is all knowing, smart, healthy, wealthy, loving and successful. There is no other person on earth who is exactly like you and has managed to find the perfect balance of all those things we want in life. Despite knowing this, we create an image of the perfect person by picking and choosing attributes form different people. Our perfect person is the miss universe beauty queen, who is a perfect mother, a great chef, a celebrity, with a PHD in something brainy, with bucket loads of money like the Queen of England and the spirit and dedication of Mother Teresa. Although I think it is good to be inspired by others, when we lose ourselves in the quest for this perfection, we chase our tails endlessly and never reach our final goal.

This post is part 2 of 2 in the series Be Yourself

Read Be Yourself: Who Am I? »

Published: December 6, 2012 by Ronit Baras
Last modified: December 25, 2019In: Personal Development Tags: relaxation, focus, positive, emotional intelligence, stress / pressure, meditation, acceptance / judgment / tolerance, how to, self confidence / self esteem / self worth, choice, health / wellbeing, control, personal development / personal growth / personality development / self improvement, change, freedom, happiness, motivation, Life Coaching

Nothing wrong with feeling bad

Everybody feels bad sometimes – sad, lonely, upset, worried, even angry. OK, except Tibetan monks, maybe, but only after 20 years of meditation and a strict diet of warm water. The rest of us sometimes feel bad.

The problem with feeling bad is not so much that we find something hard to deal with, but that we have been brought up not to feel bad, so we feel really bad about feeling bad. That, of course, makes everything worse, because now, we are feeling bad about ourselves and blocking ourselves from processing and letting go of the original bad feeling.

When I was growing up, I was often told that only girls cried. “Take it like a man”, people said to me and to all of my friends who were boys. The girls were not supposed to take it like men, but they were instructed not to bother others with their feelings and to “show their happy face” like “a good girl” should. So happiness was clearly good and resentment, anxiety, regret and sorrow were bad.

Read Nothing wrong with feeling bad »

Published: June 1, 2011 by Gal Baras
Last modified: March 19, 2021In: Personal Development, Health / Wellbeing Tags: happiness, hope, relaxation, positive, loss, emotional intelligence, grief, meditation, stress / pressure, anxiety, acceptance / judgment / tolerance, negative, health / wellbeing, beliefs, personal development / personal growth / personality development / self improvement

Slow Down and Smell the Flowers

This month was very hectic for me and therefore for our entire family. I had many big projects to complete and I could not do them without the help of my family. Gal and the kids helped me a lot and we ended up dedicating almost 3 weekends to this work (we are still recovering from work, work and more work). All this work involved doing things I love, so it made me excited and I was in total flow and winding down was not easy. That made me think about slowing down as the topic this time.

Slowing down is a challenge for many people. The more successful you are at what you do, the more you risk being unable to slow down and enjoy the simple things. Slowing down is a challenge for me, so I am taking the time to write what happened to me in the last month and how I got over it (still doing that).

Read Slow Down and Smell the Flowers »

Published: August 13, 2010 by Ronit Baras
Last modified: March 19, 2021In: Personal Development Tags: time management, emotional intelligence, stress / pressure, meditation, personal development / personal growth / personality development / self improvement, how to, goals / goal setting, choice, happiness, motivation, dreams, society, lifestyle, focus, relaxation, success

Top Parenting Bloggers Discuss (14): How to Keep Your Kids Healthy

Healthy kids are every parent’s hope and prayer. I remember during my pregnancy, while everyone was talking about the sex of our baby and our plans and wishes for its future success, the older people said, “The most important thing is that you have a healthy child”.

I am a very good example of a parent who thinks we can do something to change our kids’ health, although I did not grow up with that thinking. My mom raised 5 sick kids and she still thinks medication is the cure for everything. To her, “doctor” is a kind of god that must be obeyed, even when her doctor keeps her waiting, ignores her symptoms and gets things wrong. She has been sick all her life and she does not have any health strategy.

I believe that kids’ health (and their parents’ health) is an important part of parenting. I am in a constant search for tips and tricks to keep my kids healthy, so I decided to ask the Top Parenting Bloggers about their attitude towards ensuring their kids’ health.

This post is part 14 of 14 in the series Top Parenting Bloggers Discuss

Read Top Parenting Bloggers Discuss (14): How to Keep Your Kids Healthy »

Published: June 25, 2010 by Ronit Baras
Last modified: January 16, 2023In: Parenting, Health / Wellbeing Tags: lifestyle, relaxation, family matters, diet, sleep, responsibility, kids / children, meditation, how to, health / wellbeing, choice, practical parenting / parents, exercise, happiness

Switch

If you are like me, you often find yourself in an undesirable mental state, like panic, rage or regret. Having this strong emotion for a long time can create the wrong outcome for you, so you want to stop it, to break out of it, but how?

Read Switch »

Published: March 18, 2009 by Gal Baras
Last modified: March 18, 2021In: Personal Development, Life Coaching Tags: self confidence / self esteem / self worth, choice, personal development / personal growth / personality development / self improvement, trust, negative, change, happiness, Life Coaching, relationships / marriage, focus, relaxation, emotional intelligence, positive, meditation, stress / pressure, fear

Just the Two of Us

Couple having a romantic breakfast

Here is a question I have received from Prudence, one of my readers. I am posting my reply here, because I think that my answer may help other people.

Prudence asked, “We are almost at our 2nd year anniversary. We have two foster children, 14 and 10. Our marriage is happy, fun and exciting, but sometimes I feel we don’t have enough time just the two of us… how do you do it with two kids?”

I guess that becoming a parent to a big kid is not the same as growing together with your kids since they are babies. Kids want all the attention on them all of the time, which we give them at first. Along the way, we gradually learn to use our time better: to complete things a bit better, a bit faster or just to get rid of some time consuming habits.

Read Just the Two of Us »

Published: September 25, 2008 by Ronit Baras
Last modified: March 18, 2021In: Parenting, Relationships / Marriage, Ask Ronit Tags: relaxation, family matters, time management, stress / pressure, practical parenting / parents, love, meditation, relationships / marriage, romance, lifestyle

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