Who’s Afraid of Exams?

Many children hate exams. If you ask them what they hate more than homework, they will tell you it is exams. They hate them because it is natural to be anxious in a situation that puts our abilities to the test.

Someone is looking at what you do, checking what you do and then judges you for it. Children don’t like to be judged. Well, in fact, no one likes to be judged.

Many parents say to me, “This is life and kids need to learn to live with it!” and I wonder if this really must be part of life and whether we must live in such a judgmental environment. Maybe we can transfer the focus from what others think about us to self-awareness and what we think about ourselves.

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From Sickness to Health: Baby Ayla

Baby girl sitting in front of a bed of flowers

When I was studying special education, we used to say that if you hang around kids, it keeps you young. I always believed it was true. Kids are born clean and pure and their energy is only corrupted by the presences of the anxious, angry, frustrated and sad people in their life.

Only later on, I discovered that this is actually done through mirroring. When we hang around other people, we sense what they are feeling and our mind “lights up” in the same way they do.

Babies laugh a lot and trust fully. They love physical touch, enjoy every second and, although they can’t do many things, it never stops them from trying again, and again, and again. There is a lot we can learn from babies.

My mom always loved babies. I first discovered this when my eldest daughter, Eden, was born. I was in the hospital for 10 days and my mom offered to come and stay with us for a week after I got out and help me.

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From Sickness to Health: John the Wizard

My parents and their great-granddaughter

In the first week of my parents’ visit, we played a game. Everyone around the table talked about a good memory they had. Martin Seligman, the founder of Positive Psychology, said that if we focus on 3 happy things that happened to us throughout the day, our happiness level will increase.

We decided to do it as a family, so that my mom would be able to focus on good things in her life and learn to appreciate them and be grateful for what she had.

In our family, we play this game a lot in different versions. I also use it with my clients when I notice that their mind is full of fear of the unknown future, or when they only talk about bad things, doom and gloom. It works very well, and it is easy to see how their body language changes from the change of focus.

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Pursuing Parenthood: This is Your Chance!

On my living room wall, there is a picture of a woman with peacock feathers for hair. I drew it six years ago and called it “Mother”. I wanted my children to see it every day so they can see how much I love them and how proud I am being their mother.

Last week, when my youngest daughter and my son performed together, I asked them at the end of the show if they were able to see my feathers. They knew what I meant.

Over the years, working to help my clients work on their emotions, I came up with a new form of therapy. I call it “Pride Therapy”. I believe it is the cheapest, healthiest, fastest and most effective form of self-therapy. You work on your emotions, become a happy parent, raise happy kids and boost your happiness by being very proud of whatever your kids achieve.

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Make a List: Self-Kindness

I have written a lot about kindness. I think that it makes the world go around and I like to think about it as a ripple. One act of kindness ripples and touches the lives of those who are far away from us.

The movie Pay it Forward showed the power of kindness in making the world a better place. I remember at the age of 16, I was a school captain and we had a teacher, named Reuben, who helped us a lot to change the lives of the students in our school. One day, a girl in the group asked him why he was dedicating so much time to us. He said, “If I make a difference in the lives of six of you, and each of you makes a difference in the lives of six other people, eventually, this world will be a better place”. I was 16 years old and this gave me a perfect understanding of the ripple effect of kindness.

For the last 32 years, I have been teaching emotional intelligence and kindness. used to be the part in EQ that we relate to others. In the last 10 years, it has changed for me as I became the state director of a not-for-profit organization, called “Together for Humanity”, which delivers diversity education.

Why?

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The Power of Complimenting: Don’t Be Stingy

Some parents are stingy with complimenting. I do not blame them. They probably grew up with stingy parents, who probably grew up with parents that did not compliment them either. I have said many times that we suffer today for things our ancestors did, which have not evolved.

Wake up, parents! We do not need to do the same things our great-great-grandparents did, because in some areas of life, they were not great at all. Giving compliments was definitely one of these areas.

The belief “back then” was that compliments got in the way of “building character”. I have clients and friends who say it aloud, “If you compliment people, especially children, they become complacent”.

What?!

Since when is complacent a bad word, anyway?

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I Want to Become a Life Coach: What You Should Know First

As an experienced life coach, people often contact me and say, “I want to become a life coach. Teach me what to do”. If you are thinking of becoming a professional life coach too, this post is for you.

Life coaching is an uplifting and fulfilling profession. I have been doing this work, in various formats, for 32 years now. I enjoy every minute of it and find it my life’s purpose. I can highly recommend becoming a life coach as a fantastic option for those who want to help others succeed, achieve and be happy.

Why?

Because in coaching, the clients’ success is our success.

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How to Stop Bullying with Empathy: The Story of Two Apples

Bullying is an epidemic. It touches every part of our life and children are very vulnerable to bullying, because they do not have the tools to prevent it.

From the bully’s point of view, bullying is an act of fear. When the bullies feels inferior for some reason, they search for someone weak to pick on, in an attempt to feel better about themselves. Therefore, the best way to prevent bullying is to develop confidence and for children, this is still work in progress (it is work in progress for grownups too, but children are just at the beginning of this process).

What we need to change the world from bullying to respect and collaboration is empathy. As parents and educators, we can develop empathy in easy and effective ways.

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Men vs. Women: 6 Stereotypical Differences

For many years, I stayed out of the “men vs. women” debate, mainly because of my dad. He is an old man who grew up in a very patriarchal and chauvinistic society, yet is the most admirable example of gender equality.

My dad cooked, took care of the kids, helped us with our did homework, cleaned the house (inside and outside), brushed our hair, did arts and craft and was never ashamed of any of it. He had four daughters and one son and I thought he was fair and equal in his attitude to boys and girls.

In fact, my dad’s behavior cluttered my outlook on life in a way, because whenever I heard someone talking about the stereotypical man, I said, “This is not true, because my dad is different”. Now, I have to admit that I was wrong. There is something true about the stereotypes about men and my dad was the odd one out.

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Singing Family Full of Joy

Noff with a microphone and Tsoof on guitar

On my happy list, I wrote, “It makes me happy to listen to my kids singing”. This was true even when they were babies. I remember my youngest daughter Noff joining us in Alicia Keys’ song Fallin’ when she was one year old. She always joined on time and it made us all very happy.

Singing is a very sensitive thing for me. Well, it was very sensitive. Today, when I run workshops or stand in front of a big crowd during my presentations, no one can guess that years ago, when I was young, I sometimes had no voice. Speaking was difficult for me and singing was not even an option.

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