Amanda and I sat together and wrote 100 things she could say to her daughters in a positive way. The first step to saying good things to your kids is to start with yourself. Take a sheet of paper and write 100 good things about yourself. Yes, I know it is not easy, especially if you have not heard it from your parents, but remember, you need these thoughts in your tank if you want to easily say them to your kids.
How to Find Hope in Your Pandora’s Box
It is amazing how many people struggle with the list of 100 things they want to do in their life time. Life becomes so hectic and difficult for most people that they can only focus on what is going to happen today, tomorrow, next month and maybe, only maybe, next year.
I think if you scanned people’s brain, you would find that their brain is busy, busy, busy, thinking about the dishes, the bills, the alarm clock and shopping with only small breaks for planning next month’s birthday party.
Most people are in survival mode. When I ask about next year or what is going to happen in ten years, they look at me as if I fell from the sky.
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.
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.
What Are You Saying to Your Teens?
A couple of clients came to me for parent coaching because of a problem they had with their teen boy, and were very surprised when we went through Pink Elephants. They said, “We tell him every day NOT to hang around bad kids, but saying it only puts the focus on those kids we want him to stay away from”.
The day after our session, the mother sent me this email:
“Dear Ronit, You won’t believe what happened after we left our session last night. I was home for 3 minutes and so many Pink Elephants came out of my mouth… It’s so hard!”
It is hard. I agree.
How School Promotes Low Self Esteem
Last week, in Self Esteem Mini-Course (part 1), I wrote about the definition of self-esteem. This week, let us explore how school promotes low self-esteem in children and shapes our society in the opposite way.
Since our self-esteem is based on our perception of ourselves and school is the place we spend most of our time between the ages of 6 and 12, every school experience either increases or decreases our self-esteem.
What Is Self Esteem?
I believe that every parent wants their kids to have high self-esteem, so I have decided to publish a few posts over the coming weeks about self-esteem, what it is and how to increase it, so every parent reading this will be able to help their kids develop this very important emotional strength.
So first, what is self-esteem?
Self-esteem is a reflection of a person’s overall appraisal of their own worth
In other words, self-esteem is the score each person gives their abilities and skills.
Read What Is Self Esteem? »
The Parent as a Life Coach
Bringing kids into this world is a selfish act. Yes, I know most people cringe at this point, but think about it, you brought your kids to life for you, not for them. They did not exist when you made your decision to have them.
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A good parenting system I have found to be very successful is that of being your kids’ life coach. Here are some of the rules of coaching that can be 100% applicable in parenting.
Read The Parent as a Life Coach »
Who Am I?
What we think about ourselves is what we call our “Self Concept”. If you want to discover yours, simply ask yourself: Who am I?
This seemingly simple question is big, really big. Of course, your answers may be different, but most people include: social roles, physical appearance, health, relationships, location, achievements and skills.
How do we form this self concept?
Read Who Am I? »
How to Beat those Pink Elephants
There are two parts to making a change from using a negative language to a positive one. The first is to understand how we were programmed to use negative language in our life. We talk about what we are not happy about and we express disappointment and frustration instead of saying what we feel, need and want.
The second part of making the change is to do something different and practice doing it until it becomes the new habit.
To help you make the change, here are some rules you need to remember.