How to Raise Organized Kids

Kids are not born with organizing and planning skills and do not automatically adopt them, even if their parents are planning junkies. They need to be taught how to be organized gradually, as their mental abilities develop.

My 20-year-old daughter Eden is so organized she managed to work full time in a very demanding job, study psychology full time and get 100% and 99% on two of her university assignments. If Tsoof had to do what she did, he would not have a chance.

But…

At the age of 13, Eden could not plan ahead very well, much like most of the kids and teens I work with.

Just last term, during the school break, I discussed with my busy son Tsoof how to prepare for his last term of school. Because he is a busy kid who performs and rehearses during school hours, he misses many hours and even whole days of school.

The reason I talked to him about it was that the previous term had been too hectic and there had been mornings when he had gotten up and lacked his usual spark about going to school “Yay, today I have…” He had been nearly exhausted, so I hoped that preparing for his last term would make it easier on him.

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Happiness is a Choice

Happiness is probably the thing people dedicate their life to achieve the most. Their definition of happiness is different from one to another, but when they focus on a relationship, they want to be happy in that relationship, when they focus on money, they want to be happy with their financial situation, when they try to be healthy, they want to be happy with their body and wellbeing and when they spend time with their kids, they want to be happy in their parenting. Happiness covers every area of life. Life is a journey to many destinations, but in all of them, we seek to be happy.

So the big question is “How to achieve happiness?”

Would you like to have a happiness manual?

Who wouldn’t?

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Make a list: Excuses

As a life coach whose task is to help people reach their full potential and live the life they want, I hear endless excuses about why people are not living the life they want already. One day, I said to myself that I would make a list of those excuses and then I realized it was not such a bad idea. If I had a list of my excuses, I could easily recognize when I was anchoring myself or dragging myself backwards.

It is no coincidence people who do not live the life they want have tons of excuses and successful people do not. Excusing is a habit. George Washington said “99% of the failures come from people who have the habit of making excuses”. If you feel like a failure in any area of your life, find your excuses.

In my workshops, I always tell how I was kicked out of school in 10th Grade for having too many failures on my report card. When participants ask me why, I say, “There were many objective reasons, but they are bad excuses, so I prefer not to dwell on them. Whatever the objective reasons, we still have the choice to respond differently”.

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TV Diet (17): More Healthy Alternatives

Last week, I described some healthy alternatives to watching too much TV. You may have already found some ideas you can work with. Today, I will describe even more alternatives, which should give you and your kids more options.

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Things Teens Discover Too Late

In the last 25 years, while I was working with teens and collecting information for my book Be Special, Be Yourself for Teenagers, I have discovered many important things about being a teenager. It was funny to discover these things when I was no longer a teen myself. This is the paradox of being a teen – you only understand what has happened to you when you are no longer a teen. Catch 22, don’t you think?

Fundamentally, I do not believe anything is “too late”. There is always something you can do with a new learning to improve your situation now and in the future. However, many bits of information have lot less value when your situation changes.

How many times have you said, “I wish I knew this when I was a teen?”

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TV Diet (15): Routine

During years of work in the education field, I have found that good routines are great for establishing good habits in kids. If your kids have bad TV habits and they watch for too long or too many unhealthy shows, a good routine can help them stay away from the TV and choose more beneficial activities.

Routines are a good way to give kids a stable atmosphere and make them feel certain in their life. The massive change in routine is one of the reasons kids’ world is so shaken and they tend to watch too much TV when their parents go through a relationship breakdown.

I think a good routine is a great parenting technique not only for overcoming the TV addiction but for many other habits you want to instill in your kids. An established routine encapsulates many of your rules and boundaries. If you are a regular reader in this site, you already know I believe that rules give kids a sense of certainty and define to them the safety limits in the world they live in. Therefore, a routine plays a big part in making your kids feel safe.

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Get in Trouble

I do not know if this phrase is used a lot where you live, but in several places where we have lived, kids often say they are afraid to “get in trouble”. They typically use this expression in relation to their teacher, principal or some other adult who is responsible for them.

For example, we are on our way to school and Tsoof remembers he has forgotten part of his rehearsal uniform or some school play accessory. He stresses over it in the car and says, “[Word snipped]! Now I’m going to get in trouble”.

Embarrassing as this may be, I find this type of statement very annoying and frustrating. To me, doing (or not doing) something to avoid “getting in trouble” reflects negative external motivation. Not just negative, not just external, both!

And this is precisely the opposite of how I want my kids to be motivated, which means that some other adult in my kids’ life has managed to ruin my hard work (OK, Ronit helps too) and cause my little darlings to be motivated by some external threat. How dare they?!

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Make a list: Beliefs about Kids cont.

Last week, I wrote about writing your beliefs about kids. As I said, beliefs are a reflection of our parenting style. What we believe about kids becomes our reality. I realized this during my Special Education studies and I started making sure I always had the right beliefs, the most empowering beliefs that will make me the best mother in the world. And they have!

I examined all my beliefs and found out I had many I had received from my parents, my older sister, my teachers and other adults in my life that were very limiting, such as “Kids are cruel”, “Kids have no respect”, “Kids must be disciplined” and I will stop writing this list, because I would like to focus on beliefs that are better for parents to have.

So here I am opening my heart and telling you 100 of my beliefs about kids. I only write the beliefs that are empowering to me and that have made my parenting happier, healthier and more successful. I hope you will find inspiration in them and learn about the philosophy and vision I have for my parenting and for the Family Matters blog.

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Motivating Kids (19)

Motivating kids is an art. Unfortunately, having kids and parenting them is not enough to master this art. Motivating your kids requires taking responsibility for your kids’ motivation and making a commitment to keep learning and improving your motivational skills to an art form.

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Hormonal Teenagers (my brutal opinion)

Two weeks ago, I had a session with Ben, one of my clients, who talked about his daughter misbehaving, throwing temper tantrums and being very disrespectful. I think what hit me was when he said, “You know, teens are just hormonal”.

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