Family MattersPractical Parenting Blog

Give Me 22 Reasons

Tsoof showing off his award

For over six month, I have had a note posted here on the shelf over my computer. The note says, “Give me 20 good reasons”. All this time, I knew what I wanted to write, but I was not sure I would be able to go through the “open heart surgery” of telling you about my loss. I think I was building up the confidence to write about it.

Whenever I asked myself what I was afraid of, I knew I was scared of dragging myself again through old emotions of loss and hopelessness. I had been there twice and the feelings had faded but not disappeared.

This sticky note on my shelf is what made me write the posts about my loss.

This post is part 7 of 7 in the series 35-hour Baby

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Inspiring Kids

My daughter Noff (the youngest girl in the photo) is a very inspiring kid, especially since growing up in a house with two very talented siblings is not easy.

This is the story of how Noff composed her first piece of music at the age of 8, with very little knowledge and a lot of ingenuity, and how she continually uses her older brother and sister not as competition but as inspiration to stretch herself and do the best she can in every area.

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Hidden Agenda

The world is full of different people, with whom we have relationships of varying closeness and intimacy. More often than not, we find ourselves in conversation with someone wanting to say something, but saying something completely different, because saying what we think would produce the wrong results. This even happens with our partner sometimes, not to mention the kids.

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A Note to Remember

Ronit and I think often about communication styles as a useful model for improving human relationships and developing kids. As a family, we are lucky to have all the communication styles (Visual, Auditory, Kinesthetic and Digital) represented in different combinations in the members of our family.

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Irrational Rules of Living – Sympathy

Caring about others is a great quality and requires a high emotional intelligence. Being able to get out of ourselves and see things from a different point of view is a useful ability and can probably help us communicate and relate better to others. However…

This post is part 11 of 12 in the series Irrational Rules of Living

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When the Children Cry

I met Amir this year when we both worked for the “together for humanity” organization in Australia. He had black skin and spoke broken English. In the presentation we did together, he told the kids he was from Africa. It is amazing, but most of us in the organization are either educators or social workers. Amir was only in his first year of study for his Social Work degree. As part of the program, he talked to the kids about being “black” and suffering for it. I did not know quite what he meant when he said “suffering”.

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See What Love Can Do

This week, I received this inspiring movie about a father, who participated in the “Iron Man” (triathlon) competition with his son. I watched it with tears of inspiration, tears of excitement and joy for the glory of parenting and the essence of love. Love can help us carry heavy loads and push through enormous difficulties, and then it can inspire others too.

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Global Free Hugs Day

The 19th of October (my birthday, how exciting) has been declared “Global Hugs Day”. Free huggers will be going out to streets around the world from 11am to 1pm local time, offering free hugs to all and spreading human warmth.

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The Seatbelt is Your Friend

View from the back seat of a car

When my daughter started driving, I was scared to death. Talking to her and many of her friends, I heard some awful reasons why they did not want to wear seatbelts. I was also shocked that those who wore seatbelts were doing it just to avoid a fine!

Highway signs where I live warn, “Wear a seatbelt of wear a fine”. This makes young people think that the police are out to get people who are not wearing seatbelts so that is the best reason to wear one. In a way, I believe the authorities are promoting negative thinking about seatbelts with their choice of advertisements.

Instead of teaching people it is important to take care of themselves and wearing a seatbelt can preserve their lives, they scare them into doing it to avoid punishment. But I think that’s the wrong motivation.

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Lean on Me

Once upon a time, there was a princess in a far away kingdom. When the princess was born, she cried a lot. Her parents, the king and queen, called all their advisors for help. Some said she was cold, others said she was tired, some said she was hungry and others said she was wet, but one old advisor said, “The princess is in the middle of a fight”.

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