Expect to Be a Happy Parent

One major difference I see between happy parents and unhappy parents is in the gap between their expectations and the fulfilment of their expectations. Basically, if your expectations are high and are not fulfilled, you will be disappointed and unhappy. However, if most of your expectations are fulfilled, you will be a satisfied and happy parent.

Expectations are one important factor of happiness. Byron Katie does some wonderful work (she even calls it “The Work”) on how our expectations can make us miserable if they do not match reality (read Loving What Is: Four Questions That Can Change Your Life).

Children living in a family with expectations that are too high to be fulfilled feel inadequate and develop a failure identity. For example, a family of musicians with high expectation from their kids regarding their musical aspirations and abilities would be devastating for a kid whose passion is playing soccer.

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100 Questions You Should Ask Yourself as a Parent

My mother-in-law once said to me that most people do not have a parenting philosophy. First they act and than they find reasons to support their actions. I was a young mother when she told me this and an educator and the philosophy of education was something I did every day and every hour and it was hard for me to understand what she meant.

In my parent coaching program, I can see every session what she meant. When I ask parents why they do things, most of them do not have answers. They either do not think about it or thought about it and picked the easy way – easy but painful in the long run.

There is a big correlation between having a parenting philosophy and having a happy family life and successful kids.

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Service Your Self-Esteem

Last month, I sent my car to be serviced. On the front window, my mechanic put a label telling me when to bring the car to him for the next service. When he returned my car, it drove perfectly, quietly, smoothly, swiftly and without any black smoke coming out of the exhaust pipe.

People are a lot like cars. We function well, smoothly and at full speed when we take good care of ourselves. When we neglect ourselves, we feel bad, rejected and frustrated and our performance suffers. Whereas cars need servicing every 10,000km, people need it roughly every week (10,000 minutes), so take care of yourself at least once a week to feel fresh and shiny.

This post is part 5 of 20 in the series Self Esteem Mini-Course

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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.

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Change: Let Go of Your “‘Bananas”!

How do you trap a big monkey in a small cage the size of a banana? Easy! You place a banana inside the cage and leave an opening large enough for the monkey’s hand, but not for the banana.

As soon as the monkey grabs the banana, it is trapped! The monkey can set itself free if it lets go of the banana, but it won’t. By not giving up what it has in its hand, it locks itself just outside the tiny cage.

People are the same – we hold many “bananas” that keep us trapped in little “cages” – because we just won’t let go.

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Beliefs and Where They Come From

Every person in the universe is searching for happiness. Our thoughts about ourselves, our self esteem, are part of that one “map” that everyone is looking for, the one we think fits us all. But we all have different experiences and mindsets. Therefore, we each use a different map to guide us to our own happiness.

This post is part 3 of 20 in the series Self Esteem Mini-Course

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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.

This post is part 2 of 20 in the series Self Esteem Mini-Course

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Four Blessings from the Fairies

Once upon a time, in a faraway land, the king and the queen had a welcoming party for their newborn daughter. All the fairies were invited to the party to bless the baby with all the goodness in life.

In a glorious ceremony, each fairy approached the beautiful, gorgeous baby and blessed her. The Blue Fairy gave her happiness, the Green Fairy gave her health, the Red Fairy gave her love, the Pink Fairy gave her friendship, the White Fairy gave her confidence and the Yellow Fairy gave her…

This is a fairy tale, right? Well, no, not really.

When our kids are born, we are just like fairies standing beside their beds every night and blessing them with all the goodness of life. As parents, we all want our kids to be happy and successful. Though many of us dedicate too much energy to the less important things in life, we do, inside of us, deep inside, want the best of our kids.

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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.

This post is part 1 of 20 in the series Self Esteem Mini-Course

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The Be Happy in LIFE Kids Coaching Program

Last month, I wrote about the reasons we as parents need to appreciate and use coaching as a parenting tool.

Today, I would like to tell you a little bit about how it all started for me and introduce the Be Happy in LIFE kids coaching program.

It all started 18 years ago, when I wrote the Garden of Eden program, which put most of the emphasis emotional intelligence. I started an early childhood center with kids aged 1½ to 4 and proved that excellence depends on the teaching, not on the kids.

In the 2 years that followed, the kids at my center accomplished things that blew their parents away. They put together puzzles with many pieces very quickly, they built elaborate constructions, they painted the walls, they recognized written words and lots more. Oh, yes, and they ate healthy food and boasted about it.

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