Family MattersPractical Parenting Blog

Kids Appreciating Art

Last weekend, we took the kids to see a sculptures exhibition on the beach. I love art and I want to expose my kids to any form of art, so I thought a day at the beach, walking barefoot and seeing an exhibition, would be well worth the one-hour trip. I also hoped it would be a great day after a very hectic week. In fact, it had been a very hectic month. I think I had lost track of time – everything had been great and exciting, so I do not even know when the pressure had started.

Many people tell me kids do not really understand (and therefore like) exhibitions, but I remember my kids in Paris, enjoying every art piece in what others thought was a boring gallery at very young ages.

A few years ago, Eden and Tsoof also enjoyed a pottery class, where they fashioned cups and dolls out of mushy clay, baked it and decorated it. They even got to spend a day with a professional sculptor and learned how to carve limestone.

I am a big believer in informal education and I think kids get excited by new things if we get excited about them and then they learn a great deal from them. I have found this to be true with traveling, with food, with music and certainly with visual art.

So away we went to see the sculptures.

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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.

This post is part 17 of 18 in the series TV Diet

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TV Diet (16): Healthy Alternatives

Many people, kids and adults alike, use television as an entertainer and a way to keep themselves busy. Therefore, one of the best ways to overcome too much TV is to make other activities more attractive than watching TV.

Examine your watching habits and you will notice that when you are motivated, doing fun things and working towards a goal, you watch less TV than usual. People generally watch less TV when they renovate, when they start a new and exciting job or when they go on a family trip.

I have found that my kids turn on the TV when I am busy or not around. When I am around and I pay attention to them, I talk to them about school, encourage them to do their homework or practice their music, or come up with a family project. When they are with me, they do not turn the TV on.

Start with the weakest point in your weekly routine and give your kids healthy alternatives to watching too much TV. Here is a list of things you can do to help your kids keep busy and not just busy, but actually doing something meaningful and entertaining, fun and rewarding, instead of numbing their brains in front of the TV.

This post is part 16 of 18 in the series TV Diet

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Kids’ Life Manual

“Kids hold the truth that was given to them as a manual at birth. Over years, chapters are erased and what they know naturally starts to fade. Stay around kids. They will remind you what you have known all along” – Ronit Baras.

I have always said kids know something we adults do not. I guess this is the reason I have made a choice to be around them and discover who I was and the purpose of my life. I do not think it is a coincidence I teach happiness, run motivation workshops, write personal growth books, coach and blog on family matters. All that I teach, I have learned from kids.

Although happiness is defined differently by different people, everyone wants to be happy. Happiness is a state of achievement, success and emotional comfort. It is a state of mind that we are all programmed at birth to seek. In life, we need to operate this complex machine called “me”, so we need a manual.

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Good Fences

Jim, the neighbor sharing our back fence, rang this week to ask if we would share the cost of replacing the fence that separates our back yards. He was very polite and patient, but made it clear he wanted to put up a “good fence”.

So let me tell you exactly what I think about fences and what I think about how they separate people.

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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.

This post is part 15 of 18 in the series TV Diet

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Make a list: Beliefs about Traveling

Traveling does not trigger the same thoughts and ideas in everyone’s mind. For some, traveling means carrying a heavy load, while for others, it means feeling calm and relaxed. Some are stressed by the planning and organizing, while others imagine the views and the pictures they will capture. Some fear the unknown, while others look forward to great surprises.

This list-making post is for the travelers among us. It is for those who love traveling and the thought of going out of their comfort zone to a new destination excites them.

This post is also for those who have never traveled (much), but wish they did (more).

It may even be for those who have had no desire to travel until now…

I can write about traveling because I am a world traveler and love every second of it.

But I was not a traveler all my life.

This post is part 22 of 48 in the series Make a List

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Boost Your Kids’ Performance with Scents

Today, I want to write one trick I have used for many years to enhance kids’ performance. In fact, I use this trick to enhance my audience’s benefits from my workshops when the group of participants is small enough.

Our memory depends on the involvement of our various senses. The more senses are involved in a new learning, the more our brain records of it the better we remember it. Unfortunately, most of our learning is directed at only 2 senses – vision and hearing – through reading/writing and listening/talking. Sometimes, learning also involves kinesthetic stimulation like movement (hands-on activities), which allows the brain to store more pieces of information and strengthen the learning.

However, two important senses are very much neglected – smell and taste. Just try to recall smelling your math book or tasting your English exam and you will see what I mean.

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TV Diet (14): Cutting Junk TV

I am sure many of you ask, “Well, now that we know why it is important to cut junk TV out of our kids’ life, the big question is how?”

I agree! This is the big question.

In this post of TV Diet, I will explore ways to do just that. Not all techniques have worked for me as well as others, but I think it is important to mention all of them, mainly because we are different people and have different personalities and therefore, what did not work for me may work well for you and vice versa.

This post is part 14 of 18 in the series TV Diet

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Popularity Counts

Though many parents tell their teens that popularity is not the only thing that matters, not wanting them to compromise more important things in life to fit in and be subject to peer pressure, I think in a way they are deceiving themselves.

If popularity is not that important to us as parents,
where did our teens get this idea?

Grownups compromise a lot to gain popularity at home, at work and among their friends and family. Most extended family struggles runs around popularity. Siblings fight to be the most popular kids and the most popular grandchildren. When a couple divorces, there is an immediate struggle for being the most popular parent and most couples, unfortunately, compromise many of their values and much of the wellbeing of their precious kids just to gain imaginary popularity over their partners. Whether you like to admit it or not, you compromise a lot and are subject to social pressure yourself.

I think popularity counts, not because I think it should, but because it just does.

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