I’m sure you definitely can tell from my recent posts, that we are having a teenager in the house. No, I’m not complaining. She’s still great kid, we just get more than usual dose of unusual events.

Last week she called: “Mum, what should I do? The boys broke my bicycle!”

What would you do if you were in my shoes?

 

I calmly told her to solve the situation by herself. And she accepted it without a word. When she came home, she explained what was going on and that the boy agreed to cover the costs of repair and this was it. Of course I asked her to pay the repair out of her allowance and then collect the money just to make sure she holds her responsibility.

Without much fuzz we got over this and we gave our child a chance to take responsibility for her actions (or her belongings). And not to mention the boys involved. I’m sure they appreciated it a lot more when they made the agreement among themselves, without the parents intervention. I know that one kid was afraid to tell about it at home. I wonder why…

How would you react in this kind of situation?
a) Would you solve the problem for your child? Go to school and talk to boys, or maybe their teacher…?
b) Would you yell and/or punish your child?
c) Would you allow your child to take charge of his life?

If you answered anything but c) consider again.

If you are solving the problems for him, what are you really saying is: “I don’t trust you. You’re not good. You don’t know. You’re not mature/responsible/clever… enough…” and in time you could have a child that will fight back or, even worse, will give up responsibility for his life to your hands. He could give up his own thinking and taking responsibilities and expect from you to handle all his issues. He will get detached from the consequences and he might think that whatever goes wrong, his parents will save him.

If you are yelling and punishing him, you are focusing on the problem, giving it more power and completely changing the focus from the solution. Don’t forget, what you focus on, expand! We are so easily pointing at the problems and what’s wrong, that we are forgeting that making mistakes, wrong judgements and choosing inapropriate options are part of life, part of growing up and part of learning experience.

The only “right” thing to do is to help your kid see the mistake and learn from it. To take responsibility for it and find ways to get back on the right track. And of course there is no right or wrong solutions. Be careful not to propose your solution as the only way to do it. Support your child to come up with his own answers and let him do it his own way.

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Today I have a little story for you (and I’m sure you’ve heard of it; it’s from Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People ), to remind you of the important things in your life.

How many times we don’t find the time or the will to do something of value? How much time we spend for small, everyday stuff, when the big issues are waiting for us to find the space? And when raising the children, it become even  more important. If we miss the opportunity to teach them lessons for life, we will never get that chance again.

So here is the story:

One day an expert in time management was speaking to a group of business students and to drive home a point, used an illustration those students will never forget. As he stood in front of the group of high powered over-achievers, he said, “Okay, time for a quiz.”

Then he pulled out a one gallon, wide-mouthed Mason jar and set on the table in front of him. He then produced about a dozen fist sized rocks and carefully placed them, one at a time, into the jar. When the jar was filled to the top and no more rocks would fit inside, he asked, “Is the jar full?” Everyone in the class said, “Yes.”

Then he said, “Really?” He reached under the table and pulled out a bucket of gravel. He dumped some gravel in, and shook the jar, causing pieces of gravel to work themselves down into the space between the big rocks. Then he asked the group once more, “Is the jar full?” By this time the class was on to him. “Probably not,” one of them answered.

“Good!” he replied.

He reached under the table and brought out a bucket of sand. He started dumping the sand in the jar, and it went into all the spaces left between the rocks and the gravel. Once more he asked the question, “Is the jar full?” “No!” the class shouted.

Once again he said, “Good!”

Then he grabbed a pitcher of water and began to pour it in until the jar was filled to the brim. Then he looked at the class and asked, “What is the point of this illustration?”

One eager student raised his hand and said, “The point is, no matter how full your schedule is, if you try really hard, you can always fit some more things in!” “No,” the speaker replied, “That’s not the point.

The truth this illustration teaches us is: If you don’t put the big rocks in first, you’ll never get them in at all.

What are the ‘big rocks’ in your life? Your children….Your loved ones…Your education… Your dreams…A worthy cause…..Teaching or mentoring others…. Doing things that you love…Time for yourself…. Your health….Your significant other.”

“Remember to put these BIG ROCKS in first, or you’ll never get them in at all. If you sweat the little stuff (the gravel, the sand) then you’ll fill your life with little things to worry about that don’t really matter, and you’ll never have the real quality time you need to spend on the big, important stuff (the big rocks).

Ask yourself: What are the ‘big rocks’ in my life? Then, put those in your jar first.

Of course, you would say »No.« And of course, I know that you can only live now in this present moment. But are your thoughts in the now? Or are you spending days dreaming (or fearing) about the future or complaining about the past? If so, you are not living in the present and you are not enjoying your time here and now. Your mind is turned to the past or future.

Let me first tell you two stories.

Few years ago I was running regularly, to stay fit and most of all, to stay sane. One hour a day let me clear my mind. Then I stopped. As I became more and more frustrated and gain some weight, I decided that this year I will start again. But I was puting it off and finding all kind of excuse (I’m sure some of you can relate). One day, on a perfect sunny weather, with just the right temperature and enough time to actually do it, I heard the weather forecast. Next week was going to be cold, rainy… not the weather for running. And I decided not to go. Even though the day was great, I did not seize it.

Now another story. And you might guess it’s about my kids. My younger daughter Tina has birthday in February. Because she wants to invite all her friends (and she has lots of them), we usually have her birthday party in late June, by the pool. Last year she invited around 20 friends, we organized someone to bake crepes to them, they were jumping and shouting… the usual stuff. But then it started to rain. Would you think they bothered? Not at all. They included the rain in their games (it was even more fun), we put drinks and food under the roof and on with the party…
Can you imagine which one of us had better time? Me, afraid of something in the future or her, enjoying every minute of her party.

And this is one of the most important things I learned from my kids. »Seize the day.« Don’t worry about tomorrow or something, that might (or even might not) happen. Enjoy the NOW. Do what you can in the present. Learn to have fun any time. Don’t let worries and fears stop you. Especially not about something you don’t know. You know how it is now. And you always can make something good of it:)

Enjoy your NOW!

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We had an interesting conversation the other day about, I guess, the everlasting issue in the parenting – how to make your kids to clean up their rooms. You know, when you tell your kids to do it, they come up with all kind of excuses and arguments: »It’s too much to do, it will take so long…«

What I found out is that many parents, even if they are usually patient and understanding, are frustrated with this. And despite all good intentions and the »training«, the rooms seem to be always messed and cluttered.

One way to deal with it could definitely be, that you don’t put any attention to it. That you just leave your kids alone. If they want to live in the mess, let them. If they don’t have nothing ot wear, I don’t care. But I’m sure we can agree that is not really a solution. Or at least not our, »law of attraction« way, when we want to focus on the positive and teach kids with good examples, not the hard and dirty way.

Do you know what first step in Law of Attraction is? To ask in a very detailed and specific way.

Not just telling them to clean up their rooms. For the children it would mean the same as if someone asks you to build a house. It could be really overwhelming and scary. And it’s not specific. If you would be asked to build a house, what would your first (logical) reaction be? You would ask all kinds of questions – Where? How big? What style? How many bedrooms? With a terrace? Etc.

It’s the same with the rooms. When you say “clean up your room”, your child doesn’t really know what you mean.
There are two other important issues that you must take into consideration.

One is to ask yourself for your own motivation and underlying feelings. Sometimes we just snap to kids because we got frustrated with some other issues. We came home tired and nervous and the kids are easy target. Maybe their rooms are not that messed, but we just need to take some control and let our own frustrations go.

Do you often use their rooms for punishment? If your child doesn’t spend much time in his/her room or if he is usually playing or doing homework in other areas of the house, he might feel the task of cleaning the room as a punishment. That’s why you might offer your support or help, but I’m pretty sure they won’t need it. Sometimes it’s enough that you are around.

Another issue is that often our own perception of clean and order is totally different from our child’s. We are looking the world through our own lenses. And our children can have a completely different idea what their rooms should look like. Remember that there are different types of people. And they are learning and experiencing the world in different ways – some like to read and see materials,, while others rather hear about it and some would try it for themselves. They are called the visual, auditory or kinesthetic type. You child might have a different view on the world and you should organize (or let them organize) their environment to support these preferences.

If I go back to the »ask« part. Be specific and detailed. Split one overwhelming task to smaller tasks, to little steps. Determine the milestones (just as any planning process) and let them do one thing at a time. Encourage them with some rewards, when they reach those milestones – offer a snack, some play time…

Good idea is also to limit the time. The children can’t really evaluate that sometimes a simple task requires very little time. They are usually in a defensive mode, feeling that it will take forever. But in reality often the arguments last longer than the tasks themselves. Make it fun and make it short enough. You can say: »Empty your trash bin and it will take you 3 minutes (and I can even measure time, so yu’ll be sure that it’s true and you will know for the next time), then you can go back to your games.« It will give them some control over the task with definiteness and a reward at the end.

When I ask my girls to tidy their rooms, I let them choose what they will do, but I often set a time limit. »Let’s do it for 15 minutes and what’s done is done.« It’s working much better than when they have a lot of time and usually it’s more done than in hours. And the best part of it is,that they often beg for more time to finish the task:)

After you get through your first step (ask), the other two – to believe and to expect the realisation – should not be that difficult, right?

How do you cope with this issue? What are your ideas, techniques…? Please share below.

Can you imagine what they are? No, I don’t mean cursing or calling him names. Those words that I have in mind are actually really polite, can be even nice and well-meaning, but they are deadly.

They will not kill your child, of course, but they will kill his ambition, his dreams and his motivation. And those are the things that we as a parents need to empower. What would happen to your child, when he grows up and find himself in the life with no future, no motivation, no inspiration and nothing to look after? He might just be dead as well.

And what are those 3 words?

You must

Whenever we say to our child “You must do something.” or “You must be something.” , we are giving him orders. We approach him from our authority perspective, giving him no choice whatsoever. When we say “You must…” the child understands it as “You better do this or…”.

There is always an alternative. We can ask a child to do something. We can suggest. We can explain, why we need something to be done.

You should

It’s similar to “You must…” It sounds a bit nicer, but still there are threats and expectations hidden behind those words. Again, the child understands it “It really doesn’t matter what you do, but you better do it my way. I am smarter here and I know what’s best for you.”

Why don’t you go through the option your child have together? You can discuss all the pros and cons and he can decide what’s better alternative.

You can’t

This one is the most vicious killer of dreams of them all. When we say those words, we are saying to our child, he is not good enough, not smart enough, not valuable enough. And often times that others are more important than he is. Because we don’t say “You can’t” just like that. Many times we think about our environment, our friends and relatives, or even worse, about the strangers, that might see our child doing something, we think he shouldn’t.

But guess what! All the great inventors, great adventurers, great men and women of our world… they all did, what they shouldn’t and what others said they can’t.

Give your child a wings, keep his dreams alive and avoid those 3 deadly words.

 Make it a New Year Resolution to eliminate those words from your vocabulary.

Need help? Check out Raising Sparkling Kids© program!

I would love to hear your thoughts. Post your comments below!

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Every evening when my daughers go to bed, I go to tuck them and kiss them good night. But the other day I was working on something and we say goodnight and kissed right after the dinner.

Tina said: “Will you come and kiss me again, when you will go to sleep?”
“Sure.”

But I didn’t. I completely forgot about my promise.

Next morning I was about to do laundry and while I was getting sheets from the beds, I also asked Tina to get her dirty clothes from her room. And that’s when she got me! “You didn’t come to kiss me yesterday. Otherwise you would see that I cleaned ant tiedied my room and that ther are no dirty clothes around.” Ooopss.

So, how many times are we saying or doing things that we don’t mean? Or that we say them just to go on with our lives and forget about them?

Even if it doesn’t sound much, it meant a lot to Tina. And I dissapointed her. I felt so bad. Not just because I broke my promise, I might even signal her, that she’s not really important. I skipped the ritual for other “more important” thing and it looks like I didn’t think of her at all passing her room to my bed.

Now think about your life and your situations.

Are there any little lies you are telling your child just to get peace, or just to send him off, or because you don’t feel like doing something. When doing those kind of things, think about your priorities. Remember, children grow up really, really fast and before we know it, they are out of our lives (or at least out of our houses). There are situations when you need peace and be calm or finish something, but explain to your child your situation. Tell him, that you will be there for him after that. Make a deal with your kid and trade your lack of time at that moment for something even more than he asks.

Then there are another lies, that are aimed to protect our kids. But are they really protecting? Those lies usually include some kind of accidents, mishaps, maybe death.. First think about yourself. Would you rather have the truth and deal with it or would you rather get vague, misguiding, misleading or even contradictory explanations. Because children see when there is something wrong. They sense it. You can’t really hide your feelings and emotions behind nice words. Of course every situation requires different approach, and you should explain kids in such a manneer that he understands, but the truth is always better than lies. And what if he hears it from someone else? Isn’t it better that you, who knows him best and knows how to tell it, give him explanations rather than some stranger, who might assume that your child already knows bad news?

What about lies about our money, wages, properties? Sometimes we are not exactly lying, but we are avoiding the topic. Children are often quite direct about money, they talk among themselves how much their parents have (money, car…). And when the car or the house are obvious posessions we really can’t (and won’t) hide, we are often embarassed to talk about money. Especially if we don’t have much. We often say to our kids, when they want something, that we can’t afford it or  that we don’t have that kind of money (or even worse – money doesn’t grow on trees). But how would they know? They have no idea how much money is required to pay the bills, the food, clothes, all activities… Usually, all the experience that they have with money, are alowance and occasional gifts and they usually spend it just like they wish. So talking openly about money, where it comes from and how we spend it, is not only fair to our children, it’s part of the “must-have” education.

What little lies are you telling your child? Please share your comments below, I would love to hear from you.

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This weekend we had the worst weather possible. It was raining and many rivers flooded so at the end of the weekend they evacuated several hundred people, few died, schools are closed… It was just horrible, seeing so many houses under water, roads and bridges ruined…

Luckily we live far enough from the rivers and flooding areas, so our house is safe, but the water got into our oil tank, so we have no heating (which we don’t need yet) and warm water. Which is nothing compared to some other people, but it is something we need to take care of.

So when after few days of no TV, no internet, no phone, no warm water, we (especially girls) finally decided that we need to wash our hairs, it became a major project. I heated the water on the stove several times, as we don’t have large enough pots. The girls have fun, they couldn’t imagine how this way was quite normal some years (decades) ago. A surprise came from Tina: ” Wow, we are really spending so much water.”

And the lesson?

I guess they never imagined the quantity of the water we really spend for washing and cleaning, because it is drained down the sink, so they never see all of it. I sure hope that they will become more aware of the water waste. 

I learned my lesson as well. I often talked to them about saving the water. But I guess they never really understood that it can be a serious problem. For them it was something that is always there when you open the tap. So…never assume that someone can imagine something when he or she never saw it or the images could be completely different. I need to take time to explain more and show more, so they see, hear, feel and only then understand things.

So, how are you making sure, that your kids understand what you are saying? Please comment below.

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What are the most important lessons that our kids teach us?

I am sure we all can say that our lives changed with the kids. And not only that, I am sure that in many areas it changed for the better. I know there can be some troubles as well, but I hope those are rare in your life.

Here are 3 most important lessons I learned from my kids:

Time is NOT money.
They appreciate your time and your involvement much more than your money. You cannot trade your time with the money. And you cannot buy your time with the money. Or even buy someone else’s time. Of course the kids are asking for the things, they want everything they see and what others have, but they can easily live without. But at the end it’s your investment of time that is invaluable.

Live in the NOW.
Who cares for tomorrow, let’s play now. The kids don’t think of the past nor do they worry about their future. They need the attention and love at the present time. They only want to enjoy every minute, every second of the present and they want your attention at that time, not sometimes later. They don’t find excuses for not to play, the weather is always fine and the house is always clean enough.

Everything can wait, but us.
Kids grow every day and you don’t want to miss one single precious moment. All other things can wait – errands, meetings, phone calls, TV shows, investment opportunities… There might be lost at the time, but there might be another out there waiting for you. The kids will not wait, they will never be that young again.

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Some kids are open and can make new friends quite easily where ever they go. And some are just nothing like that. They stick to their mothers and won’t move away for an inch. Their mothers usually say: “It is such a shy kid.” But in reality only part of this can be attributed to their nature. It’s also the result of their upbringing and circumstances.

Now at the beginning of new school year or going to the kindergarten for the first time, it can be quite challenging for some kids to be comfortable with new people.

Here are few tips how you can help your child to make new friends:

1. Examine your own thoughts, words and actions!

However strange it may sound, it all starts with you. How do you behave with strangers? What are you saying abut other people? How do you describe other kids? Are they adorable little creatures or those awful dirty screaming punks?

When you relate to others with negative words and even frightening your child, he will certainly feel insecure around new people. If they will be nice to him, he might even feel that he is betraying you if he is to return the kindness.

If you act reserved and going away from other people it’s great probability that your kid will act the same way.

2. Take it slow

Sometimes the kids are naturally shy and need some more time, even if you are very outspoken and open. In this case, keep your positive attitude, as it can help a lot. Approach other kids and communicate with them, making sure your kid see that it’s safe and that it’s ok to talk and play with them.

Encourage interactions with other people but don’t push your kid to make friends. He might need some more time. Allow him enough time and space to get comfortable with others. Maybe you can invite some families over your house for some ice-cream or lemonade. It will be much easier for your kid dealing with strangers in  familiar environment.

3. Keep it safe!

Even though most people are nice and friendly, there are some who are not. Let your kid know about dangers and how to react when faced with them. It is important not to scare or even threaten your kid. Explain differnet, possibly hazardous situations in simple and neutral terms.

How do you help your child when meeting new people and making new friends? Please share your thoughts and comme

I remember I was always afraid of the snakes, even from my youngest days. In Slovenia snakes are quite rare and you are not very likely to meet one. But I somehow manage to see snakes where ever I go. Last time we were at the Kolpa river bathing and enjoying ourselves and suddenly there was a snake in front of me. I panicked and we immediately left the place. We then talked to a friend who lives near the river and he saw a snake once in his entire life. My husband said: “You must be attracting snakes, you are seeing them everywhere.” And at the time I didn’t think about it until someone said: ”It’s a good sign!” I got curious and searched the net and I only found really good and positive descriptions.

Snakes mean wisdom, healing, intuition, awaking of creative forces, ability to handle change without resistance, new opportunities for change, material vitality, intellect emotional control and increased sensitivity to the environment. Really great, isn’t? And now wherever I go I am looking for snakes eager to see one.

The only thing that changed in this story is my perspective, my point of view and my attitude.

When thinking of your family life and your children, what are your beliefs that limit your happiness? Are you afraid of something that never happens? Or are you holding yourself back because someone said something to you long time ago and you stick to “the truth”?

If there is an area in your family life that isn’t quite satisfactory and you have the feeling it could be better, first examine your attitude. Be honest and sincere. Are your thoughts and actions really positive and oriented toward the improvement of the situation? Or are you expecting bad outcome and you just “know” what will happen?

Remember, your thoughts are powerful magnets. You attract situations, some would even say, create ones that are in alignment with your dominant thoughts. How many times we say: “I knew this will happen!” Of course we knew, when we attracted it:)

“Whether You Think You Can or Can’t, You’re Right” (Henry Ford)

In most of the times it is only our attitude that makes all the difference. If we are expecting good outcome, we will get it, and when we are expecting something bad, we will get that too.

Think about your attitude towards family members. Are you expecting that your kids will talk back to you? Or that they will not do their homework? That they will get bad grade?

Think then about the message you are sending to your children. They are acting in the perfect harmony with your expectations. And instead being good students, they are expected to perform less than they are capable. Do you really want that?

Try to step outside your current situation and thinking and evaluate your thoughts. Ask other family members how they see your attitude and your support. Get your friends’ opinion about your family situation.

Decide what you want to change and start with little steps. Ask for the feedback and correct your attitude until it is in alignment with what you really want. After you take some positive action you will soon see positive responses and the family atmosphere will improve on other areas as well.