September 2017

Let’s face it, we all want our kids to be the best they can be. Better than all the rest. Top of the class. Best on the sports team. Outstanding in every way. In other words we want them to be perfect in everything they do.

The question is, is it really a good idea for us to push our children to be perfect? Or are we sabotaging them by doing so?

Unfortunately, by pushing them to perfection, we may actually be pushing them away from it. See, when we tell them, or show them, that we want perfection, and they fail to reach our goals, it demoralises them. The result being, they don’t even want to try because they know they can never do good enough. read more

From the moment we bring our baby home from the hospital, there’s crying. At first it’s simply a process of discovering what they need, a change, food, sleep. But over time the reasons our kids cry change and develop. When they cry it may be because they’re sad, angry, scared, anxious or even happy. How we respond to them is important both in stopping the crying and to help them to develop ways to deal with the emotions in the future.

One of the things we shouldn’t do is to tell them not to cry. I know I’ve done it, and in retrospect it’s counterproductive. What we’re doing when we say, “don’t cry,” is that we don’t understand or don’t care about them. It may seem to them that we’re saying their emotions are invalid or unimportant. Even if the reason seems trivial to us, it’s not to them. Plus it takes away an opportunity to help them deal with their emotions in a helpful manner. This can have ramifications for a life time. read more

I’ve talked before about what to do when a child gets angry. How to deal with it and what to say. If you want to check it out, you can find it here. Today though, I wanted to talk about preventing our kids from getting angry. First I’ll show how it works, and then we’ll talk about how we got to that point.

It had been a long day for Jay, my son. He’d started the morning with a tuition session. It was only two hours. Normally he’d come home afterwards to play games and relax at home. Perhaps he’d have lunch out first, but not always. read more

I can’t sing. I can’t dance. And I can’t play a musical instrument. How do I know? Well, since I was young I’ve been told I can’t. So obviously I can’t, right?

That seems to be the problem. Since I, and many others are told from young that we can’t sing. Or at least told we don’t have the talent to sing or play music. This makes us believe that’s true. But is it really true? That’s the question some people are asking now. Are we creating self-fulfilling prophecies by telling our kids that they can’t sing? And even if we aren’t creating that, are we stopping them from enjoying an important part of their lives. read more