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Care!

If you find it in your heart to care for somebody else, you will have succeeded. ~Maya Angelou

I have to begin with an admission. While I write this, I am a little angry. Perhaps I should calm down before I write, but if I go overboard, my editor (my wife) will “clean” it up. If you are reading this newsletter, I guess I was okay!

I teach English at a local college. I work in various departments, one of which has an administrator that I often don't agree with. I have been an administrator in the past and I always tried to make sure that the quality of the educational experience of the students was my guiding principle. I don't feel that this administrator shares that value.

Yesterday a colleague said to me, “They don't care, why should you care?” My response was. “The day I stop caring, please fire me.”

We live in a world where many people have become numb and have ceased to care. I know that many people are overwhelmed, but caring is so important. Perhaps if we can pass this on to our children, even if we are ourselves are numb already, the future of the world will be better than the present.

Often people say, “It is not my business, I don't want to get involved.” The best analogy that I once read for this argument is that if an elephant is standing on the tail of a mouse, the mouse will not appreciate your desire to stay neutral.

If your child sees another child being bullied at school, it may or may not be appropriate to intervene in the moment. It is possible that your child will be hurt. But it is completely appropriate, and you should encourage your child, to talk to the victim afterward. The last thing the victim needs to feel is that not a soul in the world cares about him or her.

The self-centered reason to care about others is so that they will care about you. Having more people that you care about and that care about you has been shown to increase happiness, health and success. It is a way to grow your social network. Having close relationships with family and close friends is important. Having many relationships in a “second circle” of friends is also important for creating a healthy social network that will increase many positive psychological outcomes.

One way to get ahead in the world is to be recognized as outstanding. My mother used to say that in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. In an era when most people don't care, it doesn't take a lot of caring to stand out as a special person. That is not to say that we should teach our kids to care only enough to get ahead. But we can point out that a little caring goes a long way, a lot of caring goes even further!

And of course, if our kids are caring, they will care about their parents and siblings as well, which will lead to a peaceful and loving house!

Feel free to use this article on your website or ezine. If you do, include the following bio. If you would like to print and distribute this article, click here.

Shaya Kass, PhD is a parenting coach.

I help parents create relationships with their kids that give a lifetime of smiles. Sincere, deep, loving relationships. Having a parent coach can help you create one of these fabulous relationships. I offer tips and techniques for growing happy, inspired kids and parents at http://www.PositiveParentPlus.com.

Visit now for a free report on The 7 Key Steps to Being A Positive Parent.

Shaya can be reached at DrShaya@PositiveParentPlus.com

Be Proud Of Your Kids And Let Them Know

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I'm most proud of the longevity of my marriage, my kids, and my grandchildren. If you don't have that, you really don't have very much. – Bob Newhart

Like Bob Newhart, I too am very proud of my marriage and of my children. If I had grandkids, I am fairly certain I would be proud of them as well, but I have not yet been blessed with grandkids.

We just spent the weekend with my wife's aunt and uncle. My boys were great. At every meal they jumped up to help, they took part in the conversation, they didn't fight, they were just great. I often tell my sons how proud I am of them, but it is usually after we have spent time with another family whose kids behave poorly. In those cases, my kids stand out as wonderful. This weekend they stood out as wonderful kids without needing a negative comparison.

And on Saturday when we were heading home, I made sure to let them know.

So do you let your kids know that you are proud of them? I believe it is very important to let our kids know we are proud of them and why.

One way to look at this is the way we look at performance reviews at work. The best way to give a performance review is to be specific about what the employee does well and what the employee doesn't do well. If an employee is given specific information about what they are doing well and what they are not doing well, the assumption is that they will do more of the “good stuff” and less of the “bad stuff”.

I have said before that kids just want to be loved. Kids will do just about anything for love and attention. The first thing that new teachers are told about discipline is to “catch the kids being good” so that the kids get praise for positive behavior and will try to do more of it.

Telling your kids that you are proud of them is similar. By telling your kids you are proud of them you are “catching them being good” and letting them get more and more praise for that.

Just like with a performance review, be specific. “I am proud of you for helping serve the meal.” “I am proud of you for cleaning your room so nicely.” “I am proud of you for working hard on your book report.”

Research by Carol Dweck of Stanford University tells us that we should praise our kids for their effort rather than their performance. In the future we want them to make the effort again and again. If we praise their performance they may be afraid to try hard things because they may fail and not get the praise for the good performance. But if they get praise for their effort, they will consistently make the effort because that is what will get them praise.

When you praise your children for the effort they make and for doing what you expect them to do, they will continue to make the effort and they will continue to do what is expected. When they learn to do this as kids, they will continue to do this as adults. You will have taught them to do this without screaming and threatening, but with praise and pride.

You will be setting yourself up to have a wonderful relationship with your kids for many years to come. And isn't that what you really want? To have a wonderful relationship with your kids when they are great, productive, happy adults?!

Why It Is Important For Your Kids To Be Happy

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Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be. Abraham Lincoln

I heard a very interesting interview with Dr. Bruce Lipton, a cellular biologist. He gave a very simple yet powerful explanation of why happiness is important.

Dr Lipton told about an experiment that he had done. He had a stem cell that he grew in a petri dish and then had many stem cells. He then separated the cells into different petri dishes and by changing the growth medium in the dishes, he was able to have the cells grow into either bone cells, muscle cells or fat cells. All the cells were genetically identical, they had all come from the same cell. The only thing that changed was the growth medium and which was able to so radically change the cells themselves.

He also took some of the cells and put them in a very poor environment. Of course, the cells started to die. That is expected. But to revive the cells he didn't give them medicine nor did he give them therapy. As you probably figured out already, all he did was put them in a healthy environment.

Now think about your body and your child's body. What is the growth medium for the cells in your body? Why, it is your blood, of course! Your blood carries oxygen to your cells and takes away carbon dioxide. It brings nutrients to the cells and takes away waste. But there are also the hormones in the blood which both greatly affect our mood and are effected by our mood.

So let's say you want to have lots of “good hormones”. Those hormones are ones that promote growth of cells and healing like oxytocin, dopamine and serotonin. How do you do that? Well, if you open your eyes and see the love of your life, or a beautiful sunrise or you have to go to your award ceremony that day, your brain is pumping all of these wonderful hormones into your blood.

On the other hand, if you open your eyes and see someone pointing a gun at you or if you see a fire in your room or you wake up and you know you have a test that day on a subject that you just don't understand, your brain will be flooding your blood and body with stress hormones like adrenaline. This will make your body start shutting down, and your brain will stop thinking straight.

This is why it is so very important for our kids to be happy and why your kids need you to help them be easy-going. Of course, there are stressful situations when stress hormones are needed. But a test is not one of them! Nor is not having the same shoes as Sally or the same baseball mitt as Johnnie.

I have heard many times that happier people are healthier. Now it makes sense to me. People who are happy have cells that are living in a growth medium (their blood) that is full of good chemicals which promote good health. People who are stressed have their cells floating in a toxic environment.

So the question with the obvious answer is, ”Which do you want for your child?”

Why You Should Teach Your Child The Art Of Giving

“If you wish to experience peace, provide peace for another.” Tenzin Gyatso, The 14th Dalai Lama

I just started reading a wonderful book by Stephen Post and Jill Neimark called “Why Good Things Happen To Good People”. Let me start by saying that this book is all about science. Dr. Post is the director of an institute at the medical school of Case Western University. He commissions scientists to do studies that are verifiable – which is the gold standard of science.

The studies that Post and Neimark quote in the book show that people who give are healthier and live longer. Other studies show that people who give are happier. And most of us have experienced that feeling as well.

These research studies show that giving does more than makes us feel good in the moment. Giving has long term effects on our lives.

Post and Neimark quote studies that show that people who volunteer as teenagers live longer lives. Imagine that! Volunteering as a teenager can change health outcomes 50 or 60 years later! What an effect! People who volunteer as senior citizens also live longer.

And think back to your own experience. Think back to a time that you volunteered. Perhaps you helped out serving meals to the homeless during the holidays. Or brought meals to needy families. Perhaps you went to a school to help kids who were struggling. Or even helped at an animal shelter.

How did you feel when you finished? You probably felt pretty good. You were probably pretty proud of yourself. Let's say you went back to the office and met the staff curmudgeon. You know – the guy who tell you what's wrong with any and every situation. Was he able to get you down when you got back to the office that day? I bet not. You were probably walking on air the rest of the day.

Have you made sure that your child has that feeling? Have you let your child have that wonderful experience? What are you waiting for? Even a 2 year old can help deliver meals over the holidays. You and I both know it may be easier without their help, but let them help.

Make sure to explain to your kids that these people are nice normal people who happen to have some bad circumstances. And hopefully, those circum-stances are temporary and things will get better soon. And in the meantime, your are just helping out a little.

Your child will learn that circumstances don't “make” the person, that if they themselves are in a little trouble it doesn't make them a bad person or a loser. They will learn that even if they are in a little trouble, their circumstances will change and they can look forward to that. And they will experience that good feeling you get when you help out someone else!

When your child learns to enjoy these experiences and learns to give more often, they will be doing the very things that will help them to have a long and healthy life!

Do You Want To Teach Your Kids Respect?

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“A youth is to be regarded with respect. How do you know that his future will not be equal to our present?”

- Confucius

I am sure you know of some families where the kids are always provoking each other. When one kid says something another has to tell them that they are wrong or just put them down.

There are even some families where the kids are insulting at the parents and putting the parents down for things that they say.

Guess how much fun it is to be around these families. I sometimes wonder how the parents put up with it!

Now I cannot say what the parents in these families did or did not do, but I do know that this NEVER happens in my family and I have an idea why.

My wife and I were talking recently about our kids. ( Okay, we always talk about our kids, but that is besides the point!) We noticed that our kids are always respectful to us and to each other. They often play around with each other and even wrestle sometimes. There are even tears occasionally when our 11 year old takes on his 20 year old brother – but our oldest son never intends to hurt the little one, it just happens during the play.

My wife and I were wondering what we “did right”. My theory is that we always showed them respect.

What exactly is respect? Part of it is that we often asked their opinion and then took it into consideration. If we did not take their advice we explained why. When I made mistakes with my kids, I apologized. I let them know that their feelings are important, that I value their feelings and that I was sorry that I had hurt their feelings. And there were times I punished my kids or “forced” them to do things they did not want to do. That is part of parenting. But, again, I made sure they knew that their feelings and opinions were important, but that in this case I had to overrule them.

I guess the simplest way to make a long story short is that I valued my kids and made sure they knew it.

Another VERY important way to model respect for your kids is to respect your spouse. Do you listen to your spouse's opinion? Do you interrupt? Do you help and support your spouse, not only around the house but with their own work?

What is the outcome of all this? I see two outcomes. Firstly, your child will learn to respect others. They will respect their teachers, they will respect other adults, and they will respect their friends. The outcome of this is that all these people will, in turn, respect your child.

But there is a MUCH more important outcome. Your child will have self-respect. A person who has self-respect is positive, pleasant and takes care of themselves. A person with self-respect most likely will not have addiction problems.

Self-respect is so important. Teach your child self-respect by respecting them!

Did You Forget To Schedule You Into Your Day?

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“The key is not to prioritize what's on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.” Stephen R. Covey

Parents are often super-busy these days. They work a full day, they have to run a household, usually without help, and they have to raise the kids. So we make schedules. 6-8 in the morning is set aside for the getting the kids ready for daycare or school, 8 to 4 is set aside for work where every minute is scheduled, 4-7 is pick up the kids and make dinner, 7-8 is time for baths and bedtime, 8-10 is laundry, washing up miscellany and if you are lucky you sleep from 10 to 6 (hah hah!) Oh yeah – the work you brought home to finish! When will you do that?

If that schedule looks something like yours, you have blocked out time for your kids, your boss, and your house. You forgot you!

I love the Louis E. Boone quote that goes, “I am definitely going to take a course on time management… just as soon as I can work it into my schedule.” You immediately see the irony of it. Yet you don't see the irony of not having time in your schedule for you. If you never take any time for yourself, you will not be functioning as well as you can for everyone else.

“But”, you say, “I don't have time.” “I am doing it for my kids.” “I'll rest when I'm dead.” You know these don't hold much in real life. But if you do want to be selfless and do it for your kids, how about teaching your kids to take time for themselves! Don't do it for you, do it to teach them! After all, do you want your children to grow up and have a crazy schedule like you?!

The very first step to getting some time into your schedule for yourself is to recognize that it should be there. If you don't make yourself a priority, no one else will!

Step two is to get some help. You need someone else's time so that you can have some time. The first person you might turn to is your spouse. You go out Monday night and they go out Wednesday night. Or you switch off every other Saturday morning.

That obviously won't work if you are a single parent or if you would like to have a “date night”. So you may turn to your parents or in-laws. But many people don't live near their own families. So what can you do?

What about a time-off exchange program. What if you took your neighbor's kids every Monday evening and they took yours on Wednesday? Then you both benefit.

Jack Canfield tells a story of welfare moms in the projects of Chicago who finished college that way.

So there are solutions for how to go about getting some time – now what? What do you do with your new found time?

Anything you want. If you need some mental health time, have coffee with a friend. Or perhaps you can go for a walk on the beach or in the park. Exercise is always a good idea. Perhaps a massage. You should do whatever will rejuvenate you and make you feel good.

The bottom line is that if you see the value in taking time for yourself, you will make it happen. And if you do, you will thank yourself for doing it. Your kids will also thank you.

Why “Date Night” Is Important For Your Kids

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Do you think Date Night is important for you? Do you think Date Night is important for your kids? The answer to both questions is “Yes”.

And if you are a single Mom then Date Night can mean going out with a girlfriend. And if you are single Dad it can mean going out with friends to a pub.

Last night my wife and I went to the beach to walk along the water. Our little one was put to bed by his older brother. Even if he had been put to bed by a babysitter, I think the long-term benefits would have been worth it.

When was the last time you had a date night? Does it feel like you barely know who your spouse is anymore? And the most important question is, ”Do you understand the value of date night, not for you and your wife but also for your kids?”

We can tell our children everything that is important. But, as the saying goes, actions speak louder than words. What lessons can your children learn from Date Night?

Lesson number one is that taking some time for themselves is very important. But when is the last time that you took time for yourself? And this is so critical. If you are constantly on the treadmill and you only take a break one week a year that you are on vacation, you will burn out. You know it. Is that what you want to show your children? Or do you want to show them a balanced life that integrates work, family and time for yourself? You get to choose what you show your kids.

Lesson number two is showing your kids the importance of nurturing relationships. If you are in sales, you know how important it is to nurture relationships. If you are a manager you know how important it is to nurture relationships. And – truth be told – if you are human you know how important it is to nurture relationships. Do you show your children nurturing relationships? Shouldn't you?

Going out on date night accomplishes both of these things and you get a date with your special someone. When your child complains that you are going out (without them) you can tell them that (a) you have to nurture your relationship with Daddy or Mommy and (b) you want to take some time to make yourself even better for tomorrow. You might use words like, “I want to have some special time with Mommy so that I can love her more than I already do. It is okay for Mommy and Daddy to have some time to ourselves, and you know what? Tomorrow I think I will love you more also!” Tell your child straight out why you are doing it and what the benefit will be to them.

So the next time you take time for yourself and your child complains, let the know the benefits to you and to them. They still may not like it, but they will begin to learn important life lessons.

3 Tips For Making Dinner Time A GREAT Family Time

You pick up 5 year old Jimmy from soccer practice, 8 year old Alice gets dropped off from ballet lessons and 11 year old Zach comes in from Little League. It is 5:30 and you have to start dinner. While you are working on dinner you have to help Zach with a report on Italy and you have to help Alice with math homework. Finally at 6:15 you are ready to sit down to dinner. But are you ready to enjoy dinnertime with your family? Or are you hoping to just get through it? Just hoping to survive?

Dinner-time may be the best time of day for building relationships within your family. Dinner-time may be the only time of day that the whole family gathers together, or it may only be most of the family with a parent or older sibling not home yet. You know it is an important time, but how can you change gears from the hectic time that led up to dinner to the calm time you want dinner to be? And how do you make sure that all the kids help set the tone you want set?

Like any other time of day, you have to be very clear with your expectations at dinner-time and you have to communicate that to all the parties involved.

Firstly, you should begin dinner with a quiet moment, perhaps even a few moments of meditation. Everyone has been hectic and everyone needs to calm down a bit before the meal begins. If anyone gives you hard time about this, tell them it also improves digestion and blood pressure. In addition, you are less likely to overeat if you have calmed down and choose to focus on eating.

Secondly, since dinner is at the end of the day, it is also a good time to review your day. One excellent way to do this and to focus on the positives is for everyone to tell one thing that went well today. In my family we kick this up a notch and everyone says what they are happy and grateful for. It is also a good time to prepare for the days ahead. What meetings are coming up? What changes are coming to the normal schedule? What does everyone need to know about?

Finally, you want to minimize or eliminate the negative. You should declare dinner a “No- Complaint-Zone”. (Okay, your whole house should be a Complaint-Free-Zone 24 hours each day, but start with the dinner-table!) At dinner-time, no one is allowed to complain about their teachers, their coaches, the referee, the boss, the co-worker, etc. You get the idea. And parents have to be just as careful (or more careful). Make sure your kids help you to stop complaining.

Another challenge at dinner time is choosing foods that everyone likes. Let the kids help choose the menu. They can even help prepare dinner. The more input the kids have, the less likely that you will hear complaints.

Make dinner-time special. Your kids will remember it for the rest of their lives.

Teaching Joy

There are so many things that you try to teach your son or daughter. For example, you to teach them to stay neat and clean because you know this could have health repercussions down the road. You to teach them to be a good friend so that they will be able to socialize. You teach them to be respectful so that they will be respected. It is all part of being a parent.

Do you teach your child to be joyful? Do you teach your child how to experience joy? (Let me give a little disclaimer here – I did not do a good job at this. But it was a joy watching my wife teach my sons to experience joy.)

What would teaching joy look like? It might look something like the “Gratidudes” – a couple of guys who teach that you should do a happy dance when you are happy. A more mainstream example of this is the dances that football players do when they get a touchdown. What if you taught your child to do a happy dance every time they did well on a test?

Why should we reserve joy only for special occasions? Why not be joyful every day? When my family sits down for dinner we all say what we are happy and grateful for. This practice helps remind us that there is so much to be happy and grateful for. I once heard of a monk who did this practice and insisted on never being happy and grateful for the same thing twice. After a while he had to spend all day looking for something new to be grateful for. Wow! How many people do you know that spend all day looking for what is wrong? What a refreshing change.

So start teaching your child to exercise regular practices that focus on the good in their life and help bring them to a place of joy.

Visualization Helps Fourth Grade Boys Behave Well in Class

I just read a fascinating study by Dr. Suzanne Margiano of the University of Connecticut and four of her colleagues about using visualizations. This could be so helpful for kids who are having trouble in school and, quite frankly, for adults as well.

Dr. Margiano took 3 fourth grade boys who were intelligent kids but who were having trouble behaving in school. This, of course, is nothing new for many teachers. Unfortunately, what happens, way to often, is we give these kids Ritalin and they calm down. This is really easy for the parents and the teachers, but it may not be too healthy for the kids. As my wife, a kindergarten teacher, puts it, the kids lose their personality. It is like they have been wiped blank while they are on Ritalin.

And it is nothing new for many of us. We are intelligent, we know what to do, but we have trouble doing it. We are used to doing something one way and we keep doing it that way. Perhaps we even “define” ourselves by being the joker in the group, or the intelligent one on the group. And we realize that this does not serve us well and we want to change our ways.

Back to the study! Dr Margiano watched these kids for a few weeks and recorded their behavior. It was as expected, the researchers found a lot of evidence of the kids not behaving well and some evidence of the kids doing the “right” thing. Then Dr. Margiano and the other researchers videotaped the kids and, as we teachers say, “caught them being good!” They videotaped the kids acting the way they are supposed to. Then the researchers had the kids watch the videotape of the good behavior 2 or 3 times a week for 3 weeks. They showed the kids a videotape of themselves being good! And it helped!

The kids started being good in class instead of acting up and getting in trouble. The researchers even think that they planted false memories in these fourth graders.

Now, ordinarily, you would think planting false memories would be bad, but here it is great! They planted a false memory of the kids being good and the kids started being good.

How can you use this with your kids? Well, I don't think you have to videotape them. If your child has trouble sitting still in class, it would help to have them remember a class where they did behave. In the morning, go over it with them. What did they feel? What were they doing? What were they thinking? You can help them “re-live” the memory and then help them transfer it to their present day class. Many people also believe that visualization can do this for you.

Many of the “greats” in the field of personal development tell us that when we visualize ourselves having accomplished our goals it helps us to actually accomplish them. And many of these VERY successful people do visualizations every morning. Perhaps the most famous example of this is when Babe Ruth pointed to the bleachers in center field in Game 3 of the 1932 World Series against the Chicago Cubs and then on the next pitch he hit, sent the baseball flying more than 440 feet (135 meters) right into the bleachers past center field! There are many stories of Olympic athletes using visualization.

One of the most convincing is Billy Mills who won gold in the 10,000 meter race in 1964. To win the race, not only did he run faster than the other runners, he ran 50 seconds faster than he himself had ever run 10,000 meters. After the race, he showed reporters his diary where he wrote about his visualizations. He is still the only American to have ever won the 10,000 meter Olympic race.

So why not try this with your son or daughter? Help them to visualize behaving well in class. Perhaps they can visualize that every time they start to get fidgety, they take a deep breath and calm down. Or perhaps they can visualize before a math test that when they don't know the answer right away they don't panic but go through a list of math procedures to try. Bottom line, they have to visualize themselves being successful.

This can skyrocket their success in school and in sports. It also prepares them for success in life. And, after all, that is what we want most for our kids!

If you try this with your child (or yourself), please send me an email and let me know how it went. You can write to me at DrShaya@PositiveParentPlus.com

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