Parents don’t realize the lengths in which they treat their children either like princes, princesses, or paraplegics. The idea that kids aren’t capable of doing things on their own is so ingrained in our culture that to see a child do regular every day tasks is almost taboo.
Even the idea of kids at two years old riding in strollers every day. Ridiculous! Why do energetic, fully capable children need to be pushed around in strollers? Think about it.. why? Because their legs will get tired? No. They can play at a playground for hours at a time and not get tired, but for some reason when they are walking on the sidewalk, they are suddenly cranky and can’t walk anymore. Maybe it’s because they walk too slowly? That’s simply out of inexperience in walking at your side. Give them a week or two to learn your speed, they will keep up. Kids can walk laps around you all day long. They do not need a stroller.
How about simple tasks like:
Preparing food on their own
Putting their dishes away
Cleaning their room
Getting dressed alone
Washing themselves alone (with supervision)
Speaking to the waiter at a restaurant when ordering
Having simple conversations with others
Almost everything else you do for them
It is disrespectful to children to act as if they can not do these things by themselves, and to treat them like babies. The reason they so often say things like, “I don’t know how,” and “I can’t do it,” is because that’s what you tell them every day. They don’t think they are capable because they’ve never tried. They assume, “If my mother is doing this for me it’s either because I can’t do it by myself or it isn’t even my job to do it in the first place.”
When you baby your child, you aren’t showing you love him or her. You are hoping that they do not stop loving you if you don’t do these things. The real love comes with teaching them how to do be a responsible person in life, and helping to lead them new situations, not do it all for them as if they are incapable.
Down below in the comments, I want you to tell me what responsibilities you are going to give your child for now on. The first week will inevitably be messy and slow, but eventually they’ll get the hang of it. I’ll follow up with you to see how it holds up.
There was this one movie I was watching years ago. Oh yes, it was one of the Matrix movies. That agent was talking about human beings, and how we are parasites. He talked about how we just consume everything we can, and then move on to the next thing to consume whatever else is left.
I felt empty watching him talk like this, because I believe him. I feel that humans are the biggest consumers on this planet. Not just in terms of food, but in anything. We watch tons of TV, the news, movies, video games, books, play with toys, listen to music, podcasts, whatever. And I will tell you the truth, most of it does nothing for us.
I’m not saying that it’s all bad. My life is good because of the things I have learned, read, and watched. But there also is much that was wasted. I could have been doing the more important thing in my life. The two things that bring the most fulfillment and contentment: creating and experiencing.
Why not creating? Because we’re lazy.
Why not experiencing? Because we’re scared.
It’s easy for a deer or a bear to experience life, she has no media constantly yelling at her to read this, listen to this, watch this. But for us, it’s incredibly hard to avoid all the noise. We see a commercial on TV, “That thing looks awesome! I want it!” and next thing you know it’s in our closet gathering dust.
Consuming has turned into an addiction. It is no longer just an enjoyable thing to do in our lives. Somewhere right now, a perfectly happy three-year-old is being tricked. She is given countless hours of TV time, a Wii, a toy robot that talks to her, and light up shoes; and life is fine. The addiction doesn’t come until those things are taken away from her, they go out of style, or are no longer fun to play with.
Once this happens, a void is created in her soul. She was tricked into believing that those things were her source of happiness, and now she needs them back again in order to feel better.
She sees a commercial for a new toy on TV and thinks that it will fill the void in her chest. Once she gets that toy, she is once again at equilibrium. A few weeks later the toy gets old, and she is back to the incomplete feeling she felt before. It’s an empty feeling of worthlessness—the same way a smoker would feel without his cigarette.
How to counteract this situation? Do the exact opposite of consume: create and experience. And then, PURGE YOUR BELONGINGS. Just throw out one toy each week or month, or have your kid donate it to a local shelter or salvation army. Make sure you kid understands what she’s doing, and does it willingly. At first, it may not be entirely willingly, but after a while she will get the idea and actually feel good about it.
(It is important that you do not just throw out toys without her knowing. It defeats the purpose of this exercise.)
So if you’ve read this far down, I want you to comment below telling me if you are actually going to try out this toy purge for now on. I’ll keep tabs on you throughout the coming months and we’ll see where this goes. Also, give me some other good presents that would be good for experiences and creation rather than just consuming.
Anthony Recenello explains why medicating children with ADHD can have negative effects on their personalities and in turn chances for success in adulthood.
I believe people are being fired and laid off like crazy today because computers can do most jobs better than humans. What we need to do today is raise children to do things that computers can never do.
School today is the same as it was thirty years ago.
You go to school, you follow the rules, you are tested on how well you can comply with the rules, and the people that comply the best are rewarded with a number or letter.
The problem is the world is changing. Thirty years ago and beyond, schools were made to train worker bees. Most people went out and got jobs focused on complying with what was asked of them.
But today, jobs like that are diminishing. People are getting fired, being replaced by machines and computers that can comply MUCH better than humans.
But there is one thing that computers and machines can NOT do, and that is create and innovate. People today are noticed for their ability to supersede or sidestep the norm rather than complying with it. If you can do or make something remarkable, you are rewarded.
Steve Jobs dropped out of college.
If Steve Jobs was a good student (he dropped out of college), he would never have made the iPhone. He would have kept trying to improve upon the cell phone. Instead, he created and innovated. He went the totally opposite way and made something remarkable.
Notice how people that were taught to comply, did just that. Every company copies Steve’s idea for the phone, because that’s what they do best.
Find your child’s “thing.”
Instead of smothering your child’s excitement for life, find what it is that he is interested in and remarkable at, and immerse him in its lifestyle. Help him find his passion, the thing that he could do all day long, and help him take it to the stars.
Meanwhile, show him the benefits of schooling in a way that he can understand. I once worked with a six year old with ADHD that couldn’t concentrate on homework merely because it was pointless to do something that he wasn’t interested in. But the only reason he wasn’t interested in it is because he didn’t see the benefits behind them. Why would he want to learn to write when he could just draw his stories? I challenged him on that argument, and told him that we would both make a story: he would draw the story, and I would write it. Through my words, I was able to paint a picture and communicate emotions to him that he wasn’t able to communicate through pictures. It was a turning point in his understanding of why homework like this is beneficial.
Take topics and frame them in a way that caters to something he is interested in.
By all means, push your child on doing well in school. But do not pull your hair about how successful he is with his grades. Because at this point in time in the world, they are nowhere near as influential as they were thirty years ago. Focus mostly on his strengths and passions, and then push him to master them. And if your kid DOES have ADHD, consider that a gift. He has a leg up on all his peers in terms of thinking outside the box.
Remember, having fun and working hard don’t have to be exact opposites. In fact, they should and must be coupled together in order to lead a happy and successful in life.
These games aren’t only made to calm down your kids, but they are also made to put you in a giggly mood. Here’s the thing. Most parents that aren’t already in a ‘giggly’ mood throughout the day will find it hard to transition into a 10-minute dance party. Why? It’s because once you are in a state, whether that is serious, or upset, your brain likes to stay in that state. It is COMFORTABLE staying in whatever mood you are in at the moment. Brains would rather stay sad than turn happy, even though logically you know it’s the right thing to do.
So what I suggest is this:
Put the game/activity into your schedule during the day. Make it at 8:00am right before they leave to school, and 3:00pm as soon as they get home from school. Getting them in a good mood in the morning sets the up for great interactions at school during the day. Burning their energy AFTER school calms them down and gets them focused on homework and whatever other project they have at the moment. Dance party in the morning, scarf tag after school. Try it.
This is some potent stuff, guys. Don’t take these games lightly. You WILL have too much fun. And sometimes that’s a good thing.
That’s right. There’s a disconnect going on in society right now. Gaining success today is different than what it was year ago. Back then, everyone had a steady job working in a factory, or a farm, or whatever else sort of hard labor was available to them at the time.
There wasn’t much more opportunity for them than that.
Today, machines and computers do most of the work that humans did years ago, so most people go either two ways after college:
In an office, as an ant, in a big corporation. Or they supersede the norm and become wildly successful.
Most people are okay with their kid following the life as a normal folk. And that is fine.
But then, there are families that want more for their kid. They know their child has that certain “umph!” that others may not have, some type of special talent or sparkle in their eye that needs to be explored and cultivated into something they can use and benefit from.
Let me back it up a bit. Why is your kid doomed then?
“School” as the word is used today, was invented during the industrial age. So they focused on getting kids learning how to follow orders, learn math, and work at a factory. That’s where everyone worked back then.
Now, it’s the opposite. Fresh college grads hardly get jobs in factories anymore. Like I said before, they either get hired by a corporation (because they learned how to comply with rules, as school has taught them) or they use their amazing charisma to attract people to them and flourish in life.
These successful people are the ones who are constantly creating, constantly innovating. They are the ones who rise above in confidence, emotional discipline, charisma, passion, and the like. But they don’t teach this stuff at schools, because back then it wasn’t necessary. So as a parent, what do you do? Either you have the skills to raise charismatic kids, or you just hope they get a good job at some company.
I began CharismaticKid for this exact reason. I want you to be able to raise what we call the charismatic kid. The kid that is extraordinary, unusual, eclectic, creative, and ambitious that does what everyone else wishes they could do. The “Steve Jobs,” the “Gary Vaynerchuk,” the “Seth Godin.” All of these people had insanely creative, charismatic, and passionate minds that forced them into success. Do schools do that for your kid? No, CharismaticKid does.
And in the biggest and best city in the world, we are holding the Superhuman Series for parents that give you an entirely new set of life skills for your children, and techniques you can implement to grow their personalities. We’ve been working overtime in making CharismaticKid the only company in the world that teaches these skills this in-depth, this easy to understand, and this effective. There is absolutely nothing like it. Go ahead and try Googling it. We are the only company of our kind, and we are going to change the way you raise your kids.
Check out the Superhuman Series link above if you’re in the area. For fifty bucks each seminar, you can only gain.
