Burn your luggage!

Being married for more than 17 years I know how bad communication between my wife and I can go.
Even the most positive and praising things we say to each other can be received as criticism or worse.

Why is it so hard to communicate with those you know best?

It really is somewhat of a mystery that when you speak with people who don´t know you all that well, the things you say are much more well received than when you are with people you've known for years - at least sometimes it can be that way...

It's a paradox and I personally wonder how it can be, that the people I share a common history with and thus should be the people who understand me best, sometimes seem to be misunderstanding what I say in a way that does not happen with people I've just met or people I don't see so often.

Your luggage makes you lopsided

The reason for this is rather simple - or it seems to me to be quite simple...
I think it has something to do with our common history.

As two people get to know each other, we move constantly closer to one another. And as time passes and as we tend to open up more and more to the inner chambers of our heart, we let that other person see more and more of who we really are. The daily face we put up in public to let other people see only our most positive sides isn't worn at home or when we are in such company that we feel at home. Then our mask falls and the people closest to us get to see our less benevolent character. They get to see the darker sides of our personality.

Don't misunderstand me here: this is a good thing! We must open up to someone or we will die inside. And even more importantly: opening up to someone is a way of telling that someone how much we trust them.

The flip side of that coin, however, is that when we show the people closest to our hearts that we can be nasty and angry and unreasonable, it does to some extend open a gap between what they see when we are alone with them and what they see when we are out in the public.

This gap can create some sort of confusion in the other person and make them uneasy as to what we really think and what we really mean when we say the things we say.

Imagine it as if we all have luggage in our hands. An empty suitcase without wheels. As we get to know someone, we put our experience with that person in the suitcase and we carry that suitcase around every second we are with that person. And as we put more and more heavy stuff in that suitcase: anger, critisism, shouting and the likes; those darker sides make the suitcase so heavy that our whole body gets lopsided. Following this we will find it harder and harder to focus our eyes in the other persons heart. The heavy suitcase simply takes our focus away from what we share in this particular moment and instead we tend to focus on the contents of the heavy suitcase...

Burn your luggage!

What to do? - Well, I think opening the suitcase from time to time and dealing with it's contents can be a good thing. This way you and your spouse or friend can talk about these darker sides of your personalities and maybe find out that some of the content in your suitcases are more based on your own misconception than it was based on what really happened and what was really said...

But still, I don't think this will be enough...

Sometimes you need to burn the contents and the suitcase along with it. Make a decision to burn your luggage and start over with a fresh suitcase... Some of the contents of the old one will quickly jump inside the new suitcase almost by itself, but the new suitcase will in itself help you to focus on each piece you put inside of it and give you time to wonder if it really belongs in that suitcase... 

A family project

Remember when I talked about the trampoline in our garden a few days ago? I was giving you some insight in some of the play things we have in our garden and I told you that they are being used by both our own kids and the kids in the neighborhood...

Now, it doesn´t look like much today. It´s been well used and of course it wears. Still, this trampoline is one of the most important play things at our place. Not only because it´s the one thing the kids use most and not only because it´s one of the favorites among the neighborhood kids. Not even the fact that it gives our children the opportunity to train their body and their balance is what makes this toy have a special places in our hearts.


No, this toy is special to us because we´ve built something together as a family. Not the trampoline in itself, it came in a package and all we needed to do was to assemble the parts and bits. But for safety reason´s we dug it down as you can see in the picture. We did this as a family. Everyone took part in it and did their part. Even our youngest, who was at the time only three years old, did his job digging it down.


This is how we did it:


My wife and I took shifts with the shovel in the hole and put the dirt in buckets, which were then placed on the ground. Two or three children at a time would then bring the buckets to our trailer cart where my wife or I would empty the buckets and the children brought the bucket back to the hole to be refilled.


Most of the time our youngest boy, knowing he wasn´t strong enough but stubborn enough to not wanting to admit it, would be in the hole with my wife or myself picking up stones in a smaller bucket and bring them to the trailer.


The project was finished after three days and since we all did our part in it, that trampoline has a special place in our hearts.

Want to smack your kids?

When I published the blog post about spanking there was a comment on about how paradigms and views are handed down from one generation to another. In this comment, a guy had had a debate with someone in a coffee shop about spanking. A man participating in the debate was pro spanking and became quite agitated through the discussion. After some time he was so outraged that he got to his feet and almost shouting announced that he had been spanked as a child and that it ‘hasn´t done me any harm!’

The reply to the angry fellow´s claim was just one sentence that stuck in my mind after reading it, because it really sums it up in a clear cut way. It went like this: ‘yeah, it did. It made you want to beat your kids...’

This is very much true! Your parents have put a mark on you, that will always follow you through life and this mark will influence what you do. This is not to say that if you were spanked as a kid, it´s inevitable that you spank yours. Not at all! The cycle can be broken, if you want to break it. I know, because I´ve been spanked as a kid myself and for many years I said just about the same thing as the before mentioned angry man.

What I learned by being spanked was that if there is something you want and you can´t get it by explaining why you need it and make a good argument for obtaining it, there´s always the last resort of dealing out some punches.

Not a very flattering thought, I know. Fortunately, I´ve never beat up my children and I feel confident, it´ll never happen. But I must admit to myself, that the urge to hit them, when they really misbehave, is there! I do feel that urge and the worst thing I can do is to deny it. Denying it would do me no good at all. Denying that this urge exist in me would only build it up inside of me and who knows, what would happen then?

So, however deflating this is to the positive image you may have of me, I admit it freely: I sometimes feel the urge to fling out a hand on my children! And you know what? If you have that urge yourself, try admitting it. It is one of the most relieving feelings to admit all the bad things going on inside of you. And even more importantly, admitting it to yourself is the first step to fighting that urge.

And one more thing I want you to understand is that there is absolutely nothing wrong with you, if you have this urge! It´s perfectly natural. In fact, all the people on this planet have thoughts about hurting someone. 

It´s been said, that most people have even thought of killing someone, though there is no way of knowing if this is true or not. What *is* true, however, is that the one thing separating perpetrators from other people is not their urges and thoughts. It´s how they respond to them. Keep this in mind every time you might feel guilty having the urge to hit someone: there is nothing wrong with having the urge and thinking about it. In fact, you have to admit the feeling to do something about it. And do something about is mandatory when dealing with people.

So, instead of soaking yourself in self loathing, be brave and fight that urge! It can be done! The cycle can be broken! But it is you who must break it. No one else can do it for you!

Let´s sum it up:

#1: The children raising methods are handed down generation by generation and if the methods you were raised by are bad, you need to break the cycle

#2: To break the cycle, you have to be honest with yourself and acknowledge the urge inside you

#3: Feeling bad about the urge to hit your kids doesn´t do anyone any good. Don´t soak yourself in self pity, but fight the urge you´ve already acknowledged

#4: Very important! THE CYCLE CAN BE BROKEN! You can brake it!

Read me a story, dad!

- how you can improve your children´s skills and have a good time while doing it...

One of the most important things when raising children is having a relationship with them. Many parents, especially fathers, aren´t connecting with their kids enough. For many years I had this problem and in some ways I still do. The funny thing is that being a parent, there should be every reason to find connecting with your children an easy task. Opposed to many other relationships, we always have at least one thing in common with our kids: we have been children ourselves. Still it seems like quite the task to remember being a kid.

But here´s a tip: read your children a story. A story is a good way to connect with your children and frankly, it doesn´t take that much of an effort. All you have to do is find a good story and set aside the time to read it. I promise you, that you will connect with your children this way. A story has the potential of becoming alive when you read it out loud and by doing this, you and your children have something together. Reading a story is a journey for the both of you and it doesn´t even matter, if you´ve read the story yourself before or not. If you´ve read it before, you are most likely to discover new things in the story and if you choose a story you´ve read before, chances are, you chose this particular one, because you liked it when you were a kid. And if so, chances are that your kid will love it every bit as much as you do.

If you choose a story neither of you have read before, reading it becomes a new venture for you and your children. You experience it together and you connect with each other because this story is yours in the journey you take together.

And you know what? In this day and age, finding a story has never been easier! Go to Amazon, Barnes&Noble, Smashwords, iBooks or any other major retailer and buy an eBook. They are cheap and you can get the book within less than 10 minutes!

So, what´s to stop you? Lack of time? Take the time! Don´t know what to read? Anything you like or think you like! (My fairy tale ‘The Knight in Shouting’ fits well with girls who like Princesses and it´s good for building self esteem, but there are many other stories as well, if you think it´s a bit too commercial of me to suggest it)

Oh, one more thing: reading with your kids the most important advantage is connecting with them and building a relationship, but there is a neat side effect as well: reading with your kids stimulates their language and  literary skills! And downsides? There are none!

Remember this: reading a story doesn´t take much time and it´s an investment you will never regret making!

Your turn! - Share your experiences with reading stories or ask questions...

Time for a time out?

- when ‘time out’ works - and when it doesn´t

For some time I´ve been blogging about raising children. I´ve posted about spanking and about the basic principle of using force as a tool for getting the attention of your kids. Now, I want to present a way to use force, that really does work - and not, if you do it wrong. The main reason I wanted to share these thoughts is this: if spanking is not the way, we need something to replace it with. Something that works and something that does minimal harm to our children. Because let´s face the fact: any kind of using force is in some way harmful. The only reason we must use force, is that the alternative is more harmful than refrain from using force.

But before I begin, I need to address some ‘complaints’ I´ve received. Now, don´t worry, the complaints aren´t that bad. In fact, those who have complained have done so to help me improve my posts and I receive them in that fashion; feedback is my chance to better myself, weither the feedback is positive or negative.

One of the things mentioned to me is that my posts are long. Agreed, they are long. Perhaps I just have too much on my mind. I feel it would be wrong of me to just shorten the posts, because if I do, I may miss some important points. Still, I do want my readers to stick with it, so here is my solution: for the future my longer posts will be broken into to smaller pieces and then you can read as much (or as little) as you want. I hope this would do the trick?


Time out - the benefits

And now back to the topic of this post. Most modern day parents have heard about the use of ‘time out’ and it is widely used. There are some very good reasons why:

First of all, the ‘time out’ has a built-in strength most other ways of raising kids doesn´t: it has infinity! This is brilliant! By infinity I simply mean, that no matter (well, almost...) when, where and for what reason you give your kids a time out, the timer can be reset. If the kid has had a 2 minute time out and still doesn´t want to listen, you can give the kid an additional minute and keep expanding the time out till it works. The advantage of this built-in feature is a combination of at least three things:

#a: However the duration of the time out, it can always get worse: you can prolong it.

#b: There is always a way out: your child can decide to end the time out within a short period of time: by listening to you.

#c: The relation between parent and child is intact, provided you keep in touch with your kid during the time out.


Time out - when it´s not helpful

I´ll get deeper into these three advantages in another post, but right now I want to address an important issue: time out does not always work, because there is one thing you need to have when using a time out. One thing you cannot do without: Time!

In some situations we do not have the time for a time out. It can be that the whole family is on its way out or it can be that we are at a family gathering where there is no time, if we want to be good guests (and we do, don´t we?) or it could be that it´s around bed time and if we use a time out now, it´s almost as much a reward as it is a punishment.

If this is the case: there is no time or it´s a bad time; then we must understand that using the time out can be devastating. As a parent, I must win all battles! If I lose a battle I have to start all over again, because the kid has learned, that sometimes you budge, even though you said you wouldn’t.

But if a time out is fitting, it can be a very powerful tool for raising children. The important thing is to keep in touch with your children when using this tool. You can´t leave your kids in a time out and not speak to them for a long duration. You must stay in contact and keep the back door open.

And now the summing up:

#1: Time out is a brilliant tool for raising children. It has a built-in feature of infinity that gives you three advantages as described above

#2: Using a time out you need to stay in touch with your kid to keep the back door open, so that the kid can escape the punishment by listening to you

#3: Because a parent must win all battles, it is imperative to only use time outs, when there is time for it and when the timing and situation calls for it

Your turn - share your experiences - ask questions...

Dictator or Father?

- raising kids is a discipline in itself

In my latest post about raising children, I was talking about the strange notion some people have that violence is not only a way to raise kids, but that it is needed to maintain discipline and respect. I was (I hope) very clear on this point: spanking is violence! Violence is a no-go!

Today I want to present an alternative to spanking. Or rather, I want to present an idea of what disciplining your kids really means. Remember, spanking is a no-go AND - very important! - IT DOESN´WORK! All you will achieve by spanking your kids is alienating them and making it impossible for you to help them in their adult life.

If you spank your kids, you won´t be able to share your wisdom and experience with them, neither when they are kids, nor when they are all grown up; because the day they leave your house to go live for themselves is the day your influence is declared null and void!

So, what to do, if violence doesn´t work? Do we not need some kind of power as parents? Some kind of leverage to get our kids to do right?

Force is a tool for change, not learning

Well, yes... - and no! - The basic mistake is this: the use of power is not - and I repeat: NOT IN ANY WAY - a tool for teaching your children anything. And I really mean *anything* - the use of power is a tool to get their attention, nothing more, nothing less. That makes power the last tool to grab from your parenting tool box, not the first or even the 10th.

I also need to emphasize that mentioning 'the use of force,' I´m not just talking about spanking. I´m talking about every and all uses of force, that is: any kind of action, where you as a parent use your power to make your kid do (or not do) what he/she doesn´t want to (or want to) do!!!

I just stated that the use of force doesn´t teach your children anything in itself. The reason is quite simple. No person in this world can truly learn anything important, if it is not learnt by heart. That is: true learning is not something going on in your brain. It´s not knowledge alone, it has to be combined with what you might call wisdom. It´s not a coincidence we use the term 'learning by heart' because really learning is about taking the knowledge in and implementing it in your life - willingly!

Let me give you an example from the adult world:

When ‘the coalition of the willing’ invaded Iraq, some of the most hard core politicians genuinely thought they could force Iraq into modern day democracy. Did they succeed? I think not... But! - what really *was* a success was the fact that a democracy was born from the ruins.

Not a democracy like we know it in the western world, but this is where we should remember that our democracies weren´t exactly free democracies in their childhood either. For instance, it wasn´t till the 20th century women were eligible for governing organs and neither did they have the right to vote in most western democracies before 1930 (in fact, the final canton in Switzerland to give women the right to vote didn´t till 1984!)

Iraq began its journey toward democracy following the invasion, but the Iraqi people have to find out the rest for themselves...

The same goes for children. You cannot force upon them the complete understanding you have gained from experience. They need to figure it out for themselves. But what you *can* do is force them to stop for a moment and think. And when they stop to think, they just might come to the conclusion that it is better to start listening to you.

Here there is something very, very important to understand about the use of force: you have to let go of that tool as soon as you see them stop and think. If you don´t, you shift the focus for learning from 'learning best way' to 'learning how to make mum and dad happy.' 

I probably don´t have to say this, but I´ll do anyway: This is just as useful in the discipline of raising kids as Burgers and fries as the main meal is good for your health.

The use of force is ONLY to be used as a wakeup call, nothing more. If you continue the use of force after they start to listen, you will force the child to replace their own thinking with an escape plan: ‘how can I get mum and dad to like me again?’ And this is never good.

Instead, as soon as you see the child stopping to think, let go of the power. Give the kid a chance to make up his/her mind and figure out that the best course of action right now is to listen.

Fear the right thing

My second point is about fear. Having a basic understanding that children are human beings with less experience and equally valuable to any adult, the intuitive understanding of fear is that if the kid experiences fear, it can never be a good thing... However, it´s a bit more complicated than that.

All human being experience fear and in modern society fear is one of the most common barriers for success. Fear can make us hide when we need to stand tall and fear makes us bend to other people´s will, when we need to make up our own minds. For those reasons (and many more) the popular understand is that fear is, per definition, ‘bad’ - but really that´s not the case. Fear is neither bad nor good. It´s how we react to our fears that determines good or bad.

My father-in-law was a farmer and the first time I entered the stable I had somewhat of a chock. The sight of 50+ milking cows´ rear end lined up on each side of me made me freeze right there on the spot. This was new to me and I was struck with fear, because I didn´t know how to handle these animals. Fear made me cautious; a good thing. My response to this fear was to observe, how my father-in-law handled the cows and little by little, I learned how to handle them as well.

I feared the cows and looked to my father-in-law to learn how to handle them and this is exactly what your children need to do in their lives: they need to understand that listening to you and observing how you do things can benefit them.

In other words: if your kids fear you, it´s a bad thing - but if your kids fear not listening to you, it´s a good thing!

Let´s sum up this post:

#1 - Force is a tool for change - As a parent, if you want your children to learn from you, power is to be used with caution. You cannot force your experience upon them and if you try, they won´t gain any wisdom. They will only become experts in making mum and dad happy. And even more importantly (though this is not very clear in the above due to my wish to economize writing space) if you try to force your experience on them, their focus will be on weither mum and dad loves me or not as opposed to mum and dad knowing best.

#2 - Fear the right thing - The use of power is a tool for getting the attention of your kids, but it´s important to let go of that tools as soon as you reach that goal - if you don´t, your kids will fear *you* instead of fearing their surroundings and look to you for help and wisdom. However, using force in the above mentioned way, you can get their attention and as they experience over and over again, what happens if they don´t listen to you, they will learn that one important lesson: listen to mum and dad, because they have been around for some time and most of the times, they have a few things to teach me.


For a tool using these principles, see this

Now, it´s your turn.  Do you have experience you want to share?

How to spank your wife

- tough love well practiced

Does the title of this post sound awkward to you? Perhaps it even makes you a bit angry? If it does, you´ve already gotten half the point, I want to make in this post. So - lean back in your chair, grab a cup of coffee or whatever beverage you prefer while reading important stuff (if you don´t want to get up yourself and get it, your wife is there for the same reason, isn´t she? - or not...)

Every once in a while, the question of how to discipline your children comes up in public debate and one of the most stunning (at least to me) claims is that if you won´t spank your kids, you´re actually doing them wrong. The argument by promoters of this statement is that without spanking, there´s no discipline. People insisting this to be true, thus see spanking and disciplining children as two sides of the same coin.

I strongly disagree!

To make my point, I´ve used the above title for this post as a imaginary pair of glasses giving a broader perspective. Imagine if someone, in all seriousness, claimed the same argument for marriage - or any other relationship for that matter: that the only way a man can ‘get some respect around here’ is to have a loose wrist and a trigger happy fist.

So, if the wife won´t get you a beer, slap her in the face; If your friend doesn´t want to lend you a hand with something, punch him on the nose; And if your children misbehave, grab one of them by the legs and use the kid as a baseball bat to slap his brothers and sisters around the house - yieehaa! A home run!

Doesn´t sound all that sound now, does it? But for some strange reason, many parents still believe that spanking your child is good for them. It will grant you the respect you deserve and need to discipline them well.

I hate to be the one to point this out (well, not really!) but if there´s one fact of life when it comes to friendship, love and relationships, be that between equals or between people whose distribution of power is unequal, it is this:

Respect comes and goes according to how it is dealt out!

So, if you believe your kids to have respect for you as a result of spanking them, you´re deluding yourself: you are confusing respect for fear - or said more to the point: Your kids do not respect someone, who slaps them around, they fear them! Exactly in the same way as your wife or your friends will fear you for violent behavior...

If you are sitting there, thinking that 'this guy has no clue' maybe you should read my post on Parental Blessings, where I tell about what our children did for my wife and me a couple of days ago. There you will see, that perhaps our methods of raising kids is not all that bad!

Now that we have that one parked, let´s look at what raising your children really means:

First and foremost, raising your children means exactly that. Raising means to lift up, that is: encourage, bringing up the best in them, praising them, enforcing their self esteem and building their self understanding and sense of themselves. In the past, raising children for most parents meant to indoctrinate, more or less, so that they would do what was expected of them, instead of making up their own minds. This only result in adults who cannot make their own decisions, but rely on others to decide for them. Is this what you want of your kids?

Secondly, disciplining is not about brute force. Many parents treat their children as animals to be trained. This view is thinking of children as entities becoming human as they grow up, instead of human beings with less experience. This way of thinking is directly derived from the above statement about the main base of raising children. If you have the first view, you will grant your children favors and rights when they do what you want them to and take these grants away when they do the things you don´t want them to do. While this may sound appealing, the problem is that using this principle, your kids will never learn what is right and wrong, but only what makes mom and dad happy or angry. Is this really what you want?

As a parent, you will need the latter view. Kids aren´t animals needing to learn which behavior they earn goodies by and which behavior makes daddy angry and hit you.

Instead, what they need is to learn from your experience. In the coming days, I will elaborate on how to use discipline in raising children. For now, I just want to point out one final thing:

Thirdly, raising children and disciplining them are two different things! Disciplining are the means you use to get your child’s attention, that is: to use leverage as an adult and a parent ‘opening a door’ to connect with your children, so that you can raise them. Raising, however, is your goal. Raising is what you want; disciplining is one among many tools to achieve that goal.

So, to sum up this post:

As a parent, I want to raise my children in a manner that will better their chances of success in life. This is my goal: success for my children!

Having this goal, I must understand that my children are first and foremost human beings and as such they are every bit as valuable as I, their father. Spanking my children does not comply with this view. If I wouldn´t spank my wife or beat up my friends to get them to obey me, I wouldn´t spank my children for the same reason, unless I view them as lesser beings. I don´t. I view them as equals in terms of value and being human. And therefore I won´t spank them, because it goes against one of my basic values: that children are as valuable as I am.

To achieve my goal: succes for my children, I use various tools in raising them. Disciplining them is one of these tools, but it´s neither the only tool, nor is it the most important one.

And finally, using brute force in disciplining will not achieve the goal: success for my children. It´ll only teach my children to obey me, but they will never learn the benefits of listening to my wisdom, so when they grow up and start a life of their own, my influence is null and void! As soon as I see them leaving their childhood home, I can only help them succeed, if I´ve chosen a better way than brute force.


More about this subject here

Now, it´s your turn.  Do you have experience you want to share?

Parental blessings

Today´s post is very different from any other, I´ve posted before, but I just think this is too good to not share with you:


I am so PROUD, PROUD, PROUD! Of my children!

As a father of four kids, I sometimes wonder, if I´m doing an okay job raising them. If you´re a parent, you will most likely recognize this feeling of being inadequate forever hanging over your head. Constantly worrying if you´re too hard on your kids or not hard enough, too commanding or too listening, treating them all equally enough without treating them so much alike, that you really haven´t dealt with them according to their personalities.

I suppose this is the case with a variety of things. In a business you have to always be on your toes to keep up with the market and changing strategies whenever necassary, but there is one huge difference between business and raising children (there are more, of course, but try following me here to catch my point) and this difference is that the reward from your investment is long due. Very, very long due! That´s why parent´s worry so much, I think... You have no clue as to weither you´re doing things the right way, because you haven´t reaped what you´ve sowed yet.

But yesterday was a real page turner for me and for my wife. We sometimes have these 'page turner' experiences, but this one was very special indeed. Here´s what happened:

It had been a long day (good day, but long) with my side of the family visiting for a three-kids-birthday (three of my children are born within the same week - two years apart, but in the same week) and we were tidying up. My wife and I had gone for 10 minutes to bring back some chairs, we´d borrowed and came back, tired and weary from a full day. All I wanted was to relax and do absolutely nothing!

But when we came in after bringing back the chairs, the three youngest (a boy at 7 yrs. and two girls at 8 and 11yrs.) had prepared a meal for the both of us. They´d set the table in our living room with flowers and candles and three bottles of various spirits (although a Bailey, a schnapps and a liqueur wine is not the most common drinks for a good meal, their intentions were impeccable) and they´d even taken the time to fold some napkins.

There they stood on a row with a towel over their wrists waiting to serve us as proper servants and my immidiate thought was 'oh, no, I cant cope! no more, please!' but nevertheless I decided to go with it. After all, who could bring themselves to reject such a declaration of love?

We sat down and had a marvellous time and the children had decided to eat in the kitchen to give us some couple time! How amazing is that??

I was SO PROUD! (My wife says I had tears in my eyes, when I praised them, but I´m sure I just had something in my eye... or something...)

I wish I´d had a camera, but then again, some things are just not meant for picture shooting, but are to be savoured in our hearts and taken up in our memory to look at when thinking of all the good times, aren´t they?

Right now I´m full of joy and love in my heart and I wish you all a fantastic day!