Interview: Shelly Lefkoe & Noga Hullman Discuss The Ways We Make Our Kids Feel Unimportant And How To Reverse It

The joke I heard this week was very timely and worth retelling: a genie paid a visit to a young mother, in honor of Mother’s Day. “You’ve been working so hard”, he told her, “Ask for anything you want, and it shall be granted.” “I would like my husband to look only at me!” the woman said.

…So the genie turned her into an iPad.

If you share my fear, that this insightful genie may turn your children into a Smartphone next “Children’s Day”, today’s episode with veteran parenting expert Shelly Lefkoe is a must-watch for you.

Now, before you roll your eyes thinking that you’ve already heard enough about “the dangers of Facebook” or how the Internet robs your children from your much needed presence, I want to assure you that this interview takes a surprising turn in a direction that even I didn’t expect (that’s when I toss out the questions I prepared beforehand).

Because Shelly believes that your job is to facilitate your child to create the right beliefs about themselves and life.

She and I go deep into the less known, long-term effects that our own texting, excessive talking on the phone and emailing around our kids have on our children’s beliefs about themselves.

In short, it turned out that our topic was not technology—our topic was the belief that we’re not important and that shapes our children’s self-esteem or lack of it.

In this interview, Shelly provides big-hearted mothers like you and me with a new way of thinking about the connection between ourselves, our iPad (or dishes, or anything that prevents eye contact), and the child in front of us.

When you’re finished watching, Shelly and I would love to hear what you’ve taken away with you from this insight-packed episode:

And what are you going to do today to make your children feel important?

To your most inspiring parenting lifestyle,

Noga

P.S. this interview is long—but well worth the watch. If you’ve been looking for an opportunity this week to drink guilt-free cup of tea (while it’s still hot!), you just found it.

About Shelly:

Shelly Lefkoe is a much sought after parenting expert. Her passion is inspiring and empowering people to be the best possible parents that they can be, so that their children can have joyful, successful lives both as children and adults. Shelly’s parenting expertise comes from helping thousands of individuals overcome a wide variety of problems as serious as depression to low self-esteem that were rooted in early childhood interactions with parents. Her work as a Lefkoe Method Facilitator has been her laboratory for developing her parenting work. Shelly discovered that virtually all of the problem behaviors her clients wanted to change were driven by beliefs they had formed, mostly in childhood, through interactions with their parents. Seeing how beliefs formed in childhood create problems in adult life ignited Shelly’s passion to change how people parent. Shelly Lefkoe is also the co-author of Chicken Soup for the Soul Guide to Effective Parenting.

Go here to learn more about Parenting the Lefkoe Way: http://www.thelefkoeway.com/products/