Archive for the ‘Parenting’ Category

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How to Effectively Discipline Your Child

Friday, May 14th, 2010

Effectively disciplining your child is an important skill in life to learn and discipline doesn’t always have to involve punishment. Instead, discipline should always start with teaching your child right from wrong, respecting the rights of others, and which behaviors are appropriate and which ones are not. The goal should always be to raise a child that feels loved, is secure, self-confident, self-disciplined, and who doesn’t get frustrated and overwhelmed with the everyday stresses of life. If you are having difficulty disciplining your child, it doesn’t always mean you are doing something wrong. All children are unique and have various temperaments and degrees of development and a type of discipline that works with some children may not work with yours.

A key thing to know about disciplining children is that when you do, your behavior will always play an important role in determining how your child is going to behave in the future. If you let a child get their way after arguing, becoming violent, or throwing a temper tantrum, they will learn to repeat that behavior, because they know there’s a chance that you will give in. This can happen even if you only give in every now and then. On the other hand, if you are always firm and consistent, your child will learn that it’s not worth the energy to fight something they know they will have to do in the end anyway. However, some children may feel like they won the battle even if they are able to put off doing something for a few minutes.

Yelling and screaming is most often ineffective and will often alienate your child. Brief, sharp,but firm admonitions will usually derive the best results. Sometimes, you will have to follow up with “grounding” or deprivation of a privilege they enjoyed previously, like withholding an allowance, taking away their cell phone, taking away their car keys, cancelling a trip It is ideal to match the punishment to the crime, whenever possible.

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The Importance of Fresh Air

Wednesday, May 12th, 2010

resh air is important for the health of people of all ages. Neither an infant, child, nor adult can get the complete benefit from food without plenty of fresh air. Actually, our food cannot be burned for energy without oxygen. In the early stages of a baby’s life, the air it breathes has to be warm, fresh air. A baby needs fresh air as much as it needs nutritious food.

A child who is sick or has health problems needs fresh air more than a normal baby since fresh air can improve their appetite and sleep. In addition, fresh air makes a baby’s digestion better, the cheeks get pinker, and all the signals of good health will be present in a baby who gets plenty of fresh air. After the third week of a baby’s life, they should get wrapped up with a blanket and hood and put safely in a basinet or carriage close to an open window so they can breathe in fresh, clean, outside air. Even when the weather is cold the windows can still be raised a little for a few minutes every day. These airings can last for ten minutes in the beginning, but as the baby gets older, they may be slowly increased to four or five hours a day. The carriage or bassinette should be placed close to the window, but out of the direct air flow.

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How to Enjoy Learning

Tuesday, May 11th, 2010

The way to have success at something is to develop effective skills. Athletes, musicians, managers, and learners all need to develop their skills in order to be successful. Developing skills means practicing and building good habits.

Mental self-management or metacognition is the process of planning, monitoring, and evaluating the learning process. To perform well at metacognition means you have to understand the options. Below are some of the main choices. First, identify your best learning styles such as verbal, visual, kinesthetic, deductive, or inductive. Second, evaluate and improve your learning skills such as writing, reading, listening, time-management, note-taking, and problem-solving. Third, take advantage of various learning environments such as lab, lecture, discussion, study groups, and a study partner. Fourth, attempt to complete the learning cycle. For most classes, the learning cycle would look like this: Memorize new information, rules, and concepts. Take in and organize this information. Use this information to analyze, synthesize, and problem-solve. Incorporate this information into evaluations, judgments, and predictions. A lot of students don’t get any farther than the first step. They never experience the joy of learning. Next, try to develop the habit of positive thinking. You can utilize this for increasing your confidence and self-esteem, as well as for setting goals and enjoying learning. Use positive thinking as a means of taking charge of your own education. Lastly, develop the habit of hierarchical thinking. You can utilize this for the purpose of organizing priorities and good time management.

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Stimulate Creativity in Yourself and Others

Monday, May 10th, 2010

In order to open the door to creativity, it is necessary to allow others a certain amount of freedom, while encouraging them to become problem solvers.
Frequently, in our attempts to become better managers, supervisors or “Super Moms/Dads”, we tend to micromanage on the job, as well as, in our homes. This, not only inhibits creativity, but often destroys the motivation to do a job well or to expand their sense of responsibility.
Children and employees need a little freedom, without danger, in order to learn consequences. Making a few little mistakes gives us an opportunity to help them search for a better solution and will likely prevent major mistakes later. Instead of telling them what they did wrong, ask them what they did wrong and also ask them what they think they should do differently next time. (We can then offer a few constructive comments as they will likely then, be more
receptive.)
It is important for children and adults to enjoy healthy outdoor activities. Breathing fresh air and exercise is not only beneficial physically, but mentally and emotionally also. Encouraging children to dance and sing outside will help to develop a sense of rhythm, better posture, flexibility, appreciation for their bodies and a different kind of creativity.
Allowing children to listen and explore good music is another creative avenue. Clapping hands, tapping hands and feet will often give you a clue as to whether a musical talent is present.

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Child Learning and Motivation

Friday, May 7th, 2010

Trying to teach children they need to do an assignment because fifteen years later they will do better in college and then, as an even extended version of that, a better job and life, is pointless. If your child’s life is already difficult and you give them assignments that make life more difficult, it very likely isn’t going to cause them to believe that this behavior is eventually going to spare them from all the misery that life seems to have in store for everyone. Motivation from within is the key, however, this is easier said than done. You bait rats by putting an appetizing poison out for them and hope they will eat it and die. Usually this is what happens and other rats watch this happen and then they won’t make an attempt to eat the poison. In a similar way, your children will always smell a rat if you try to motivate them to learn the very same things they know is a part of the school curriculum. And if you try the method of dangling a carrot on a string in front of them, you risk teaching your child to only work when rewarded or to only avoid punishment. That attitude will go with them later in life and most employers are not looking to hire someone who only works if rewarded or punished. They want employees who are motivated to benefit the company and who work independently.
Another tool that is effective is to get them involved in helping you to solve problems, such as holding the tape measure and writing the measurements of a room to see how many square feet or yards of carpeting or flooring is needed. Invite them to help you with cooking; doubling or cutting a recipe in half, for instance. Shopping trips can easily be turned into learning experiences, as well.
First and foremost; compliment amd encourage whenever you witness their efforts and accomplishments.

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The Joy of Learning

Thursday, May 6th, 2010

One of the biggest challenges that face schooling is the ability for children to be motivated to learn. A lot of conflict sometimes arises when a child has to do homework that they don’t understand why they’re being made to do. And the reasons are often hard for a child to comprehend because it doesn’t have anything to do with the present and is almost entirely associated with successes they are to experience ten or twenty years in the future. Since the beginning of modern education, children have bucked against chores such as homework, assignments they don’t like doing or don’t understand permanent bad conscience and lack of confidence since there’s usually someone else in class who always gets everything correct. Instead of some children getting encouragement, they are sometimes openly or secretly criticized for their lack of success by teachers and even parents. In the midst of this, parents sometimes notice that their child has no trouble concentrating on things that aren’t related to school, but are equally if not more difficult. What it all comes down to is motivation, motivation that comes from within. Almost all the times you see a child concentrate, you will notice that they had a reason of their own to do so. Up until puberty, a child is mostly controlled by primary motivation. It’s sort of like the goal and the motive are the same thing. Secondary motivation is for older youths and adults.

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The Asset of Encouragement

Tuesday, May 4th, 2010

The best team skills are a positive and practical way of developing skills to motivate yourself and others. By knowing the seven concepts of mutual encouragement, your team can make its own synergy, cooperation, focus, respect, reality base, optimism, and progress. An encouraging winning team with team synergy creates a lot more benefits for everyone. An encouraging winning team helps understand your role in contributing to the best of the team. Also, an encouraging winning team is brought together by sharing a common dream. An encouraging team contributes to promoting individual pride, as well as the pride of being a part of the team. In addition, encouragement brings the team to a greater mutual respect, because it increases the value of each teammate’s role in the success of the team. Also, encouragement brings a team closer by being more focused on cooperation than competition. And lastly, encouragement plays a huge part in meeting your social and emotional needs, which will lead to increased well-being, happiness, and fulfillment. The encouragement you get from those around you increases your morale, motivation, creativity, and involvement and you will be better equipped to encourage your teammates to feel the same way. Learning encouragement skills will also give you the fringe benefit of experiencing improvement in your family and social life. It is almost impossible for a team of discouragers to beat a team of encouraging people, because a team of encouragers uses the power of people synergy.

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Parenting Children With Special Needs

Tuesday, April 27th, 2010

Parenting is demanding, joyous, fatiguing, and fulfilling. If you are a parent of a special needs child, emotions and fatigue are most often increased. It’s not surprising that special needs children need special parents and there are a few special qualities that these parents must have.

Special needs families are at their best when they are persistent, flexible, open-minded, resourceful, and positive. It’s difficult for families to even begin to think about what qualities will be necessary when a child is first diagnosed, but the traits that are listed below will help parents to constructively deal with the needs of their very special child. The first trait is tolerance. A child’s disability can be difficult in many different ways to a family. The emotions that a family can experience at the first diagnosis may include high levels of shock, guilt, anger, and even accusations. These emotions can become devastating to a family if they are not dealt with in a constructive manner. It’s important to realize that family members will express emotions in numerous ways. For instance, one parent may talk and cry to a lot of people, but another parent may become quiet and isolated and siblings may also be dealing with a variety of emotions such as fear, anxiety and confusion. Another trait a special needs parent should have is that of acceptance. Parents hold numerous images of things they dream of doing with their children such as playing sports, going to their wedding, or teaching them to ride a bike. However, a child’s disability often forces parents to change these fantasies and adapt to their child’s real capabilities.

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Parenting Kids

Monday, April 26th, 2010

Talking is better than spanking as a disciplinary technique for most parents, but sometimes it seems debatable. A lot of people aren’t a fan of spanking and most people will admit that it isn’t a pleasant thing. However, talking doesn’t do much good when trying to discipline some children and it is discouraging when you know what you’re saying to them is immediately going in one ear and out the other.

Time outs have become pretty effective behavior motivators for some people, but even more effective can be changing the surroundings so that the bad behavior never has a chance to surface in the first place. This leaves plenty of time for transitions, choosing your battles wisely, and having some distractions ready to thwart any bad behavior cycles. There was a recent article that was written about a parent that recommended ice-cold water in the face to put a stop to a temper tantrum. Most people who responded to a survey on the article thought it was a bad idea, but it is similar to things that have worked for other people who have had a child go into a tantrum. Cold water may be a little extreme, but silly or surprising sounds, words, and phrases from a parent can sometimes get their attention when you need help. Also, icy water in a parents face might be enough to get a child’s attention and put a stop to their bad behavior. Sometimes it helps to look at things from a different perspective.

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