The Joy Of Learning

Help children to develop positive self esteem

Self-esteem is how we feel about ourselves, and our behavior clearly reflects those feelings. The development of a positive self-concept or healthy self-esteem is the major key to the happiness and success of children and teenagers.  For example, a child or teen with high self-esteem will be able to: act independently, assume responsibility, take pride in his accomplishments, tolerate frustration, attempt new tasks and challenges, handle positive and negative emotions and offer assistance to others

On the other hand, a child with low self-esteem will avoid trying new things, feel unloved and unwanted, blame others for his own shortcomings, feel, or pretend to feel, emotionally indifferent, unable to tolerate a normal level of frustration, put down his own talents and abilities and be easily influenced.

Parents, are the people who can promote or demote their child’s self-esteem more than anyone else. In fact, most parents do it without even realizing that their words and actions have great impact on how their child or teenager feels about himself.

Children or teenagers make decisions all the time but often are not aware that they are doing so.  It’s important that parents help children improve their ability to consciously make wise decisions without being patronizing. Childrem with poor self image may succumb to peer pressure out of desperation to blend in. Some teenagers may resort to take  weight loss pills to keep the anorexic look of their pop idols who flank every magazine and entertainment publication.

Teach your children how to handle money

Well, every day our children and youth are bombarded with a million different images and voices, everything ads from billboards to internet telling them who they are and influencing them to measure their worth by what they have. The peer pressure and the pressure to be accepted drives them, and perhaps even their parents, to throw money away on things that don’t matter, all in an attempt to be somebody. The result? We are raising a generation that spends money they don’t have to buy things they don’t need to impress people they don’t even like!

Over 80% of undergraduates in America have at least one credit card and nearly 50% of college graduates carry 4 or more credit cards. According to the Department of Education, the average balance carried by these students is more than $3,000!

These statistics show that many children aren’t being taught how to handle money. Many young adults do not know how to read a bank statement nor balance the check book, but they have a checking account or own several credit cards. That’s why we see more young people are making mistakes with many zeros at the end of them. These mistakes often take years to overcome. Teach your children how to handle money while they are young, and they won’t make mistakes later on in life.

Parents, get involve in your child’s activities

It’s a known secret that children with parents who are involved in their lives are more well-adjusted and fair better at their educational and extracurricular pursuits. Parental involvement is an integral part that helps them in their cognitive development, keeps them motivated, strengthens the parent-child relationship, and has a direct positive influence on their overall academic achievement.

But how do you get involved? Most parents nowadays are busy at work, juggling between work, family and school. It’s not uncommon that an average family has very little quality time to offer. However, with some careful planning and dedication, you can make it a positive experience for both yourself and your child. You can find out what your child is most passionate about. If you child is passionate about baseball, don’t just get them the Baseball Gloves, you can go for his games or think of contributing your time to volunteer or getting actively involved in his school activities.

In fact, by being involved with your child, it helps you to stay connected with your child. As children who have involved parents are less likely to get into mischief and disciplinary problems in school, or have emotional problems, then you have a win-win situation !

Develop reading habits in children

Most parents who love to read want their children to also love reading. With most children nowadays prefer watching TV and playing computer games than reading, instilling the love of reading can be a challenging task. Here are some good practices if you are serious about developing reading habits in your children.

First of all, collect and surround your children with good books.  Your collection must consist of a variety of books with different themes and with colorful and attractive pictures. Allow them to choose the books they are interested in.

The next thing in developing their love and skills in reading is to read aloud the books of their choice.  Other than stories, you can also read a lot of books with facts to draw them into the wonderful world of knowledge and of course to broaden their understanding of the world around them.

The strength of a family unit

The children and the parents constitute a family unit. The strength of a family lies in the ties and bondage of love that bind all the members of the family together and feel for each other. It’s important to retain this structure in the world that is getting more volatile and chaotic.

Having a peaceful family life experience and supportive parents who protect them certainly help children to grow into responsible and confident adult with well built personalities and strong character who can bear the rough and tough of life

Children are innocent and immature, but they are pretty sensitive towards the lack of attention or parents who practice favoritism. As parents, it’s our responsibilities to pay equal attention to all of our children, without discrimination and partiality.

When they are younger, it’s the best time to train them with chores and responsibilities as they usually are eager to help. So do not push them away nor discourage them when they want to help. Help them build basic life skills and they will become more confident once they master them. If your children feel that you are genuinely interested in their lives they will actually feel at home with you and will be more cooperative. They will start talking to you. They will share themselves with you.

Should I return to work?

if you just recently had a baby, congratulations! The arrival of a new child will be a fun, adventurous, and memorable experience. Although work may be the farthest thing from your mind right now, it is something that you may want to take the time to think about. After having a baby, a large number of women wonder whether or not they should return to work.

When it comes to determining if you should return to work after having a baby, there are a number of important factors that you will want to take into consideration. Do you have a lot of consumer debts or getting calls from debt collection agencies. For many women, money is an issue. How is your current financial situation? Before your baby was born, were you relying on one or two incomes? This simple question may play an important role in your decision.

Although money may be an issue for you, when determining if you should return to work after the birth of your child, it is also important to examine the money that you may save. As a parent, you likely wouldn’t send your child to just any daycare center. Unfortunately, daycare providers that come highly rated and recommend often have high fees.

After this comparison, you may find that staying home with your child, after their birth, is actually a cost effective solution. : - )

Keep the children close with us

Although providing the physical needs and affording the cost of living for the children are not easy tasks, the responsibility to keep the kids close to us is even more crucial in today’s world. Children are exposed and have access to all sort information, good or bad, it can get into really dirty situations if parents do not keep an eye on them. The world is full of rotten facts and it is difficult to save your children from all the wrongdoings, it has never been more challenging to keep our children on the right track!

When the children are pre-nursery age, they are generally very honest with their parents and share everything with them. As they grow up, they have their friends and their world start to have a lot more outside influence. It’s the parents’ responsibility to keep an eye on them without invading their privacy and need to be independent.

Teenagers want to be treated with love and respect. They would want to be given some freedom and they are bound to rebel if you keep lots of restraints on them. Be their trusted friend, and keep the line of communication open, so they will understand what they are seeing in the world today, their parents have seen in their youth. With this understanding, they will remain honest and accountable to their parents as they were when they were toddlers.

Children have different needs at different ages, it’s only right that parents treat them according to their age groups. When they are toddlers in the growing age they will be asking a lot of why this and why that questions. When they are teens, they may be troubled with the acne problem. Do not push them away, answer their questions and let them talk to you ! It will be too late to miss this wonderful opportunities that help to create a wonderful relationship and a true bonding between the parents and the children.

Traps and temptations for our children

It has never been easy to raise a child, what more at this time and age, when traps and temptations are everywhere, ready to devour our innocent children. Children this days are flashed and bombarded with so many messages from all sources that may be contradicted with our belief system.

It may start with a message hidden in their favorite animations or the commercials in between the shows they watch on TV. As they get older and enter the world of internet, it’s another ball game again. Your children will start to receive thousands of spams from sites that promote pornography and illegal drugs, along with promotional emails for cheap Phentermine,  one day they will be curious enough to check them out!

It’s impossible to shield them completely from all these. The only thing we can do is to have open communication with our children, hopefully that opens opportunities for stronger parental influence and positive role modeling!