Sunday, April 26, 2015

15 Tips for Instilling Leadership Skills in Children

1. Set a good example.
As a leader, you realize the importance of setting a good example for your team.

2. Encourage team activities.

3. Emphasize perseverance.

4. Build negotiation skills.

5. Hone decision-making abilities.

6. Practice confident communication.

7. Encourage work.

8. Enrol in summer camp.

9. Have family game night.

10. Teach project planning skills.

11. Use vision boards.

12. Avoid jumping in.

13. Find a mentor.

14. Encourage reading

15. Reward optimistic thinking.


Monday, April 20, 2015

Top Tips on Stopping Your Child Biting

Why do they bite?

Understanding why a child bites is key to beating the problem. Not all children bite out of anger or to hurt.
  • Expressing emotion: Oddly enough, young toddlers can bite as a way of showing love. "Toddlers have really intense feelings but don’t know how to show them"
  •  Experimenting: Toddlers are learning how their body works – they put things in their mouths, and sometimes nip. It’s impulsive and they don’t mean to hurt.
  • Defending: Young children learn to bite as a defence, especially if they can’t talk.
  • Controlling: Some children know biting is a way of getting other children – or their parents – to do what they want. They don’t always do this consciously

How to stop it?

  •     Intervene: Open your eyes – look at how intense, how frequent bites are and what the triggers are.
  •     Teach them it’s wrong: When your child bites, use simple but firm words. Try, “that’s biting, that’s wrong” or a firm “no”. If you’re in a group, remove them from the situation. Explain that it hurts others and why you don’t like them doing it.
  •      Teach them to express themselves: When things have calmed down, try to help your child find a less painful way to express their feelings.
  •      Reduce the effectiveness: When children bite to gain attention, dealing with it is trickier. After the first big talking to, don’t try to continue to reason or explain.
   

















Sunday, April 12, 2015

Attachment: Why it's crucial for your baby

  • Why attachment is important??
From the moment they arrive, babies are ready to teach us what they need.

  • Won't I spoil my child? 

Do you want your baby to be happy? Of course! But it's hard to know where to draw the line sometimes.

  • The attachment theory
To understand why, it helps to know a bit about what's called attachment theory. All infants naturally attach to their primary caregivers, even to adults who are less nurturing.


  • What happens if your baby doesn't connect with you?
About 35 percent of babies form unhealthy, insecure attachments. In their young minds, it's not clear that their parents will come through for them.


  • You can make a difference
Most scientists believe that what makes the difference between healthy and unhealthy attachment is the parent's response.


  • Why the first year is key?
This kind of attention is especially important during the first year because that's when the brain is growing the fastest.







Sunday, April 5, 2015

Helping Your Visually Impaired Child Develop Good Motor Skills

Balance

  • Balance is a child's ability to hold her body parts upright. This ability starts first with her head, then continues down her body to shoulders, trunk, hips, and legs. Balance is part of running, jumping, standing on one leg, cycling, and ball throwing.

  1.  Giving your child lots of time lying on her tummy. She may act as if she doesn't like this  position. And she probably won't—until she has learned to balance, turn her head, and lift it up  off the floor
  2.  Giving him chances to sit or stand alone.
  3.  Giving her some support and then letting go for a few seconds. See if she can catch herself      before she loses her balance.

  •   To help your child practice walking you can:
  •    Give your child a chance to walk frequently. It builds up his self-confidence, and yours.
  1.  Be sure your child has an opportunity to walk on many different surfaces—rugs, bare floors,  grass sidewalks, gravel, tile, etc.
  2.  See that your child has a chance to walk on both even and uneven surfaces—steps, hills,  sloping driveways, etc.


Running

  • For young children, running is a release of energy, a source of power

  1. ·         "He can't see where he's going."
  2. ·         "He'll run into something."
  3. ·         "He could fall down and hurt himself!"

  • Any one of these could happen. But since there are so many benefits to running, the best idea is to help your child to run safely. You can do that by:

  1. ·         Begin by carrying your child as you run.
  2. ·         Running together, hand in hand.
  3. ·         Running together, each holding the end of a rope.