Truth Telling

January 8, 2020 By Diane Constantine Leave a Comment

I’ve been thinking about truth telling. We want our children to be truth tellers, not liars. We have a part to play in developing honesty in them. About four years ago I wrote an article on Ways to Encourage Honesty. Since then I’ve read more articles on teaching our children to be honest. This article will give you a few more things to consider.

Every parent is going to face the fact that their children lie. It is one of the sins in our fallen nature. For some children, one or two occasions of lying and facing the consequences of those lies cures them of the penchant to lie. But for some of our children, they have a very stubborn streak that causes them to lie about big and little things. If we cannot see that streak broken in childhood, they will face very hard consequences later in life for the lies they tell as adults.

I don’t want you to be shocked when your little angel tells a lie, straight to your face. I hope you will have some tools ready to use as a result of reading these articles. Maybe you saw a very effective way your own parents dealt with your first lies and you are ready to nip this bad behaviour in the bud.

Your spouse, your child’s other parent, may well have a key that will help in dealing with lies. Be sure to talk about your response to lying before it occurs and then debrief afterwards to see how well that approach worked. Be willing to adapt.

But not matter how well prepared you are, you need help when it happens to you.

Pray!

Wow, that sounds like a cliché! But every parent and every child is an individual. There is no one size fits all answer to lying. There is one prayer that the Bible says will always be answered. James 1: 5, “If any of you lack wisdom, you should pray to God, who will give it to you; because God gives generously and graciously to all.” If you ask for wisdom, God will give you the wisdom you need to deal with each child.

If you don’t know what is behind the lie, you will likely treat it incorrectly. Yet, you’re only human. How could you possibly know?

Discover why they lie

There are so many reasons a child may lie. They may have heard someone else tell a lie and get what they wanted. So, they want to try that tactic to get their way. They may have just said the first thing that popped into their head. They may be afraid of punishment. Or they may be afraid of hurting you or facing your emotions. They may be trying to get a sibling in trouble. Or they may not know that what they said is wrong.

Depending on your child’s age, ability to understand, and whether this is the first or umpteenth time they have lied, your response may need to be quite different.

Stay quiet and calm

You cannot go wrong by getting quiet and calm before reacting to the lie. A wise person once told me, “Ask a question.” That question will be different for each occurrence of lying. But it may help you get a window into your child’s mind.

Model truth telling

As in any other bad habit we want to eliminate from our child’s life, we must be a good model for them to follow. If you say you’re not feeling well, when your children know you are well; they just saw lying modeled. If you often say, “I forgot,” when they know you never intended to run that errand; you have modeled a lie. We need to model speaking tactfully so as not to hurt feelings, and still tell the truth. Instead of pleading sickness, we can say, “I’m busy right now, but could we meet up tomorrow?” And instead of forgetting, we can say, “That is not something I’m good at. Is there something else I can do for you?”

One well documented way to encourage truth telling is sharing examples of truth telling as a good character trait you want your children to be known for. George Washington’s, “I cannot tell a lie.” Is an example. But watch for good examples that your own children can observe.

Promise of truth

Another tool that may be helpful is to ask for a promise of truth. This is especially effective when it involves people outside the family. Begin by asking your child to promise to tell you the truth, before asking other questions. But this must be used sparingly or it loses its power to work.

My bottom line is, pray! Pray for God’s wisdom. Pray for His grace to help you respond in the best way possible for your child. Pray for a tender and teachable heart in your child. And if you have a child who deals with this character flaw for many years, don’t give up praying! God has a way to get through even when we cannot. After all, we are stewards of our children, not owners. They are ours for a time, but ultimately God is their Father and loves them and will lead them home.

Multi-purpose Toys

December 5, 2019 By Diane Constantine Leave a Comment

At Christmas time, we think about toys for our children. Let’s consider what kinds of toys are most beneficial for our children.

In this age of electronic gadgets and toys that talk and have colourful displays, it may be one of the things you consider giving your children this year.

I get it! In a restaurant the children who each have a phone or tablet to watch a video or play a game are quiet and still. In the same restaurant, children who brought their toys may be in the aisles playing and disrupting the peaceful atmosphere. The ‘electronic baby-sitter’ keeps kids quietly entertained. There are times when electronic toys are the best possible toy for your child.

Choose the toys you buy carefully

Electronic toys that talk, do not teach your child to talk. Children do not learn speech from gadgets. Children learn speech from watching and hearing live people talk. They watch your whole face, they see that there is a connection with you and with the words you speak. Electronic toys are not a shortcut to a child learning to speak.

When you play with your child and talk to them about what you are doing, they associate your words, expressions, and touch with the words. They see and feel the things being spoken about. Speech is more than mechanical, it is social and relational. There is no substitute or alternative for talking and playing with your child.

Screen time means less time for personal interaction of your child with adults.

The benefits of affordable, multipurpose toys

Blocks and balls, dolls and vehicles, puzzles and books all stimulate development in your child. Toys should stimulate your child’s imagination and problem-solving abilities. Toys should encourage your child both mentally and physically. These are the best choices.

There is a window of opportunity for children to learn specific developmental tasks. If they miss that window, there are synapses in their brains that are pruned. It is not that they cannot ever learn those skills, but it will be much more difficult and will take a lot more work to learn. One of those skills is spatial relationships.

Building with blocks, catching and throwing balls, stretching and reaching for objects and even puzzle assembly contribute to strengthening these pathways in their brains. Hand-eye coordination is not developed by pushing buttons on a phone or tablet.

To get the best benefit from the toys they play with, they need you and all their caregivers to spend one-on-one time with them to talk and ask questions and stimulate their interest and creativity. Modelling a new way to play with a traditional toy will challenge them to repeat that and then to find an even more creative way to use it.

The bottom line

There are no toys that can substitute for a warm, loving, dependable relationship. Use toys to enhance interactions between parents and child or caregiver and child. These relationships are vital to all round good development.

For more research based information see:

Pediatricians Say Kids Need Simple Toys, Not iPads and Electronics

More on Your Child’s Journey about toys:

A Culture of Accountability

October 4, 2019 By Diane Constantine Leave a Comment

I read the following article this week and wanted to share it with you. I know that some of you have very tiny babies and children too young to practice accountability. Perhaps as parents, you can begin to practice staying accountable for your own actions. Then when your child is old enough to understand this, they will already have role models to follow.

Many of us have the habit of shifting the blame for our mistakes or behavior. Or perhaps we don’t know how to take responsibility and make necessary changes. As Christians, we know we should be humble and ask for forgiveness and make amends. We should also readily forgive others.

There is an epidemic of selfishness and rudeness today. Let’s do our part to raise children who will not buy into that behavior.

How to Create a Culture of Accountability in Your Home

By Megan Devine, LCPC

Have you ever wondered what it means to hold your child accountable? It’s an excellent question and one that we receive often during online parent coaching.

[Read more…]

A Sampling Period

July 10, 2019 By Diane Constantine Leave a Comment

There were two professional athletes. One started learning his game at the age of 7 months and beat his own dad at the age of 8. This was Tiger Woods.

The other played a variety of sports: skiing, wrestling, swimming, skateboarding, basketball, handball, badminton and soccer. He didn’t begin to focus on tennis until his teens. His name is Roger Federer.

Roger’s path to greatness is more common than Tiger’s. There are some very good reasons for this. Those who stay in the same sport, master techniques that work against their current opponents. Those who try many sports, are more flexible as they face new opponents. Those like Tiger, develop their bodies for their sport. Those like Federer, develop all-over physical strength and agility.

In areas like the arts, like music and dance, there is less interaction with others of their age group. Often by the time they could be professionals, they have lost interest and enthusiasm for their talent and want to change fields to be in a more social atmosphere.

Childhood is the time in life when we should allow and provide for our children to try a variety of interests. Most parents want to give their children the benefit of starting early in sports or music. This is good. These activities help children learn how to learn. They learn to listen to and respond to different teachers and different methods of teaching. They learn how to practice until they are good at something. They learn to overcome obstacles by persevering. These are all great benefits of early involvement in sports and arts.

Here are some things to consider:

Why do you want your child in an activity? Is it because you are good at that or wish you were? You may have a very good reason, but make sure they also want to learn it.
What does your child want to learn? Can you teach them that skill or can you provide a teacher for them?
After choosing the activity and teacher, let your child know this is for a specific period of time. Make it long enough that they will learn basic skills. At the end of that time, perhaps a year, reconsider if they want to continue or if a change should be considered.
Don’t give into your child’s whining or frustration before they have completed the first agreed upon period of lessons. If you do, they will not learn the lesson that anything worth doing, takes practice and determination.
After a reasonable period of lessons, if your child shows no aptitude or interest in the sport or art, help them chose a different activity to learn. Wanting to play the piano with some musical gift is radically better than forcing a tone-deaf child to learn to read music. The first one will enjoy playing a song he has heard before, while the second one only makes noise and hates it.
If your child shows exceptional ability in a sport or art and wants to continue pursuing that, don’t force him or her to change. Some children develop like Tiger and can stick with one focus their entire life. You may consider encouraging them to enroll in some other activity in addition to their focus to help them stay well rounded in relation to their peers.

Even if your child chooses to pursue an activity that you don’t enjoy, be careful not to demean your child for his or her interest in it. Find something good about it and be sure to applaud their development. Your boy may become a chef of renown or your girl become a forest ranger. Your reputation as a parent does not rely on your child’s chosen field of interest. But your child’s respect for you as a good parent will make all those lessons you paid for worth your while.

If you like this article, you may like a previous article I wrote on the Benefits of learning music

Curiosity Grows

May 15, 2019 By Diane Constantine Leave a Comment

As your child is beginning preschool, kindy, or primary school, curiosity takes on an even more important role than it did as they were a baby.

Before they start school, you can help them satisfy their curiosity about anything they like. You can give them lots of hands-on experiences, read books to them about whatever they are curious about, or find videos and even games that will teach them more about things they find interesting.

Once they start school and have homework, you may feel like the first thing they should do is homework and then you run out of time for the things they are curious about.

There have been some studies done that tend to take a different view of curiosity and learning.

The more we know, the more we want to know.

Research shows curiosity grows with knowledge. So, sometimes the key to helping our kids improve their attitudes about homework is to see that they get a basic grasp of the subject so that they can become curious to learn more about it. Math facts are an example. It can be tedious to learn the basic facts, but once those are learned, they can begin to see how numbers work together to give us more understanding about our other interests.

Two things happen with curiosity. The first is that the hippocampus, the memory trigger in the brain, is stimulated. That’s why we remember well things that we learned through satisfying our curiosity. The second is that the chemical dopamine is released in the brain with curiosity. That is the reward and pleasure chemical in our brains. We feel good when we have been curious and learned something.

Try this ‘trick’ to help you child in subjects they don’t like.

In one study they found that when children were bored by a subject, curiosity could help them learn it in spite of their dislike. This is how you can make this work for your child. Spark their curiosity about anything they are interested in. Help them satisfy at least some of that curiosity at the beginning of homework time. When curiosity has been stirred, we remember other facts more easily and for a longer time. For a while after satisfying curiosity, whatever they are exposed to next, just seems to flow in more easily and creates memory of those other subjects.

I was not always thrilled with the things my little ones found fascinating. Our eldest, cut holes in the back of our recliner chair so he could see what was inside. He also took our record player apart into all its tiniest pieces! (We never could make it work again!) But both our sons were curious about everything. It has stood them in good stead in their jobs today. They are both always curious, always learning and that has made them very valuable to their companies. So, think long-term, when your child asks in infinite number of questions about something they find interesting! You help them develop a habit of curiosity and learning for their future.