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Preventing Food Fights

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November is American Thanksgiving. We really do have so much to be thankful for! What a good time to practice thankfulness ourselves and to teach our children the attitude of gratitude. Let ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ be common words in your home.

With Thanksgiving this month and Christmas and New Years soon, food is on our minds. There will be all kinds of foods around that only seem to appear once a year. So with all these strange foods and many more sweets around than usual, mealtime can become a battleground. Rather than try to make your toddler face new foods at every turn, why not try to keep it simple. Stick to the basics for your toddler as much as possible, even while you enjoy the treats of the season. There will be plenty more years ahead to encourage your child to be a gourmand. [Read more…]

Raising Good Kids Tip #1- Quality Time

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Harvard University psychologists studied what parents did who raised good kids. The conclusions they came to are mostly common sense, but often we need reminding. I will be using this study as the basis for Parent Tips from time to time.

Raising Good Kids Tip #1- Spend Quality Time with Your Children

When both parents work outside the home and children spend many of their waking hours with other adults, parents must make a conscious effort to spend quality time, regularly with their children. Just being with them, but not giving them your full attention does NOT count as quality time.

  • Quality time involves meaningful conversations. Take turns asking and answering each other’s questions. Listen carefully to what they say.
  • Do things together that they enjoy. Have fun together.
  • Read to them every day or tell stories to them from your childhood.

It takes work to develop caring, loving relationships with your kids. When they feel loved, they become attached to you. That attachment makes them more receptive to learning the values that are important to you.

Exercise: Try using the following questions as conversation starters.

  • “What was the best part of your day? The hardest part?”
  • “What did you accomplish today that you feel good about?”
  • “What’s something nice someone did for you today? What’s something nice you did?”
  • “What’s something you learned today—in school or outside of school?”

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New Kid by Friday – part 6

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Over the last few months I’ve been sharing some insights from Dr. Kevin Leman’s book, Have a New Kid by Friday.

These are the last two strategies from Dr. Leman that we will cover in these letters. Strategy one, “Let reality be the teacher.” And the second strategy is, “B doesn’t happen until A is completed.”

He stresses that as much as possible allow natural consequences to teach lessons to your child. Don’t be constantly reminding them of the consequences, just let them feel them. Don’t micromanage your child’s experiences. [Read more…]

Learning Differences (LD)

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Learning Differences are often called by other names: Learning Disabilities or Dyslexia. Whatever name is used, children with LD have trouble learning with the traditional education methods.

The symptoms are often difficult to clearly diagnose until about 8 years of age, as many children ‘grow out of’ these during their first few years of school. Many of the LD symptoms are also symptoms of other conditions like AD(H)D or autism spectrum.

But if your child does not seem to be maturing at a similar rate to other children their age, please consider early intervention. The earlier these differences are recognized and appropriate therapy is started, the more likely there will be fewer long-lasting difficulties.

For a descriptive list of symptoms of LD see: Learning Differences: Signs and Symptoms