Author: fuelingbrains_AdMEEn

An important part of healthy development in children is friendship. Friendships hold different meanings for children of different ages – for an older child, friendship is about talking and playing together. For young toddlers, it’s all about stacking blocks together. Children with friends have better self-esteem, fewer social issues and a good sense of well-being all their lives.

Children leave a lot of these social skills at home, as they interact with their siblings and parents. Showing your child empathy, compromise, conversation skills, sharing and taking turns is the best way to teach them this behavior.

It is important for parents to assist their children. One role parents can take up is of an emotional coach. Talk to your child in a sympathetic way where he will learn to do the same. Use the right balance of authority and practice a child-centered approach where you help him solve problems and teach him how to do it too. This support will help in encouraging independence and self-confidence building. Don’t think your child is too young to learn empathy.

Teach your child to read facial expressions. With a lot of guidance, it will work better for him when he is interacting with others during play. He will be able to tell what his friend is feeling and will be able to act accordingly without a fight or argument coming out.

Friendships give birth to meaningful relationships. This experience alone is of great importance for healthy development. A child who has trouble making friends and keeping friendships will always be riddled with low self-esteem. Help your child every day by being his best friend and role model. Like you, teach him how to build good relationships.

Happy Parenting!

Kids do at some time or rather experience some kind of teasing. When this harmless teasing becomes hurtful, constant and abrasive, it is known as bullying. For parents, it is a heart wrenching experience to see your child go through the pain of bullying, but sadly it happens – help your child deal with preschool or daycare bullies.
Have a chat with the bully’s parents. When kids are this young, it is a very good idea to do this and sometimes, the situation gets solved pretty easily. Let the bully’s parents know what is happening so they can correct their child’s behavior and talk to their child in case he has underlying problems.
Talk to a school personnel. Your preschool child’s teacher should know what is going on so it is a very good idea to alert her. This will allow her to monitor the situation and bring in higher authority if need be.
Don’t over react and make sure you have a brave, confident and unworried face when you talk to your child. If you get worried, chances are your child catches on to this worry and gets even more frightened. If you are confident and calm, your child may think of the bullying as a small issue and might even deal with it on his own.
Teach your child the basics of body language. Just by standing straight and tall, he will look more confident and it may ward off the bully. Someone who walks with slouched shoulders may be a target for bullies.
Always involve your preschool child’s teacher, the bully’s parents and other school heads to come up with a solution faster. It may be a short phase the bully is going through or something deeper, it is best to nip it in the bud early.

Happy Parenting!

Your preschool child may have trotted through the entire day at school with ease; but when he gets back home, you may find that he is either downright uncooperative, tests your patience, is whiny or all of the above. What is going on? What do you do? Psychologists say that it is perfectly normal behavior. I mean, look at how often we don’t feel like doing anything after a long day at work. Kids do go through the same sentiment. How can you help your little preschooler ease back into a home routine with little resistance?

Don’t expect a conversation. What you watch on TV – children talking about their day at school with a truckload of enthusiasm right after school? Does not always happen. Your child’s verbal skills are still developing and they may not be able to tell you as much as you expect to hear. You asking him why he is cranky is not a question he may be able to answer. All he might need is some TLC to get soothe him.

Be a bit more patient. Try to keep in touch with the day care teacher on the things your child is learning at preschool. If he is learning something new like reading longer words, he may be quite frustrated after a long day of doing just that. Understand that and try to expose him to a relaxing activity at home.

Loading up your child with sugary snacks after school can lead to a lot of pent up energy unused and thus to a lot of irritability. Give him something less sugary and more healthy; food that will awake his senses and give him energy.

Encourage some quiet alone time. Taking a child to a mall right after day care can be a nightmare; not because your child does not like a mall but because he may just be too tired. Encourage him to spend some time at home doing what he likes most before going out on a play date or shopping trip.

Above all, read your child’s mind as he comes out of the school gate and do what you think is right for him. No one knows your child better than you do. If you think the day calls for an ice-cream, go for that ice-cream!

Happy Parenting!

A famous psychologist once said “play is the work of children”. Play is very important for children’s development. From the moment they learn to reach out and explore their surroundings, play and exploration becomes integrated.

Play is also how children work around certain emotions like anxiety. A great example is Peek a boo. A toddler can spend hours playing Peek a boo with an adult with a blanket over his head. As he fears separations from a parent, this game just makes the fear go away. Toddlers often imitate their favourite hero when he feels powerless and small.

Play helps young children learn self control. A simple game like Simon Says at the daycare teaches them impulse control. Most board games teach organization, following rules and taking turns. Games played at the playground help kids with negotiating as rules at the playground change to fit situations every day.

As children grow older, free play starts to disappear and more structured play comes into practice. Video games and computer games replace imaginative play. At the daycare however, we try to encourage as much free play as possible.

The pressure of academic success sometimes leads parents to lessen play time. Parents often feel that their children will be at a disadvantage if their children do not start sports or other structured activities at a young age. Skating classes and soccer games have replaced uninhibited free play.

Specialists suggest that robbing children of free play has its consequences on growth and development. Experts believe that it is through childhood play that social and intellectual skills are developed at a later age. Children need free play to be able to learn the skills needed for success later in life. Free play, where the child is in charge. Once parents take charge, it becomes parent play.

Keep aside some time every day when your child can play freely. Create an environment in the backyard for him to have the space and opportunity to play.

Happy Parenting!

You would have, at one time or other faced a situation when despite all the parenting skills you have followed, all you want to do is to scream at your child. He may have either been irresponsible, hurtful or has ignored you despite repetitions. After moments of calming down, you’d have asked yourself the same question all parents do, “Why did I scream again? Why do I let him push my buttons so easily?”

Yelling is sometimes a very natural response when kids don’t listen, are rude or for a host of other reasons when your emotions are unfairly triggered. While screaming, scolding and threatening worked wonders when our parents raised us, it goes against parenting today because parenting today puts a lot of value to long-term relationships, being their child’s friend and respecting a child. Daycare and preschool centers also put a lot of weight on building good relationships with your children. So the question arises, how we get our kids to behave without the yelling and screaming?

Here are some great ways:

Know your triggers well. Plan and prepare for your triggers. If you get triggered when your child is rude to you, plan for what you could do instead of screaming. If you plan ahead, you have control and this practice won’t let you ‘lose it’. Take a walk, call a friend, listen to music – plan your time out and breathe. Once you have calmed down, address the situation with your child in a calm manner. According to our daycare experts, this works wonders and your child will even listen to you and not block you out.

Create a behavior chart with your young child where he is rewarded with stickers that he can accumulate to redeem a gift in exchange for. Every time he does something well, let him put a sticker on the chart. Slowly, you will be able to mould your child’s personality into something that is a socially acceptable behavior. Every time you don’t lose it, reward yourself too!

Being a calm parent is not only important to your well-being, it is important for your child’s mental stability too. A parent who screams and yells will have a strong willed child no matter what measures they take. You will always notice that when you start becoming calm when dealing with your child, your child calms down too. Children’s behavior is only a  reflection of their parents’.

There are many schools of thought that portray imaginary friends in a negative light. Parents feel that when their child has an imaginary friend, he has got to be shy, anti-social or probably have low self-esteem. The truth however, is that two thirds of children have had an imaginary friend in their childhood. Professionals at daycare centers and preschools also believe that this is normal behaviour.

By having an imaginary friend, your child is actually tapping into his creative side. He may have a teddy or Casper or a dragon as a friend and it might be someone that makes him comfortable in stressful situations, like when he is in bed alone at night. It could also be someone that entertains him when he is playing alone. An imaginary friend is sometimes the one children tell all their secrets too. Pretend friends are sometimes helpful in the development of young children. You might sometimes hear your child blaming or scolding his pretend friend for a broken toy. This shows that your child knows it was wrong behaviour, but probably not ready to own up to it himself.

Our daycare child development specialists have come up with a few guidelines for parents of children with imaginary friends:

Ensure that your child has real friends too. See that he is sociable in his daycare and meets up with other children to play on a regular basis.

When your child talks about his imaginary friend, acknowledge his friend and listen to your child describe him or her.

The imaginary friend is your child’s companion. Don’t make a big deal out of it and don’t tell your child that his friend does not exist. Hurting your child’s feelings will only make him go deeper in a shell of aloofness. On the other hand, don’t go to the other extreme and set a place for this imaginary friend at the dinner table.  Just go with the flow and stay neutral. Most children outgrow this phase sooner or later.

We all like to feel like we have contributed towards something. Children who take on responsibilities both at school and at home; grow up with a sense of purpose. They will be the ones who will develop the attitudes and skills to take on new responsibilities as they grow up. Here are some ideas to help you empower your young children to contribute.

At our Montessori, we encourage children to share responsibilities of setting up the table for snack time, cleaning up and arranging the classroom before the end of the school day and putting things away after an activity. When these children go home, they end up doing the same at home, hence contributing to the family.

Ask your child to teach you something new. It could be something he learnt at his pre-school something related to technology (kids are smarter than adults when it comes to this sometimes!) or a video game. Empowering your child with a feeling that he is smart and can even teach you a thing or two can really take him a long way in terms of confidence.

Take action together. Simple ideas are to serve an orphanage together. Or spend time in an old folks’ home together. Reflect on your experiences as a family after, noting actions that were kind and what you can do the next time.

Talk to your child when you do things together. While your child does his homework as you cook, engage in some light conversation when he takes a break. You build your relationship when you communicate, and often this is one missing link in families. A child who communicates well is one that will contribute ideas well.

Happy parenting!

At schools across the world, we can find two categories of children. One that starts the first day of school with a great smile and one that cries each day at the entrance of the school. If you want to ensure that your child falls in the former category, here are some tried and tested tips to help you both.

 When children don’t have enough information about a place, they become afraid and nervous. Their worst fears come to life because they just don’t know what to expect. When it comes to schools, they have no idea where they are going to sit, where the toilets are, how their teacher will be and where their room will be. This is bad enough to even get an adult frightened! At our Montessori pre-school, we encourage parents to bring their children over for a tour of the school a few days before the new year begins. Once they know what to expect, their fear levels do come down drastically.

They say that worried parents tend to have worried kids. If you spend too much time calming your child’s fears, they might think the problem is in fact so great that you were worried too. Instead, give your child confidence with a lot of ‘I love yous’ and ‘I know you can do its’. Confident parents have confident kids.

Take it from the Montessori teachers – children settle down very quickly in the classroom environment, even when they cry and fuss when they reach school. Parents hanging around the school compound do not help in making a child less anxious. So, before you take your child to school on his first few days, prepare to have a heart of stone and give your child a huge hug, a big kiss and a confident ‘I love you, see you later’ and leave. Teachers will manage your children just fine after that. Your child will also understand that you need to leave and this will become a good habit forming situation.

Happy parenting folks!

Researchers believe that children should be made to feel competent, not confident. Montessori believes that if you can make your child feel competent, his confidence will automatically soar. Here are some ways you can help.

Compliment wisely

Kids definitely need plenty of encouragement, whether they are learning to walk, read or get dressed by himself. However, consider this; if your child gets so used to hearing ‘Good job!’ every time he does something, he may have a hard time differentiating when his achievements are really worth celebrating. There might come a time when your compliments may be ignored. Our day care teachers believe that children should not be complimented for things they are supposed to do. A simple ‘thank you’ is enough then; or instead of saying that your child’s painting is the best you have ever seen, say that you loved the way he has incorporated the colors.

Glass half full

Help your child see the better side of things when he faces a disappointment. Instead of only offering a reassurance of looking at the bright side of things, our preschoolers are encouraged to think about how a situation can be made better and how they can reach their goals. If he has not been picked a s a lead star in a school play, don’t just say ‘But I think you are a star.” Instead sit him down and explain that you understand the disappointment and come up with ways to make it better next time together.

Problem Solving

When children are able to negotiate to get what they want, kids feel super confident. The key to this is sometimes to bite your tongue when your child comes to you with a problem or complaint at school or the playground. As your child what a good solution would be to the problem and you will be surprised to see how children as young as four can come up with solutions if only they are allowed to think.

Parenting is an infinite world of how’s and why’s and I don’t know’s…….try these simple strategies to see how they can help you. Happy Parenting!