Category Archives: Education News

How Well Do You Know Your Child?

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In U.S.A we often hear that parenting does matters. In China, we all know if the child is not well educated, everybody blames his or her parents. In Japan, we also hear that a child wins because his or her parents’ power. There is no doubt that family education acts a crucial role on children’s education. Parents are the most important teachers in a child’s life.

While we all know that by children’s developmental milestones, they were born as successful learners, they have incredible eagerness and ability to learn. However, as they grow, some are doing well in school, some are not. Each child has unique gifts to contribute to the learning process. It is our responsibility, as parents and teachers, to help children know what their gifts are and how to nurture them.

How parents help the child identify and respect his or her talents, learning strengths, and needs? How parents help the child discover his or her interests, dreams, passions, and goals? How parents help the child become an eager, self-directed learner? How parents help the child to maximize his or her learning ability and potential? In the next several posts, we are going to discuss these questions.

To learn more parenting skills, please refer to great parenting books.

Good Parenting Principles

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In order to raise a healthy, happy and successful child, we as parents should learn good parenting knowledge and skills. Although perfect parents do not exist, good parenting principles do exit. We want to be better parents.

Here we summarize ten basic principles for good parenting.

  1. Be aware that parenting needs effort

    Every day, think about parenting, remind yourself how to treat and respond to your child has effect on the child, try to learn a lesson from your experience of parenting, and improve parenting by learning as well, be responsible parents.

  2. Give a high priority to parenting, be involved in your child’s activity

    For busy working parents, this is challenging. However, you should manage your time, your work in such a way, which puts your child first. It sometimes means sacrificing your own interest in order to meet your child’s needs. Be there for your child mentally as well as physically.

  3. Love your child but cannot too much

    Every day, show your child genuine expressions of warmth and affection, for example giving lots of hugs to your child. Different culture has different ways. However, if your child breaks a rule or does something wrong, you should tell him or her what is right thing to do. Criticize the behavior, not your child.

  4. Set family rules

    Our society has rules, in order to help your child succeed in school, the real world, As a parent, you need to set family rules to help your child learn how to manage himself or herself. In order to know your child better, you should be clear on these three questions at anytime: Where is my child? Who is with my child? What is my child doing?

  5. Be consistent on your family rules

    Your family rules need to be clear and consistent. Otherwise your child will be confusing and will not take it seriously. Explain your family rules to your child, the more your authority is based on wisdom and not on power, the less your child will challenge it. In addition, if two parents are raising a child together, both parents need to use the same rules.

  6. Explain your decisions to your child

    Because your child does not have the knowledge and experience that you have, you need explain to him or her what you are thinking and why you made the decision with patience. For your child at different developmental stage, you need to explain to him or her in an easy-understanding way.

  7. Avoid harsh punishment

    By the research that of all the forms of punishment that parents use, physical punishment has the worst side effects. Children who are hit are more likely to fight with other children using aggression to solve disputes, because they emulate their parents.

  8. Adapt your parenting to fit your child at different developmental stages

    A child has different needs at different developmental stage, the ways to use parenting a toddler should be different with parenting a teenager. As a parent, you need to learn the milestones of children’s development and make sure your parenting keeps pace with your child’s development.

  9. Respect your child

    Children treat others using the same way their parents treat them. Think your child is a person just like anyone else, who needs to be respected, just like yourself. Speak to your child politely, respect his or her opinion. Listen carefully when he or she is speaking to you. Treat him or her like a friend.

  10. Foster your child’s independence

    Encouraging independence, give some free space but with some limits to your child to help him or her develop self-control, which is one of the keys to be successful in life. Explain the difference between rebelliousness and independence to your child. Independence is a part of human nature to want to feel in control rather than to feel controlled by someone else. Remind your child that he or she has to have the capability to control, which needs him or her to continue to learn.

To learn more parenting skills, please refer to great parenting books.

Listen to Your Children

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Communication With Children sometimes is not easy. Kids like talking. Sometime, they just keep talking, as parents, we hardly listen to them patiently. Communication is a two-way process. If we do not listen to our children carefully, we should not get upset or even angry with them if they do not listen to us.

Listening to your child

Some of parents including me feel that communicating with our children can be a difficult task at times. We feel like they’re not listening to us; they feel like we’re not listening to them. Although good listening and communications skills are essential to successful parenting, I think patience to our children is even more important. Our child’s feelings, views and opinions have worth, and we should make sure we take the time to sit down and listen openly and discuss with them honestly.

Respond carefully

It seems to be a natural tendency to react rather than to respond. We pass judgment based on our own feelings and experiences. However, responding means being receptive to our child’s feelings and emotions and allowing them to express themselves openly and honestly without fear of repercussion from us. By reacting, we send our child the message that their feelings and opinions are invalid. But by responding and asking questions about why the child feels that way, it opens a dialog that allows them to discuss their feelings further, and allows us a better understanding of where they’re coming from. Responding also gives us an opportunity to work out a solution or a plan of action with our child that perhaps they would not have come up with on their own. Our child will also appreciate the fact that maybe we do indeed understand how they feel.

Nowadays, most of parents are very busy in many things including working. It’s crucial in these situations to give your child your full and undivided attention. Kids are our future. Giving kids attention they need is so important for them to develop mentally and physically healthy. Put down your newspaper, stop doing dishes, or turn off the television so you can hear the full situation and make eye contact with your child. Keep calm, be inquisitive, and afterwards offer potential solutions to the problem. We should always remind us that kids need parents’ attention.

Help your child learn how to deal with stress

Help your child learn how to deal with stress. Don’t discourage your child from feeling upset, angry, or frustrated. Our initial instinct may be to say or do something to steer our child away from it, but this can be a detrimental tactic. Again, listen to your child, ask questions to find out why they are feeling that way, and then offer potential solutions to alleviate the bad feeling. Help your child manage his or her emotion.

Just as we do, our children have feelings and experience difficult situations. By actively listening to our children and participating with our child as they talk about it, it demonstrates to them that we do care, we want to help and we have similar experiences of our own that they can draw from. Remember, respond with your heart- don’t react irresponsibly. It’s no doubt that parents love their kids. Communication With Children is a important way to connect with your child.

To learn more parenting skills, please refer to great parenting books.