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You do not need to take recourse to yelling in order to be authoritative. Yet, some parents make this mistake and adopt yelling as a major strategy for seeking corrections in their children. In fact, the amount of learning a child is ‘capable of’ is inversely proportional to the amount of yelling a parent is using. I was recently reading an interesting article on this topic by Sharon Silver for Popsugar Moms.
Yelling at a child cannot yield any result
How To Reduce The Bad Influence of TV – Study
Television must have something going for it or else it would not have sustained for so long. Many of us parents would not hear of it for their children. ‘Off” is the only button on the remote control that gets used by many parents when they see their young child in front of the jukebox. However, selecting channels wisely instead of switching off the machine is the right solution says an new study according to education news.
8 Videos That Prove Math Is Awesome
Mathematics is considered a powerful science but it can take up the form of art quite well too. I saw a few videos on Mashable which had me in fits (ecstatic fits I must say). Having come face to face with so many powerful elements of mathematics, the only way I can react is by sharing the video link with you all.
How To Improve Your Child’s Mood and Academic Performance
A study focusing on sleep duration and resultant child behavior came up with telling results, says a new article from education news. As parents, we may not be too willing to admit that a small tweak with our child’s sleep-hours can bring a lot of difference. However, the study proves us just so wrong. Conducted over 33 children, from the age group 7-11, the results of the study were spread over two weeks. In the first week, children were allotted 9.3 hours of sleep and their behavior and temperamental stability was judged on a scale of 100 (100 being the worst and 0 being the best). On an average, children closed in on 50 points.
Over the course of next week, children were divided into two groups. One group was deprived of sleep by an hour while the other group was asked to sleep for an extra hour. The first scored an average of 54 while the second group averaged out at 47 (despite actually managing only 30 minutes of extra sleep). For such small fluctuations in sleep hours, parents and teachers observed a huge difference in a child’s behavior, mood swings and general agility.
Have you closely examined how an extra sleep-hour helps your child?
Better TV Means Better Kids | Education News
Parents have never been too keen on their children watching television, citing how it can completely corrupt their kids. However, the right TV channels might help children gain many virtues. This is powerfully illustrated by a new infographic from educationnews.org.
Kids and Parents: How To Live Without Regret
As a parent, we all would you like our children to live a fulfilled, happy life without major regrets. In this context, I have come across an interesting article recently which speaks about the major regrets that dying people generally have. I am pasting link to the original article here- http://www.inspirationandchai.com/Regrets-of-the-Dying.html
Those who have heard the knock of death wish to change so much about their lives if they are given another chance. The article talks about five common regrets of the dying.
- Almost everyone feels that they should have worked less madly and given more time to other meaningful pursuits.
- That they should have given enough time to their friends.
- That they should have allowed themselves more happiness.
- That they should have expressed themselves more freely on many occasions.
- That they should have kept away from the herd mentality (following the traditional norms).
These are all very important insights and we should definitely all take note, so we do not end up with deep regrets when it is time to go.
However, I beg to have a different take on this. I feel that life is a never-before experience. Someone has rightly said “Life is what happens when we are busy making other plans”. After all, we do not have any past lives to refer to. In absence of any rehearsal, we are bound to make mistakes in various events of life. This is why it might not be a great idea to rue our mistakes.
Actually, I have a small theory to why people start regretting a lot of things when death becomes imminent. Death is a bully. We try to live in denial of it before finally accepting it. However, we come across many emotions on the road to acceptance and regret is one such emotion. Here is an interesting thought: If somehow, the verdict of our death is reversed, won’t we keep living merrily the way we have lived thus far?
So, working further upon this theory, let us add a corollary: the beauty of life is that it allows us to make mistakes…correct them… leave them as they are…. move ahead…..stay with them. We can take our pick.
I think that there is limited gain in regretting our past. In fact it might not be too odd to state- If life is an occupation, mistakes are occupational hazards. We are imperfect by our birth and till our death we remain so. Is it a small achievement then that we manage to carve out a ‘whole life’ even with such imperfections?
What do you teach your children about living a fulfilled live?
Physical Fitness Gives Children Better Academic Performance
This post is about an article I read about the benefits of physical fitness to children’s learning.
It shows how physical exercises increase the volume of oxygen reaching our children’s brain and empowers their nerve cells. This way, such exercises make their brain more receptive towards studies. Their memory gets a boost, cognitive thinking patterns improve a lot and mental agility rises a few notches. Various researches prove the positive effect of physical fitness on school children.
Exercises like Resistance Training can enhance degree of concentration in children while aerobics can add to their abilities of multitasking or coordinating. Gymnastics, hiking, swimming and their likes can also increase the power of retention in our kids.
Here is the link to the original article: http://fitness.mercola.com/sites/fitness/archive/2012/09/28/physical-activity-improves-academic-performance.aspx
Have you noticed a positive impact of regular physical exercise with your kids?
Why We Need The Math Police – Or Do We?
Recently I read an interesting article on why we may need a math police. Here’s a link to the original article.
The article talks about how we completely comply with the grammar police. If we use a word wrongly or inaccurately, someone (the grammar police) typically corrects us and we willingly accept the correction and carry on. However, the same is not true when it comes to math.
That’s because typically nobody acts as the “math police” and corrects math mistakes or even attempts to. In fact, we even boast publicly about how bad we are at math and how we fumble while adding up grocery items or split restaurant bills.
I personally feel that policing over math is secondary. What is more important is our personal understanding of the problem- one that comes from within. The article suggests that if we split a restaurant bill evenly as opposed to calculating everyone’s exact share, we are doing the wrong thing.
I beg to differ – it is merely a social mechanism that allows us to focus on the company of people rather than micro-management.
We are a well evolved species and if we aim to be good with letters, we should aim the same for numbers too. Mathematics is a crucial part of life that we as adults should continue to master, just as we want our children to.
So perhaps there is a need for a math police, if only to help us raise greater awareness that it is not always in our best interest to take math shortcuts or to publicly state our own ignorance rather than attempting to be accurate.
What are your views?
The Top 3 Excuses Kids Make
Kids are prone to making excuses, just to work their way out of a face-off. Here are the top 3 excuses according to a recent parent survey at imom.com.
I forgot
Though this might just be the truth, you have to be doubly careful about it. It is very easy for children to get deviated. When you ask them why they failed to perform a chore- “I forgot” is their stock reply. It may be a smart idea to ask them to finish a work the moment you assign it to them. Sometimes, the work does not require being done immediately. For such chores or errands, you can always have them write down the job (and keep checking daily).
It is his/her turn
This is another racket that children run. To bail themselves out of a situation, they come up with excuses like “Its Anna’s turn to clean the attic” or “I did it the last time, John is supposed to do it this week”. It must be made clear to children that parents are not fools and if they feel that a child should do a work- even if out of turn- there must be a reason behind it.
It is his/her fault
Often children play the blame game to seek exit from a difficult situation. As parents, you should explain them- “Well! Your sibling might have ‘acted’ wrongly but you are the one who ‘reacted’ equally badly. So how are you any better?”
It is important to teach your child that they can always choose their reactions in life; well-judged reactions would make them responsible humans and poor ones would make them weak individuals- a person who always keeps finding an exit route.
Do you have any top excuses that you are dealing with?
The best advice for being in a positive frame of mind
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