Similarly, the words we give to our children can have a dramatic impact on their lives. And some should be avoided at all costs…

Words Create World

I once attended a life coaching course where they summed it up like this: “Words create World”.

I think this is very true. And more than anyone else, the people we create the world for with our words are our children. So let’s be sure we create a good world.

One Negative Statement Cancels 10-20 Positive Ones

Negative words are like daggers – they can pierce the heart and leave scars that may last a lifetime. In fact, it has been said that one negative comment requires somewhere between 10 to 20 positive ones on the same subject, just to even out the negative one in a person’s mind.

Three Things You Do Not Want To Say

Here are the three statements that can quickly kill off your child’s spirits and stunt their ability to do well at anything, certainly including mastering math.

1. You are stupid.

If your child believes this, there is no way that school and learning will ever be fun or easy. If another adult person told you that you are stupid, how would you feel? The same thing, only worse, goes for your child. Your child looks up to you – what you say goes, so if you say those words, it must be true.

So instead of “You are stupid” you might say “That sure didn’t work”. If you can’t help it, and your child really did something stupid, make sure you comment on the specific event, not on the person. So the most extreme thing to say might be “That was stupid”. I hope you can see the difference. “That was stupid” leaves your child’s intelligence intact. “You are stupid” doesn’t.

2. You got that wrong, again? You are hopeless!

Do you remember what it was like to learn riding a bike? It seems quite daunting at first, but once you get the hang of it, it’s actually quite easy. Sometimes, we forget how daunting certain skills appear to children, because we mastered them a long time ago. Learning new skills takes time, practice and patience.

Similarly, making mistakes is a very powerful and effective way to learn. But only if your child does not associate making a mistake with being hopeless or with punishment.

The proper substitute to this statement is: “Ok, that’s useful, because now you’ve learnt how not to do it. Would you like to try again?” Can you imagine how different that will feel if your child hears such words?

3. I don’t believe you.

Trust is the ultimate empowerment for any person. If you, the parent, consistently withhold your trust from your child, the consequences are severe. Listen to what your kids have to say – do not dismiss them. Giving your child your full confidence is a key element in raising a confident, reliable person.

Conversely, if you don’t have faith in your child, your child will learn to not have faith in him or herself, either. And the result will be someone who is ultimately irresponsible.

The more negative words you say to your child, the more likely he or she is to succumb to them. But if you encourage positivity and words of assurance and comfort, you give your child every chance to be a positive, confident person – he or she will be so much more likely to excel at school, sports, arts or indeed whatever they choose to do.

Ultimately your words are vital to help your child create an amazing life.

What are your thoughts? Do you have any statements you avoid saying in your family?

Some kids hate math, while others love it. But even though your children may dislike learning arithmetic, there are many reasons why they should master the subject, and it isn’t just so they can graduate from school. Here are the top 3 reasons why your kids must master arithmetic, and these are excellent reasons you can tell them as well the next time they complain about learning math.

People use math facts constantly in their daily lives

One of the first things people do when they wake up is look at the clock to see what time it is. Imagine if you don’t understand what the numbers mean, how can you tell what time you need to be ready and what time you have to leave for school?

When you buy things at the school cafeteria, you need to know how much to pay and how much change you’ll receive, otherwise you may lose money by paying too much, or always end up paying too little and embarrassing yourself.
When you ask your friends the directions to their house, they’ll usually tell you how many blocks it is from the main street, so you apply math as you count the blocks going to his home.

If you don’t master arithmetic, you wouldn’t be able to calculate how much you need to save each day to buy a new pair of shoes or a toy you’ve been looking forward to have.

You apply math so many times and in so many ways in your daily life, that most of the time, you don’t even notice it. But it would be a shame not to master arithmetic, since you’ll be missing out on a lot of things without it.

The career you choose in life would most likely involve arithmetic in one way or another

There are so many careers in life that requires knowledge of math. Doctors would have to compute drugs and dosages to ensure that they’re prescribing the right amount of medicine to people. Architects need to ensure that they have accurate plans and measurements for each part of a building or structure to ensure that they are built well.

Accountants prepare and check financial reports and taxes, so they rely heavily on their mastery of arithmetic. Chefs need to measure and count out ingredients so that the food they cook taste great. Pilots must plan and keep records of each flight they take, and they monitor and operate many instruments and systems that involve knowledge of math.

These are just a few of the careers where it’s important that you master arithmetic so that you can do your job well.

Mastery of math helps developing logic and reasoning skills

Arithmetic is not just about numbers. It’s also about learning to think logically and breaking down problems into clear and distinct steps so they are easily solved. When you master math, you will be surprised to see that the same approach of simplifying and chunking down complex problems into smaller, simpler parts works in almost all circumstances.

Having mastered arithmetic, these skills can truly help you live a better, well-rounded life that is fulfilling and complete.

Though some may say that kids today are quite lucky because they are given lots of opportunities to develop their full potential, there is also the fact that children are bombarded with all kinds of choices and information, that some of them feel very much pressured to do well.

They are afraid of not measuring up against their parents’ and peers’ expectations – they fear failure because society today demands so much of them, that they’re not sure if they can cope.
When children fear failure, it can cause them to avoid the activity altogether or hesitate to give their best.

For example, even if they know they should practice their times tables, their fear of failure makes them refuse to take the necessary steps. Or they decide to aim for an easier goal so they know they won’t fail.

Also, children who fear failure can become perfectionists who experience shame and embarrassment whenever they fail at something. They end up either pressuring themselves harder to succeed, to the point of it affecting their physical and mental health, or avoiding the activity completely so they don’t experience these negative emotions, causing them to miss out on an opportunity to learn something new.

As a parent, you don’t want your child to experience this fear of failure. You want your children to see failure and making mistakes as a natural and valuable part of life, since it helps them learn and gives them the motivation to do better in the future. You want them to always do their best, and if they fail, to move on from it and know that they’ve learned something new. As the saying goes, “It’s better to have tried and failed, then to never have tried at all.”

So how do you deal with fear of failure in children? What are the steps you can take to ensure that your kids don’t feel this way?

Change their perception of failure

A good way to remove your children’s fear of failure is to change their perception of it. Let them know that if they tried something and didn’t succeed, it doesn’t mean that they failed since they learned something from it and could always try again.
Failure is what happens when they don’t even attempt to do something, because then they don’t have the opportunity to learn something new. Remind them of this in whatever activity they do, may it be taking a test, joining a contest, or auditioning for a play.

Help them accept that mistakes are a part of life

Remind your children that nobody’s perfect; that even you, their parent, isn’t perfect and continues to make mistakes in life. Let them know that it’s okay to make mistakes, because you actually learn better when you do. You can even share your own experience with them of making a mistake and what you learned from what happened. This can help them see things in a new way that they never thought of before.

Reduce fear of failure by praising both successes AND failures

Your appreciation and encouragement mean the world to your child. You are the one who motivates them to do their best and guides them in learning new things. So remember not to only praise your child’s success, but his failures as well. Even if he didn’t come out on top, let him know that you’re proud of him because you know he did his best.

Deal with fear of failure in your own life, too

You are your child’s greatest role model. It is healthy for all of us to have a healthy outlook on life and not allow fear of failure to rule over us. So don’t worry about appearing perfect to your child or covering up your own mistakes. There is no such thing as the perfect human being. There is no perfect child, and therefore no perfect parent, either. Relax!

Kids nowadays feel so much pressure from school and society, that it’s very important that you, as the parent, put things in perspective for them and help them cope.

Make sure to always take the time to talk to them about their problems and concerns so they can be either addressed or at least acknowledged.

Success is most of all enjoying the journey, not just achieving the end goal – that way fear of failure will play a much smaller role in life.

So how much TV is too much?

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that children below two years old should not view television at all, while many child development experts recommend that children over five should have no more than two hours of watching supervised, quality programs.

The first two years of life are a critical time for children, and many experts agree that watching TV and using other electronic media frequently can become hindrances in the healthy physical and social development of children. Instead of playing and exploring the world around them, as well as interacting with their parents and others, they are focused on watching TV, which is primarily a physically passive activity.

Effects of TV on older kids

Older kids are also affected by too much screen time. Watching TV can interfere with activities they should be focused on, such as learning, reading, playing with friends, doing their homework, being physically active, and bonding with their parents and siblings. School-aged children can become extremely reliant on the television when they’re looking for “something to do,” and this can affect their focus and concentration.

Of course, there are many who argue that watching television can actually be a positive experience for children. Educational shows can help them learn the alphabet and numbers, and can even help them learn how to speak. School-aged children can learn about animals and wildlife in nature shows, and watching TV can help them learn more about the world all around them.

How To Manage TV Exposure For Kids

So what can you do as parents to manage the effects of television on children?

Supervise and limit screen time for your children

Though television can help you babysit your children when you’re busy with managing your household, you should always supervise and limit your children’s screen time. Without supervision, your children may become exposed to programs and shows that are not fit for them, and this could lead to harmful effects.

Violence in television has been shown to affect children significantly. Studies have shown that increased exposure to violence in television has caused children to exhibit more aggressive behavior, as well as increased fear of the world around them.

Limiting your children’s screen time is also important to give them the chance to learn, play and explore. Since watching TV is basically a passive experience, this screen time takes away their chance to interact, socialize and communicate with others. So don’t let the TV take away their chance to be creative and discover life. Make sure that you spend time with them so they can learn to respond to all the verbal and non-verbal cues of a real person.

Talk with your children about the programs and shows they watch

Children, even those who are older, may believe everything they see and hear – even if they say otherwise. Therefore it is very crucial that you take the time to discuss what they view on television. Shows and programs on TV like making a point, and this can become the foundation of your child’s beliefs and convictions.

So make sure to talk to your kids. Don’t let them quietly absorb whatever they view. Take the time to ask them about what they’ve seen, and encourage them to question what they’ve viewed before believing everything.

Spend time with your kids and help them discover the world

Truly, the best way to counteract the effects of television on your children is to make sure to spend time with them, to play with them, and to help them discover the world. Playing and exploring with your kids will do them a world of good, and can really help them learn how to interact with others and think creatively.

Be a role model. Children, especially school-aged ones, look up to their parents and like to copy what they do. So if you spend too much time watching television and they see you doing it, then it’s going to be a lot more difficult to enforce limits on screen time.

Children grow up so fast, so make sure that you nurture their physical and mental growth and development. Don’t let them become zombies in front of the television, quietly absorbing everything they see and hear. Get them outside, play with them, read with them, and let them help with the household chores.

The best way manage the effects of television on children is to limit screen time and spend time with your children doing other, more meaningful activities.

As we all know our children need to memorize their math facts as a basis for higher level math. In the same manner, kids need to memorize alphabets in order to read and write. By following these simple tips suggested here, you can help your child memorize anything ranging from the name of a person to a math formula.

Using Mnemonic Techniques

The word mnemonic has been derived from a Greek word “mnemonikos” which means “of memory”. Mnemonics are generally verbal in the form of a sentence or a word that can help a child to remember something. They depend upon the association between data to be remembered and some easy to remember sentences or words. As compared to remembering an arbitrary sequence, it is much easier to remember an interesting sentence.

Creating mnemonics proves to be an effective exercise,irrespective of the complexity of the information. Make your child practice only a few to start with but once he is able to apply some of them, he will realize that trick is really effective. Eventually he will start creating them on his own.

It is in fact one of the best techniques to improve memory. For instance if you wish to help a child to spell “arithmetic” then “A rat in the house might eat the ice cream?” can help him as the first alphabet from each word can help him to spell “arithmetic”. Similarly “Some people have curly brown hair through proper brushing” can help an older child to remember the trigonometrical ratios. The secret is to make the mnemonics as catchy as possible.

De-stressing

It is a well known fact that stress results in the information being sent to the reactive brain which prevents it from being transmitted to the reflective and conscious brain. As a result, it is unable to build the long term memory. Try to plan something enjoyable for your child just before the study time. This will help to relax him or her and help in long term retention of content.

Adding Novelty

Remember that novelty has a great influence on learning. An exposure to a new technique will improve memory as well as performance. Using fun math games available on internet will help children to become more open to some of the more repetitive tasks.

You can also create stories to feed the required information into his brain whether it is related to literature or math. The pattern that deals with remembering stories is already quite strong in your child’s brain.

Encouraging Practice

Each sense stores information in brain in a different manner. Introducing practice activities that use different sensory activities will help to store the same piece of information in different regions of brain and multiple pathways will make retrieval much more efficient. For example visual and auditory senses can be used to practice math as well as science.

Implementing these techniques will help you to get improved results and take the memory potential of your child to new heights.

The four basic operations of arithmetic – addition, subtraction, multiplication and division are all quite intuitive to learn. The hardest one to comprehend for a child is definitely division. The question that really gets a lot of children perplexed is the question of why division by zero does not work.

After all, you can add zero, subtract zero and multiply by zero – so why can’t you divide by it? And how do you explain something that is undefined?

Three ways to think about dividing by zero

Following are the three different ways we have used to explain division by zero:

The story of dividing by zero

The nicest way to explain the concept of division is probably to tell them various stories about sharing. Such as, “There are 9 marbles here (have them physically there), and there are 3 friends who want to play with them. How do you divide the marbles equally among the friends, so that everyone has the same number of marbles?”

That brings us to the first way of explaining why dividing by zero does not work:
“You have nine marbles and nobody wants to play with them. How do you divide the marbles equally among nobody?” This of course does not make sense, because there simply is nobody to give the marbles to. (Which is why the answer cannot be “9”, because that would mean dividing by 1, not zero).

Using Multiplication to explain division by zero

The second way is to look at multiplication. We know that multiplying a number really means adding that number a given number of times. For example, 5 * 3 = 5 + 5 + 5 = 15. And 15 / 5 = 3. In this example, we are really asking, how many times must I add 5 in order to get to 15? However, if we have 15 / 0, we are asking, how many times must I add 0 in order to get to 15. The answer of course is: it’s impossible. No matter how many times we add zero to itself, it will never amount to more than zero.

Looking at fractions

The final way is to look at fractions. For example, ½ means we have one pie and we want to divide it into two pieces. 1/3 means we have 1 pie and divide it into 3 pieces. 1/1 means divide the pie into one piece. But 1/0? No matter how we try and slice the pie, we can never slice it into zero pieces. We could of course, eat the pie, but that would be a different operation to division. Besides, it would be “eating by one”, rather than “dividing by zero“.

So there you have it – we’ve had a good amount of laughter as a result of these discussions with our children, particularly when we tried via practical examples. So whether you use marbles, a pie or whatever, have some fun dividing by zero and make sure the results are either non-existent or at least edible.

An early contribution from parents can be a decisive factor for the development of confidence in a growing child that will serve them well for the rest of their lives.

Low self esteem can exhibit itself in different ways between one child to another. For example, it may be in the form of hesitation or frustration to start anything new, a negative attitude, inability to make simple decisions and many more.

As a parent, you can teach confidence to a child as soon as he or she is born. Just remember to provide encouragement when the child develops new skills.
It is essential to trust in your child’s abilities and allow them to work things out for themselves (with your guidance as necessary). As kids notice that you don’t rush to their aid at every step, they will form the conclusion that you trust them to sort things out for themselves. What could be a greater compliment and boost to their own confidence?
In addition, playing with your child has been found to be one of the best ways to teach confidence. It also helps in building a strong parent-child bond.

Self-confidence proves to be handy in each and every situation in life. For instance, school children have many subjects to cope with. They have to face assignments, class tests, term papers, debates, presentations and so on. If you have been able to teach confidence to your child, then they can easily face the stress that is a part of school education and thus build a strong foundation for their future. In fact self confidence is much more important as compared to intellect, energy or even talent. This is because self confidence will decide the ability to use any of these.

For building more confidence in children who are already at school, training with math fact games can be extremely useful – but you need to be sure that the software actually recognises and promotes improvement. Too many children get frustrated and demoralized by the wrong kind of educational tool.

With their confidence intact, students will be able to pay attention in class and will not hesitate to ask questions. If on the contrary a child lacks confidence, then he or she may not be able to ask the teacher for an explanation and instead fall further and further behind in class.

A confident child can also make lots of friends and easily engage in subject discussions. Similarly, a confident child is less likely to bully or be bullied by others.

Success becomes a kind of habit for such a student, as he has one of the greatest assets available to any person: confidence. When was the last time you complimented your child or gave them trust to solve a problem for themselves?

Homework Help for Parents Tips

Establish a Homework Routine

Having an established routine works wonders. If the time to do homework is not clearly set (and enfored if necessary), you are almost guaranteed to struggle daily to get your kids to do their homework. Study time everyday should be part of your house rules. When your children are brought up following such rules, then there will be no discussion about homework – it is already part of their daily routine.

Help Prioritize Tasks

Young kids can have difficulty prioritising tasks. Planning your day (to whatever level works for you) is such a powerful habit to develop that no homework help for parents list would be complete without it.
Make a simple to-do list with your kids on which they list the homework items they need to finish today. Then help them number these tasks in the order they want to do them.
Some people advocate to do the hardest task(s) first, while the child is still fresh and alert. Personally I like the idea of picking the easier, quicker items first. That way the child experience success quickly. Also, kids tend to look at the number of tasks still to do. If you leave the longest task for last, they should be working on it with good energy, because they will know afterwards is playtime!

Put distractions away

As much as possible there should be no interruptions while your kids are doing their home work. So things like radio, TV, computer and games should not be turned off and out of reach when doing school work. In this way your child will be able to focus much more easily on doing homework.

Be creative – Homework Help for Parents can be fun

Especially younger children get bored easily. Make their study time as enjoyable as possible. If you can, incorporate stories or even role-play that your child is a prince or princess and the homework is part of their training to rule the kingdom in the future. You can also do role playing and act as if you are the teacher and your child is the student. By doing this, your child will see that making home work can be a fun experience too.
For older children, have conversations about the usefulness of homework. You might relate it to a martial arts master, honing his skill.

Encourage Your Child

I don’t think physical rewards such as little toys and such are a good idea, particularly for a job that your child can be routinely expected to complete. However, every time your child finishes homework, make sure that you appreciate what they have done and tell them that they are doing a good job.
When you check their answers, make sure you hone in on the correct ones first and compliment your child on those. Only then move on to incorrect answers (if any) and ask them if they could have another look at them.
Definitely try not to bribe with sweets and chocolates. Doing so sets up a belief in your child that these unhealthy foods are highly desirable. These kinds of beliefs often carry through into adult life and it comes as no surprise to find many adults who are unable to stop sugar cravings. We do not need more unhealthy, overweight people in the developed world…

Don’t Do Their Homework For Them

Ok, this article might be titled ‘Homework Help for Parents’, but that certainly does not mean DOING the homework yourself. Although well intentioned, doing a child’s homework for them is actually dis-empowering for your child. There is no sense of accomplishment and little learning takes place.
Instead, try to give hints on how your youngster could work out the correct answer themselves. Give them examples that are similar to the problem they are working on, but do not just give them the answer.

Homework Help for Parents – Closing Comments

Making your children love doing homework may not always be possible. But they will learn to see homework as a rewarding activity that they can take pride in. That in itself makes it enjoyable and fun, especially when you give them the responsibility and trust that they can do well in their activities after school. I hope you found our homework help for parents useful.

That is why an intelligent math facts game like MathRider will logically be the fastest route to math mastery.

Supported by Latest Scientific Research

In our recent article ‘the best way to master math facts‘, we covered the results of a research study from Purdue University, published in January 2011. In that study, the researchers found that repeated practice is the most effective way of learning and remembering material.

Master Math Using a Math Facts Game

Of course, we are talking about young children here. So simply asking them to sit down and repeatedly solving math problems is not going to fly. Kids have a natural (and very healthy) need to play. For most kids it is plain torture to ask them to sit down and go through math practice questions on worksheets.

Which is why many places are offering this practice as computer-based, interactive games. But there the problem is that most math facts games are still very dull, repetitive and, random.

Given that you have to repeat questions in order to maximize learning (as the Purdue research clearly shows), any serious math facts game will have to be repetitive. So the best angle to take on this problem is to make the repetition as quick and as efficient as possible.
In other words, no long runs across corridors in between two questions and no random numbers. Just full-on rehearsing of math facts, wrapped in storylines and motivating your child with clear progress indicators and rewards.

The Origin of Our Math Facts Game

As told by our founder, Thomas Brand: Before I ever embarked on creating MathRider, I tried helping my own kids with math. There was some success, but it took a lot of time and energy. We made up pretend games, told our kids stories and drew things on their little whiteboards. It was great, but it wasn’t enough. So I turned to looking at computer games and bought quite a few. None of them worked for the kids. And one day I had an idea about a math facts game that would be fun to play, easy to operate and would not demotivate, but rather encourage them.