Don’t you just love it when you wash the dishes and your little girl walks up right next to you and starts wiping the dishes dry without being told? Many parents, however, aren’t that lucky to have kids who are inclined to do household chores. More often than not, kids don’t really like doing chores, and will do or say anything just to steer clear of them. To make getting kids to do household chores easier, here are some suggestions that might help.
What Future Jobs Will Our Kids Be Doing?
Considering how tough the job market is today, it’s but natural for parents like us to be concerned about the kind of jobs our kids will have when they grow up. Then again, we can’t help but wonder what kinds of jobs would be waiting for our kids in, say, 35 years. In his talk at TEDxMelbourne, renowned futurist Morris Miselowski gives us an idea: that in 2050, 60 percent of the world’s working population—and that includes our kids—will be doing jobs that don’t actually exist today.
Helping Your Children Overcome Difficulties
Difficulties are a part of everyday life, and your children are not exempted from them. At a young age, kids are exposed to situations that some handle well and others have a tough time with. Your child could be experiencing difficulties in certain aspects of his/her lives, like making new friends, how they’re doing in a particular subject, or dealing with teasing or even bullying.
As a parent, your first instinct would be to shield your kid from all these difficulties, to the point where you have to take up the cudgels for the child with any challenge that he/she faces. However, you won’t be doing your child any favours if you do this. The resilience of a child is developed when they overcome problems and effectively manage teasing, bullying or any unpleasant social situations all by themselves. You will be essentially robbing them of the chance to learn, develop and grow from these experiences if you insist on protecting them all the time.
The best that you can do is give them guidance which will help them overcome difficulties. Here are some parenting ideas that could help you do just that.
Saying No To Your Kids
Kids will always be kids, and they will be asking you for something from time to time. There will be times when the request needs granting, but, more often than not, they’d be asking for things we know shouldn’t be allowed, like “Can I have ice cream before dinner?” or something that’s a bit too much for the moment, like “I want that giant robot right now!”. A responsible parent should always say “no” to either example, but we all know too well that it’s easier said than done.
Saying “no” to your kids can be really tough, and hearing the word from you can be that way for them too. Still, as a parent, you need to set rules and limits, and telling them “no” when they ask for anything that breaches those rules and limits is imperative. However, if you’re one of those parents who have a hard time telling your children that word, here are some tips that could help you in saying no to your kids.
Are Your Kids Helping Out At Home?
Consider yourself fortunate if your child voluntarily does chores around the house. Most kids will do or say anything just to get out of them. If you have a child who doesn’t like doing chores, you’re probably heard every single excuse in the book by now, from the very predictable “I’m sick” to “I shouldn’t do housework, I’m a kid!”. However, it’s absolutely important that your kids help out at home, for the following reasons:
Fun Math Games Using Legos
Let’s admit it. We are always in the hunt for the best way to teach Math in the most interesting way. More often than not, interesting means fun. This is especially true with kids. In order to let kids have a good grasp of Math, you have to make sure they learn it in a fun and engaging way. This is the reason why most instructors or teachers opt to use different Math game ideas to make Math learning fun.
What better way to make Math fun than to use toys or games to teach it. In the world of toys, nothing beats Legos in being fun, engaging, and educational! Math using Legos is simply one of the most common (and simply the best) way you can teach kids basic Math. You can buy them in packs or boxes of up to 400 to 800 bricks per pack which means you have a lot of room to play around. There are a couple of ways to make Math learning fun through Legos and we will list down some of the best (and not to mention, ingenious!) ways to use Legos to teach your kids some basic Math principles. So let’s do Math using Legos!
Changing the Negative Attitude Towards Learning Math
We all know how important math is in this world. We need math to compute the miles we can go on a gallon of petrol. We need math to compute how much we should give as tip for the waiter. Come to think of it, nothing in the world would have existed without math. Yet the attitude of countless people towards it isn’t proportional to its importance. Even more unfortunate is that a lot of students today have a negative attitude towards math, much like their parents did all those years ago.
What many don’t realize is that in order to succeed in math, one must have a positive attitude towards it.
Tell Your Kids the World is Basically Good
As parents, we are all wired with an overwhelming instinct to protect our children at all cost. This is a good thing, actually. What kind of parent would you be if you have no desire to protect your kids whatsoever?
This intensely protective instinct is essential for survival, but we have to admit that we sometimes go overboard when it comes to protecting our children from the dangers of the world. Sure, the world can indeed be a dangerous place, but maybe we shouldn’t tell our children that everything about the world is dangerous, that all people are basically corrupt and are out to get them, all under the premise that we’re protecting our children.
Prevent Your Children From Growing Up Entitled
Are you a wealthy and successful businessman who is worried you’re raising entitled children, like many of their fellow rich kids? You can actually prevent that from happening, according to an article written by Josh Baron and Rob Lachenauer for Harvard Business Review.
Doodling May Not Be So Bad At All
Do you have a child who loves to doodle every now and then? If you do, there’s a possibility you may have dissuaded him or her from doing so, as you think that doodling is nothing more than “spacing out”. Doodling, as far as many parents are concerned, distracts from the studying and listening in class that they have to do.
However, if an article written by Cathy Malchiodi for Psychology Today is to be believed, doodling isn’t so bad at all.