Archive for the 'Parenting Skills' Category

Mainstream belief regarding identity theory tends to portray adolescents as the sole agents involved in their identity development.

However, a new article in the Journal of Research on Adolescence reveals that parents are concerned, involved, and reflective participants in their children’s identity formation.

Elli Schachter, PhD, of Bar Ilan University and Jonathan Ventura of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, studied parents, adolescents, and educators affiliated with the Orthodox Jewry in Israel.

Researchers documented and described parents that invested a great amount of time and effort thinking about their children’s identity, even fashioning their own lives with their children’s future identities in mind.

The parents demonstrated the extent to which they saw themselves as active participants in their children’s identity formation.

They reflected on how best to form relationships with their children, what environments to choose for their children that would best serve some vision of what they hope their children will become, and how they hope their children will come to see themselves.

Such thinking and planning can be very complex, taking into account broad socio-cultural factors, personal psychological dynamics, and ethical concerns.

Read more at Medical News Today

Exam for students means a dreadful time to deal with. Exam time is very stressful for both parents and children [Child stress].

Stress in life is very helpful, as it inspires us to perform tasks and propels to achieve things enthusiastically.

However, too much stress is very damaging and it generally occurs when we lack confidence and worry that we are incapable of doing anything efficiently.

When exams are nearby, children often worry about their exams and buckle under some stress and pressure. Parents, on the other hand, also worry as much as their children do.

For them, it is something like experiencing their most horrible phase in life with full of stress. This stress leads to regular irritation, depression, fatigue, sleeplessness, headache, body pains, and lack of appetite.

The parental stress can also affect children, if parents undergo excessive stress because of their child’s exam. Loss of interest to study, memory lapse, lack of ability to concentrate for long periods and headache, mild fever, and stomachache are the result of parental stress in children.

The role of grandparents in bringing up a child is very crucial. Every grandparent enjoys this role. They are the role models, family historians, advisers, as well as a guide for children.

Often, children feel their grandparents to be someone who plays with them, listen to them, and accept everything that they do without any explanation.

However, there come some situations where parenting differences and physical distance can create a gap between grandparents, parents, and grandchildren.

As a parent, minimize the gap by supporting and encouraging a close relationship among you, your parents, and your children. It provides benefits to everyone–grandparents, parents, and children–in several ways.

Developing a loving bond with older generation is more beneficial for children. Grandparents are great role models for all (you and your children) and influence more on children than on adults and makes your child learn the importance of bonding with family.

Being close to the grand parents can increase a sense of family value, family pride, and cultural heritage in young children. It also helps your child develop a sense of independence, patience and certain developmental and learning skills.

Life is full of decisions! Every day we make hundreds of decisions and one decision is different from all others.

As decision-making is an art and is vital in almost all activities, everyone needs to learn how to make decisions effectively.

Making a decision for an activity is not a task you do from practice — it requires conscious thinking and knowledge.

Making a decision is scary, but very exciting for a teenager. So, allow your teen to take own decisions.

However, as a parent, help your child how to make right decisions. This is because the decisions he/she makes at this stage of life can change their life.

As an under construction building needs support of scaffolding until it becomes strong enough to stand on its own, a teenager also needs a type of scaffolding support from their parents until they become perfect in making decisions on their own.

How can you support your teenager in making good decisions?

Teens often choose options that are very simple and effortless. They never pay full attention on their thoughts and feelings regarding the problem and make the decision that gives only temporary results. So, as a parent, teach your child these decision-making strategies, which help to take right decision.

In this fast pace world, everyone needs to be financially literate right from the early stages.

Of course, teaching kids about money needs a basic knowledge of money among the kids.

So, start teaching the value of money to your child as soon as they are able to count and distinguish various coins/rupees.

However, teaching kids about money and money management is one of the toughest challenges that any parent come across. Here are some tips to follow while teaching your kids about money.

Teach your kids money skills

• Giving pocket money is one of the best ways to teach about the value of money. This helps them to learn how to spend and how to save money for future purposes.

• Start giving pocket money in small amounts. Moreover, give pocket money with various coins or rupees. This helps the kid learn the value of money and the difference between each coin/rupee.

• While giving allowances to your children, offer it with some denominations for savings. This encourages the kids to save their pocket money as much as possible.

• Try to play money exchange game with the kids, whenever you feel free. Exchange huge amount of money for several small amounts.

Fire safety and fire escape plans are fundamental parts of staying secure and alive.

Of these essential parts, the most significant one is to ensure that the kids know about fire safety from a very young age.

‘Fire safety for kids’ is one of the most essential topics that parents need to teach their children.

Fire is one of the primary causes of children’s accidental injuries and deaths. Every year children sets more than 100,000 fires. Of these, around 20,000 are set in houses.

Today, fire safety education program for children has been started by the National Community Fire Safety Center in order to create awareness among the children about the dangers of fire, how to prevent accidental fires, what to do to put off fire accidents, and how to develop the skills to be safe from fire.

Teaching your children about fire safety needs to be the major part of your fire prevention plan. As a parent, when teaching fire safety for your kids, try to establish a set of strict rules that each and every member of your family understand thoroughly, take it seriously, and comply with.

Is it safe to give pocket money for kids? A common debate arises in almost all families: whether, when, how and what to give for pocket money.

Giving pocket money to children is a preliminary point to develop important life skills: the money and its importance.

Pocket money needs to be handled properly from the very beginning.

It gives freedom to your kids to spend money on their own, builds a sense of responsibility, an awareness on what money can do to satisfy the needs, develops the skills of learning self control, wise decision power, money value and saving money; what to do and how much to be done to earn money [Teaching responsibility to your children].

On the other hand, allowing the children to earn pocket money may lead to a kind of thinking among children that they will be paid for every task they do to help. Thus, it makes a lack of proper understanding in the children about what the pocket money is for!

Remember that bad money habits are very easy to learn and very difficult to change. So, make your child learn good money habits early in their life for better basement in the life [Dealing with bad attitude].

Occasionally there come some situations in every household where chore wars rage.

Managing a household skillfully is the most difficult task that every parent comes across.

Assigning chores to the children is one of the best ways to manage household efficiently.

The Need For Assigning Chores To The Children!

Getting your child involved in your home care is beneficial for both you and your child. But, before assigning chores to your children, always keep in mind to explain the importance of doing chores and its benefits.

Assigning children household chores is an effective means of teaching them discipline, unity, and cooperation. It also helps to increase self–esteem in them as well as let them grow into more responsible adults.

As a parent, delegate chores to your children based on their age, skills, and responsibility levels.

In addition to these, getting your children involved in your household chores provides lots of other benefits. For the kids who start doing chores at an young age, provides a way to learn domestic duties as well as maintain a tidy home in the later stages of life.

Every parent wants their child to be successful. You have to set goals for your child in order to succeed in school and real life.

Setting goals motivate your child to perform his best.

But, do not set high standards so that it will become highly impossible to reach the goal for your child [Teaching the child achieve the goals].

Set goals for yourself before setting for your child: Before setting goals for your child, you have to set goals for yourself and show it to your child how you will achieve that goal. It can give encouragement to your child because they watch you carefully. Identify the areas in which you feel stressed. Set goal to lessen the stress so that you will help your child set and attain goals [Goal setting tips].

Set age appropriate goals: You should set the goals in such a way that they are suitable and appropriate for the child of that particular age. If you set too high standards for your child, your child may not achieve the goal and it can result in unnecessary disappointment in both of you.

Do you want to be a good parent and have good parenting skills?

As a parent you have to be careful not to do the mistakes, as parenting is full time oriented job.

But, when you do some mistakes, you have to learn, accept and recognize those mistakes such that you will not repeat them next time.

Some of the qualities for good parenting skills are given here:

Availability

In these busy, hectic times you should be available to your child especially when they are in need of you.

You should not be too busy to take care of your child. Don’t think that you have to be available to them only at the time of their need. This is because they cannot say that they need your help.

Let them understand that you are available and important to them. Find some reasonable time to spend with your child daily. Don’t give your child the “leftover” time after your work, but give some quality time to your kid.