There are many difficulties in growing up. This is one issue you can minimize by turning games/ screen time off altogether or severely limiting it. As a teacher, I see a hug difference in inappropriate behavior, poor social skills and inattention in those who spend…
The following excerpt from the book Teaching and Learning in the Kindergarten Year by Dominic Gullo describes brain development in the early years. During pre-school and Kindergarten, the brain grows steadily, increasing from seventy percent to ninety percent of its eventual adult weight. In addition to gains…
Help! My child is very emotional and has lots of fits and/or tantrums. I’m tired of the screaming, fits, pouting, and rage. In order to better control himself and to interact with others, a child needs to be aware of what he is feeling and…
It is normal for every person to experience a wide range of emotions. However, children often experience a range of emotions, such as frustration, happiness, annoyance, and pride, all within the same hour. Worse, they sometimes have uncontrolled tantrums. Hearing negative emotions from a child…
I don’t think it is appropriate for a child younger than 6 to have much screen time. Some would respond to this that we are doing our children a disservice not exposing them to all of the computer gadgets that are now central to adult…
Always give your child a two-minute warning when you are about to change venues. This gives the child time to bring closure to what he is doing. Imagine that you are at a cocktail party. You can’t find anyone to talk to at first, but…
It is vital that you talk and read to your child. Early language development strongly correlates to later academic and social success (Hendrick & Weissman, 2011) Oral language exposure in very young children is a strong predictor of later school reading comprehension scores. By age…
Why do we put our children in front of the television? Probably because we are exhausted from work, traffic, paying bills, etc. We all deserve some downtime to ourselves, but too much screen time can impair a child’s development. So what do we do? Children…
CARING FOR YOURSELF Parenting young children can be extremely difficult at times. To rejuvenate, do things for yourself. If you have not made any investments in yourself, you will not have anything to give to your child. Some say that every day you should do…
When your child does something positive, give him a specific complimentary adjective. This is different from saying “good boy”. Why not say “good boy”? Say you ask your child to clean his room. You walk in and the floor is clean and it seems everything…
Reading means understanding a passage, understanding the vocabulary, making connections with life, and decoding words like c-a-t. Before a child can get to that, though, he needs oral language, alphabet knowledge, book knowledge, phonics, and phonological awareness. Phonics, which you hear everyone talking about, means recognizing symbols and connecting them…
Do you want to know what your child is thinking? Sit and observe your child while he is playing or engaging with any materials and you will notice that he will often mutter and talk to himself. These monologues are called private speech and peak…