Betrivers Net Casino By understanding the rules, the dealer gets two cards in Australian Blackjack one face up. Betrivers net casino when your streak ends, the other hidden. How To Use Paypal For Online Gambling … [More...]
Archives for March 2012
Do you enjoy your child?
How’s that for a loaded question? I think it’s important for all parents to ask themselves this question every now and then. Yes, we go through struggles with our children. Yes, they often do their best to push our buttons and test boundaries. But on the whole, we should be enjoying the time we spend with our children.
If your answer to this question is an unequivocal no, it is your cue that you need to change your parenting methods. Do be honest with yourself when you ask yourself this question. Nobody else needs to know. Have your spouse ask himself the same question, especially if you see struggles between him and the child.
Understand that the onus to change your situation falls on you. If you don’t enjoy your child, do not blame the child. Children will very happily comply with our instructions when we are clear and consistent. You might find this very encouraging. It’s all under your control!
Take the steps you need to take to change the atmosphere in your home. Keep your eye on the goal (a happy, loving relationship with your child), and do the work it takes to get yourselves there.
Here are some ideas:
1) Read, read, read. Learn all you can about different parenting methods.
2) Talk to older, wiser parents. Learn from their experiences.
3) Take a parenting class with your spouse. Ask around at local churches to see where you might find a Growing Kids God’s Way class.
4) Step back and evaluate your attitude. Are you too lax? Too strict? Yes, children need to be corrected, but don’t make your life more difficult by focusing on behaviors that make a child a child. Choose your battles.
5) Make sure you have all the basics under your belt. Work on good eating and sleeping habits. Practice couch time and avoid child-centered parenting.
6) Do all that you can to prevent misbehaviors. Don’t wait for the child to misbehave before you act.
7) If you have the basics under control, work on first-time obedience. You can learn more in my eBook, Live in Harmony with First-Time Obedience. It will take work to train your child in first-time obedience, but the payoff is so worth it.
Always remember your goal. If you ever need encouragement to continue your work in parenting, remember that you are working on developing a happy, loving relationship with your child. Remind yourself of that sweet little soul you saw when he was a baby or toddler. Stare at him while he sleeps. Trust that his sweet spirit will reemerge. He wants to be that sweet little child; he just needs your help to get there.
Correction must promote learning
Have you ever sent your child to a timeout only for him to come right out and repeat the behavior? Have you ever felt like every time you take a toy away, he continues to use it inappropriately? For any correction to work, you must ensure your child is learning from the experience.
This is Childwise Principle #10: “If learning didn’t take place, correction didn’t happen.”
Understand the difference between discipline and punishment. The true intent behind discipline is to teach. We don’t want to punish our children but discipline them.
So any correction must include a lesson. Whether it’s practical or moral, the lesson must take place.
“Correction requires explanation. Without the why of wrong there is no correction, just a random redirection of behavior. Whether a child’s actions be innocent mistakes or malicious disobedience, explanatory teaching will always be necessary,” (On Becoming Childwise, p. 133-134.)
Always teach appropriate behaviors
While you take the time to teach after you correct your child, make sure you include a lesson on the type of behavior you do expect. Don’t simply focus on the negative. Say your child is hoarding toys during a play date with a friend. You may choose to send him to sit on his bed, particularly if the hoarding is accompanied by a nasty attitude.
After the timeout (and after he has apologized to you), use the quiet moment and his attitude of submission to teach appropriate behaviors. Take the time to explain that he must not only not hoard toys, but that he must share with his friends. Selfishly hoarding toys is the negative behavior; sharing is the positive.
Also teach the moral reason behind the behavior you expect. Tell him why you expect him to share and how it makes his friends feel when he doesn’t share.
In sum, after every correction, take the time to teach the child to avoid the negative behavior, explain the positive behavior, and include the moral reasoning behind it all.
“The parent’s job is to move the child from what he did this time to what he should do next time. Whatever the wrong, use it to impart knowledge. If you complete your talk and learning didn’t take place, correction didn’t happen,” (On Becoming Childwise, p. 134).
Monitor refined sugar
I have mentioned in the past that my eldest, William, has given me a run for my money. In addition to sensory processing disorder and food intolerances, William has unstable blood sugar levels. Essentially, he has undiagnosed hypoglycemia. I’ve heard it is often a symptom of gifted people. The giftedness is great, but the fact remains that we have to deal with the blood sugar instability.
I first started monitoring William’s blood sugar (I’ll tell you how in a bit) in the summer between his two years of pre-K. It was the summer he turned 5. When we went back to school (the same school and same teachers), they were floored by what a different child he was. The previous year, we had figured out the food intolerances, but monitoring his blood sugar made such a huge difference in his behavior. It still does (at age 7.5).
Before, William had extreme blood sugar fluctuations. He’d be bouncing off the walls one minute and on the floor crying for no reason the next. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason behind his “moodiness” and he would flip a switch at the drop of a hat.
Whenever a mom asks for advice with her child, one of the first things I recommend is eliminating food dyes and monitoring the child’s sugar intake. It’s really a no-brainer. If you want your child’s gentle spirit to emerge, you’re not going to get there if he’s hyped up on sugar or food dyes. Besides, they’re simply not healthy!
In fact, sugar can do more than promote tooth decay. There was an article published last April in The New York Times titled, “Is Sugar Toxic?” The following is from the article:
“’I have eliminated refined sugar from my diet and eat as little as I possibly can,’ Thompson told me, ‘because I believe ultimately it’s something I can do to decrease my risk of cancer.’ Cantley put it this way: ‘Sugar scares me.’”
So refined sugar can certainly have negative health effects (including obesity, diabetes, heart disease, certain cancers), but it’s almost indisputable that it negatively affects kids’ behavior.
I have been struggling in the mornings when getting my kids off to school, and finally I realized that sugar is largely to blame! For some reason, so many breakfast foods are high in refined sugar. So I’m cutting it out. My boys are eating plain Cheerios (with a spoonful of peanut butter for extra protein) or non-instant oatmeal sweetened with applesauce.
Understand that refined sugar and high fructose corn syrup have a worse effect than glucose you find in fruit. Fruit comes with fiber, which helps mediate the effect of sugar. And please don’t substitute sugar with chemical alternatives!
How we address blood sugar fluctuations
If you’re noticing odd moodiness in your child (or a Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde syndrome) you might need to address blood sugar. There are three components of food that you should concern yourself with: protein, fat and sugar. Balancing the three is important. Here are my rules for managing William’s blood sugar:
- He never starts his day with sugar alone. Tiding him over with a few raisins or a banana was a big mistake I realized too late!
- He eats 3 healthy meals and one snack at the same times every day.
- He starts every meal by eating protein first. If he’s got a plate of chicken, rice and fruit, he has to eat the chicken first.
- He never eats sugar without also eating protein. Nuts are a great snack.
- We check the protein and sugar content on every label. Plain Cheerios have 3g of protein and 1g of sugar. Awesome! Some yogurts have 12g of sugar and 1g of protein. Not good. Peanut butter has one of the best ratios. It’s usually 8g of protein and 1g of sugar. I’ve taught William to read these labels for himself.
- If he ever eats something that is high in sugar and low in protein, I add extra protein. My kids are often seen eating peanut butter off a spoon! I add peanut butter to foods like oatmeal, too.
- If he’s eating a meal high in protein and low in sugar, that’s great, but he still needs fat. He’s technically off dairy, but I allow him butter because it’s more important that he gets the fat. Or with a food like lentil soup, I’ll add some olive oil.
Now, do I ever break these rules? Rarely. It’s just not worth it. We’re actually on vacation right now, and it was a really warm day and we thought about getting a treat after a hike (but before lunch). I let him get lemonade, and I have to say his behavior was uncharacteristically hyper! Just the other day, his teacher was saying she’s never seen a child so affected by sugar. It’s true!
If you’re struggling to overcome behavior problems with your child, do all that you can to monitor his blood sugar and cut out refined sugar. It’s a relatively easy thing for you to do and will help ensure that you are dealing with your child’s true, gentle spirit.
Play promotes cognitive development and creativity
Wednesday’s post on play was a long one, but there is so much more to be said about the value of play. After I wrote that post, I turned back to my Growing Kids God’s Way book and got a better understanding of all the various components of a child’s development that are positively affected by play. Let me leave you with a few quotes:
“Play, whether a child does it by himself, in a small group, or with Mom at the park, is one of the most underestimated and often misunderstood components of a child’s healthy, developing cognitive world. Play creates learning opportunities and experiences that uniquely connect a child to his world, which otherwise could not be obtained. Through play, a child is first introduced to problem-solving techniques, development of moral and social skills, improved motor coordination, logic, reasoning, and strategy. Plus, play has educational and therapeutic benefits. Play complements and reinforces gender identification and encourages appropriate risk-taking.
“Overall, play is the single most important means by which a child connects with his world and the people around him,” (Growing Kids God’s Way, p. 232).
Imaginative play
I wholeheartedly agree with the Ezzos’ emphasis on imaginative play in particular. Does your child turn a stick into a wand? Does a blanket become a queen’s robe?
“At three years of age, make-believe and other imaginative activities begin to occupy an important place in the child’s mental world. Imagination will do what curiosity cannot. It will carry a child beyond the boundaries of time and space. It can take him to places he has never been. He can move mountains with his imagination and test his own feelings without fear of reprisal. Through the imaginative process, a child gives life to inanimate objects, while assuming a controlling role as chief operator of his own play,” (Growing Kids God’s Way, p. 232).
Such pretend play is important for a few reasons:
“Imaginative, emotional play is freeing to your child. Such play allows him to test his desires, fears, and hopes without the risk and hardships of judgments and boundaries associated with reality. He is able to think outside the boundaries of logic, reason, and reality. He is able to manage and direct ideas that only he understands and he does it in fragmented ways. He can take a big box and a blanket, make it become Davy Crockett’s fort.
“To have expectations based on the belief of what will happen tomorrow, a child must be able to imagine. Imagining what will happen next, good or bad, is part of the thinking exercise of our humanity,” (Growing Kids God’s Way, p. 234).
Think of the various effects of a child’s environment. A child who is encouraged to complete worksheets (Kumon style) during his free time develops into a completely different child than the one who is allowed to play imaginatively.
I’m reminded of something my sister, a Waldorf teacher, once said to me regarding imaginative play. Kids who imagine have ideas. Kids who do worksheets aren’t given the opportunity to create. Ask yourself: do you want your child to become an adult who can code a software program, or do you want your child to be the one who develops the idea for the software program?
It all comes back to the importance of imaginative play.