THE ABC’S OF SMART PARENTING

Smart parenting guidelines involve principles that parents have to follow. These principles, prudently followed while raising the children will help maintain a more peaceful household with better-behaved children and less upsetting climate for everyone involved.

Good parenting rules require flexible techniques. There are rules to be followed to call you a smart parent. The first is to understand your child’s temperament.

As a smart parent, you need to gauge the most fundamental moods, characteristics, personality traits of your child. These features comprise your child’s temperament. A smart parenting style is meaning that as a parent you have to adjust your approach to the unique personality of your child.

Each child as he grows acquires a unique temperament. Not all children demonstrate the same mentality. Some children are easy to handle, and some children are consistently hard to tackle.

A smart parent easily understands what the child’s temperament is: ‘easy or difficult.’ They immediately recognize the children who require more attention and who are difficult to manage asks for more patience. Children demand more repetition to cultivate good manners and a good attitude. They often require more time and space to adjust. Smart parents must indeed have to show enormous patience and understanding to raise healthy children in their homes.

LOOK AT YOUR PARENTING STYLE

Parenting styles involve the methods by which parents raise their children. Before trying to understanding the child’s behavior patterns, it’s required to examine our temperamental style as a parent.

It’s important to know our parenting style can affect the child everything from his health, his emotions and later how much he succeeds when he grows up.

A smart parent adopts a parenting style that ensures healthy growth and development. They are aware that the way we interact with the children and how we treat as individuals will go a long way in influencing the children the rest of their lives.

Further, a smart parent is familiar with the best nurturing skills like:

They create appreciable surroundings that allow the children to express their ideas and wishes. They listen to them without prejudging them and without criticizing them.

The parents offer them more opportunities and good choices so the children can have more freedom to make reasonable choices so they can tend to have more control over their actions and activities.

A SMART PARENT NEVER SPANKS

Spanking is a common form of discipline still used on children everywhere. A smart parent knows that spanking not beneficial for children. It is a fact because they increased the likelihood of low self-esteem, poor health, and negative effects on social and psychological development.

It is evident spanking is not safe, or not effective to bring in any changes in child behavior. If the parents notice any changes in a child after the spanking, the effects were seen short-term only.

A smart parent chooses ways to use positive and non-abusive methods with their children. And they follow healthy nurturing habits while the children are growing up.

They always concentrate on the positives rather than on negatives. Because looking at the negatives in a child is always stressful.

ONLY CHILD

I hear routinely from new age parents about their resolution to have only one child. The reasons behind this decision could be many: The present of work culture demanding enormous psychological and physical pressure and time. They may also include economic implications, like good education and lifestyle demands. When both the parents being too busy with their jobs.

THERE ARE ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF HAVING THE ONLY CHILD:

ADVANTAGES:

The kid grows up with a closer parent-child relationship. That can give him undivided attention from the parents.

That being the only child means that parents have only child to spend their time and money and not to divide among the siblings. And to enjoy more love from the parents than the normal.

As an only child, he needn’t face any complications because of an overbearing, envious, competitive sibling. He can be free of any of these emotional burdens.

As an only child, they can have a higher degree of self-esteem because of continuous attention paid by the parents. Strong self-esteem can increase the confidence levels in an only child.

As there is no competition and complications from the siblings, the child can grow up with more independence and fend for themselves better.

DISADVANTAGES:

Arrogant, bossy, selfish, spoiled are the terms used to describe the only child.

Because the only child has all the attention and love, they are likely to stand a risk of acting like “I’m an emperor attitude” which may not be liked by his peer groups.

This sort of excessive attention and care can prove detrimental in the long term for the child. It may create in the only child a ‘me-me-me’ mentality. That may discourage the child not to think of others.

The most noticeable disadvantage of being an only child is the feeling of loneliness. Not having a sibling to play with regularly and be able to share their thoughts and events. Thus it may result in not forming friendships and to get along and help others.

Not to have siblings will not let the child handle school-related problems like teasing, negotiating, and teamwork. Usually, it’s the brothers and sisters who help develop these skills in day-to-day situations.

Whether you have one child or many, it is the duty of the parents, to help the child to become a healthy individual. They deserve the best from the parents. The key parenting secret is always treating each child as if he is the only one.

 

HOW TO TALK WITH OUR CHILDREN

It is surprising to note many parents are not so good at how to talk with children. For most of them, they talk with an impression that being parents the children are obliged to listen to them.

But the reality is the tragedy we witness among the parents and their children the growing discomfort of miscommunication. Or many failed attempts to built bridges to reach them so that children toe the of parents’ line of expectations.

In whatever friendly ways the parents attempt to look at when they are grown up. The poor nature of communications between them is the result of a parent’s lack of sympathetic relationship; when not nurtured when they are young.

From their childhood days the parents’ desires, advice, ideas revolve around one belief. We want to mold them; we have to impress them with our ideas, our ideology, and our desires. As parents, it never strikes us that the child has his thinking mechanism. The opinion of his own and he entertains his fantasies. He is very much an independent character full of ideas and energy to sustain them.

To reduce the conflicts and confusion that might lead to discontent among parents and oppressiveness among children the parents have to follow a few tips about how to talk with their children:

Good communications are possible only when we respect the child and his point of view.

We must not force them into our thinking mold. Insisting what we are preaching is the right way. We know what is right for them.

Each child has his in-built creative means to achieve what he wants in his life. He has enough mental faculties to shape his personality. Parents’ job is to be logical referees to supervise their small efforts in achieving them.

We have to recognize as a parent our job is to guide our children. We also have to learn, very early, the means of how and what we are guiding our children.

It is pleasant and easy to speak to children. It’s known young children are so very free in expressing themselves. For parents, it’s not difficult to discover while they are talking about what is that they are thinking and to what is the purpose behind it.

Ignoring the opinions of the children and what they are planning to convey. We parents resort to criticizing them, rebuking them, ignoring them or find fault with what they are trying to express.

This defeating act of the parents would be very discouraging to the children. There is a likelihood they may not share any information expecting it would invite censure from parents.

If these hurting experiences multiply, they may gradually close the doors of communications upon their parents.

Expecting children should always do the ‘right’ thing, always manage all his works decently, and behave like an angel. It would be ridiculous presumptions from the parents’ side. Speaking to children conveying these ideas would never encourage a good communication climate in the first place.

As parents, we are too much interested in pushing our point of view and our frame of assumptions about our children. We behave as if we are very much sure of how our child feels and type of emotional bent they have.

There is one notion a parent must understand that for any issue there is more than one point of view – we may see it in one way, and our children may presume it all together in a different angle. If we are comfortable to accept this contrast we will able to communicate with our children not being rigid with ‘I’m right, and you are wrong’ attitude.

Listening to our children means trying to accept and see his point of view, his logic and acknowledging that he too has thoughts of his own. Parents’ role is to see he is guided and helped to take advantage of this multiple viewpoints and see how this awareness contributes to the creative progress of the child.

CHILDHOOD FEARS AND ANXIETIES

Fears are a normal part of growing children. They seem to be afraid of a lot of things.

From time to time, as they grow every child experiences fear.

Fears are a normal emotion.

Most of the children between ages 4 and 12 show many fears and concerns. Fear of darkness; particularly being left alone in the dark, is one of the most common fears in this age group. So is fear of animals, such as large barking dogs. Or cats or lizards. Some children are afraid of fires, high places or storms.

As parents, we have to keep in mind the children may or may not tell us what worries them. So we have to look for expressions or signs that give us a clue of any symptoms of their worries. Like:

Sleep disturbances: Difficulty to sleep alone. They find difficult to go to sleep.

Avoidance to go to school or taking exams, refusing to listen, too stubborn to move

Nervousness: Nail biting, falling ill frequently,

WHAT CAN PARENTS DO?

It is the parents’ responsibility to teach children the coping skills. These skills can help them deal with whatever troubling situation they may face. It would be better that we help our kids to practice these skills regularly. If they can convert these skills into helping habits, they can be used for their future lives.

Don’t ignore their fears. Pay attention to what they are saying that is troubling them. Don’t shoo away their fears. Try to understand fears through the eyes of their age. Once you understand the main cause of their anxieties, you can teach them ways and skills to help them cope.

Fears can be transmitted. Like when parents fear darkness, they can also find their child trembling along with them. Children always watch parents and whatever our dominant fears and anxieties could pass on to children.

Try to check, monitor and control TV consumption. Images from movies, music videos, and internet, and television news, stories can instill fear at disproportionate levels. It’s important to monitor the child’s TV watching habits, especially what they are watching before going to bed.

Recognize that your child’s fears are real. You shouldn’t ridicule, underplay, or trivialize, or ignore your child’s fears. Don’t lecture or use logic to silence them. All these wouldn’t help the child’s fears to disappear.

Support them. Help your child feel safe. Your words have enormous comforting power. Use them generously so that they feel safe and comfortable.

Encourage the child to speak about his worries. If he is encouraged to speak about his fears assuring good attention of adults allows him to feel that his fears are manageable. The fears never should grow out of proportion in your child.

Since fears are a normal part of life and often are a response to a real or an imagined threat in the child’s environment, parents should be reassuring and supportive

The simple, sensitive and straightforward parenting can help resolve or at least manage most childhood fears.

OTHER THAN EXAMS WATCH FOR INTELLECTUAL BEHAVIOURS

Sunny a ten-year-old is a dainty little one who has all good intentions to work hard and watch for good grades on his progress report. The moment he sets eye on the question paper on the exam day he finds himself simply disturbed. He could see no questions he had worked very hard to remember and write. To his annoyance, he finds the paper filled with the questions that he has assumed ‘not so important.’

The wariness of his previous day’s sincere hard work is now staring back at him as the questions he learned by rote have simply not appeared on the test paper.

He is a sad boy now. He started to think about what might appear as low grades in his forthcoming progress report.

As a parent do we appreciate all his hard work and sincerity to do well in his exams? But the progress card doesn’t reflect the effort.

It’s an age-old academic custom for the parents to correlate grades and test scores to their child’s learning. The primary focus of any parent – well educated or otherwise, the number of A’s and B+’s that fill in the progress report of their kid. That is the bottom line of a child’s intellectual measurement. They worry consistently about how their child compares with the neighbor’s child.

Parents or teachers never think of any alternative behavior as criteria to assess the kid’s creative and intellectual development.

When we see the children become young adults and when they face the complex challenges of the world. The process demands all capabilities like intelligence, reasoning, creativity, intellectual perseverance and craftsmanship.

Parents’ can assess their kid’s growth in the following aspects:

1. PERSISTENCE   

2. LISTENING TO OTHERS

3. AWARENESS OF OWN THINKING

 1. PERSISTENCE

Whenever a school going child given a problem,  in the first instance, he doesn’t see a solution. He immediately gives up saying, ‘I can’t handle, and it is very difficult.’ If they don’t find an immediate solution, they are not taught to look for an alternative strategy.

What we find lacking in the children is the ability to handle a problem taking it head on until they come up with an acceptable solution. They lack persistence.

Persistence helps any child to search for alternative planning for problem-solving. It is the characteristic that has to be encouraged and practiced both by parents and teachers. This approach has to start from their early age.

A child who is persistent will enjoy the following advantages.

• He develops a sense of confidence to solve a problem systematically
• They try to understand how to begin and what orderly steps to follow
• How information has to be collected and analyzed
• How to keep progressing even though if they face any hardships until the problem is solved.

2. LISTENING TO OTHERS

Listening is one of the key social skills. It is the ability to listen to another person. Understanding others point of view and empathize with their feelings is one of the highest forms of human relationships.

Children with good listening abilities benefit in their social skills. It will also help them to give importance to others ideas. And it gives them an impression that not to take others point of view poorly.

It also helps the children to connect with their friends in the school and team activities.

3.AWARENESS OF OUR THINKING

This is being aware of our thinking process. If children are aware of their thinking process, they carry a special advantage. It enhances their learning process. The child with this realization will be able to put in definitive steps how he can solve many of school-related problems.

It is the knowledge about how we think, how we make decisions, how logical we are. The advantage of this skill enables us fairly aware of the direction of our thoughts and how strong and weak they are at the moment. It’s almost a self-directed learning.

 

PROTECTING CHILDREN FROM SEXUAL ABUSE

Children are among the most vulnerable groups in the country and around the world. A survey conducted by a humanitarian aid organization, World Vision India revealed in May this year that one in every two children is a victim of sexual abuse.

The survey was conducted across 26 states of the country and covered 12-18 years age-group. It is estimated that children below 12 may have a higher abuse rate. They are more vulnerable age group.

More than 48 percent of girls wished they were boys so that they could escape abuse. But, the study also found that boys (over 54 percent) were at equal risk of abuse as girls. And puzzlingly, persons in trust and authority, including parents, were identified as major child abusers.

Parents’ awareness is a necessary protective arm. The method is they should encourage the children to discuss any matter unusual that happens in the school or the neighborhood.

Parents can help protect their child from sexual abuse by teaching them the important facts and telltale gestures. This coaching must start as soon as they are admitted to the school.

The children should be aware of the following acts:

1. They should know what parts are called as private parts and why. They should be aware that genital and buttocks are their private parts. No adult should touch them. If any adult ever touches them in these private places, you advise the children, to report to mummy and daddy immediately. Identify and label male/female private parts. Explain how private parts are different from public parts of the body and why.
2. Explain to them that adults or older boys should never ask you to touch these private parts on them. They should know it is a very wrong thing. If an adult asks you to do like that, you should tell mummy and daddy right away.
3. Tell them they should tell mommy and daddy immediately if an adult or an older child ever shows his or her private parts or asks to see yours.
4. Make them clear that if someone is kissing you or hugging you in a way that feels uncomfortable or funny, or frightening, get away from that person, ask for help and tell mommy or daddy.

Please take your children’s comments about who touches them or makes them feel not so comfortable, very seriously.  The sad part is that a great many cases of child sexual abuse perpetrated by friends, closely known relatives or family members.

Please stay on guard and listen to what your children have to say.

Children who disclose their abuse within one month are at a reduced risk for depression.

If your child can talk about the abuse with you, then they are less likely to suffer from depression later in life-related to the abuse. Believe them when they talk to you and LISTEN.

Sexual abuse can be hard to think about and harder to discuss, but it’s important to address these issues and educate yourself so you can teach your child what to watch out.  Every step you take, every talk you have, every time you listen – you are protecting your child from sexual abuse.

PARENT – TEACHER MEETINGS

I knew a parent who had never taken the time to speak to the administrators or teachers in the twelve years span of his two children in the school. He never bothered to attend any parents meetings at school.

Today after twenty years, his children grew as responsible adults; but I hear a complaint from that parent, “My children never listen to me, I see they don’t respect me or my words, and at home, I’m as an outsider.”

Naturally, the parent is now reaping what he had sown twenty years ago. He showed negligence and total disregard for his children’s learning progress. He is reaping the bad consequences of his attitude. He sees it as ‘rejection’ in the family.

I believe parents are the chief partners in their children’s learning. Children learn more; work harder when they see their parent’s participation in their regular academic activities – both at home and in the classroom.

In a classroom situation, the accepting relation between a teacher and parent is not well defined. It would never grow as encouragingly trustful as to help both the child and the teacher.

On any given day in a classroom, we can see a continuous flow of communication between the children and the teacher. They both listen to one other all the time based on which they form a certain impression thereupon.

The same process of dialogue occurs between the parents and children in the evenings and weekends. During which parents have a good scope of inferring how his child is coming about.

We can see in the whole circle of communication the weakest link is between the parent and the teacher. In an academic year, the parent meeting the teacher may barely happen once a quarter. Or it may occur through newsletters or a few phone calls or emails or phone messages.

But the real dynamic of whatever is operating in the classrooms – the knowledge of it is never shared effectively to a parent.

It would be academically apt if parents’realize the importance of parent-teacher conferences.  We observe one significant unconscious aspect of teaching and learning in every child and every classroom situation. That every teacher is animate and active and is prone to ups and downs in their moods. And accordingly, the children tend to behave, learn and mature. This angle of interplay playing within the four walls is completely not visible to parents’.

For children learning in the classroom is a team effort. The three participants – the teachers and the children and the parents work for the same purpose. To provide them the best teaching experience for the child. Set to teach to help them to achieve.

Each member of the team has unique knowledge and understanding of what another member may not have. Each equipped with a distinct way of attitude with which he or she behaves in his surroundings.  Like the teacher in his class, the parent at home and children everywhere else. And no one individual can call shots in any one situation. The significance of this sort of good functional understanding of the three patterns of practices, if taken by the parents earnestly; it would certainly favor the emotional health of the child.

THE QUESTIONS PARENTS CAN ASK THE TEACHERS:

How is my child’s behavior in the class?

How does my child interact with you and his other classmates?

What is his behavior in the playground?

How often does he stand and ask to clarify a point?

What are my child’s strengths and weaknesses?

What areas need improvement?

What are other areas of interests of my child?

Is he prompt, disciplined, organized in all his workings?

Children always need safe and nourishing places to improve and enlighten themselves. This can only be possible when there is a dialogue and exchange of information between the teachers, school administrators and the parents.

This collective can help the child in providing the comfort and security for a child to find his true energy and foster his inbuilt abilities.

 

MINIMUM CRITICISM AND MAXIMUM SUPPORT

Twelve-year-old Rahul showed a two-page essay to his father. “Dad I’m presenting this in the class today” beaming and confident he pushed the papers before him. His dad reluctantly turned his head from his newspaper, “What’s this handwriting, can you recognize any word what you have written. See the sentences; I see many spelling mistakes. You don’t have a chance that anyone would hear you”.

Rahul lost interest to check his essay for mistakes and enthusiasm to participate in the competition. He cursed his father’s judgment and mourned helplessly.

If we find parents, who are casual and discount their children active interests. Who never learn the right methods of how to encourage their learning attempts? Such parents’ distinct disregard may prove detrimental to the growth of healthy self-esteem in children.

Here in the above incident, the father thoughtlessly converted Rahul’s energies from positive to negative. Now he is thoroughly discouraged. He would never attempt to write, fearing he may commit more mistakes. And he would never approach his father for an opinion. We see the disastrous outcome of parents’ overemphasis on more negative sides of their children’s efforts – the children invisibly crushed – mentally.

“When we pay constant attention to their mistakes, we tend to discourage our children. Let’s remember that the foundation on which children robustly grow is on their strengths. Not on their weaknesses”. Negative remarks drain their fund of energies. And introduce a ‘fear factor’ within them of their abilities to perform well.

The common practice among parents is that they disturbingly hover over their children all the time. They are seen waiting if they are engaging in any faulty moves. Once they detect them, they jump into an elaborate preaching and training sessions. Go ahead and coach them at once out of their faults and into ‘acceptable safe manners.’

Parents’ misgivings perhaps based upon one invariably held assumption. “A natural fear that children move with a wrong peer group pick up wrong habits, or bad attitudes. They may be misled, or attempt the wrong things. I need to watch them constantly. And be cautious to see that they don’t stray the wrong way.”

In most instances the ways parents’ overzealously protect their children make one fact evident. “Parents lack faith in their children.” They assume children are capable of only one thing. “They always make mistakes.” This attitude among parents may turn out to be, in the long run, discouraging and humiliating to the children. Not allowing them to cultivate enough initiative to be imaginative.

Too much talk of “what you have done is not correct” strains too much of the inherent thinking skills of any child. It doesn’t give them enough energy to move forward or try anything new.

Many times we see the parents, bothering, behind their children to manipulate their attempts. And provide them discourses on how badly their efforts are. The resultant scenario would be that children are under constant pressure of fear. He may lose his ability; as a result, turn pessimistic to attempt anything willingly.

It is noted. However, the insistence always to do right and prove perfectness would never yield favorable results for parents. But, contrarily, the possibility is very high for the children, not presenting any improvement. They may end up, sooner or later living in despair.

If parents’ could take enough care of the children. And see that they learn from their mistakes. Seen that they can teach precisely how to learn and function and grow through their mistakes. There is a prospect that the child can progress with a sense of courage in his various academic and social activities. He may also focus more on positive outcomes of his struggles. Correctly, this is the right attitude a child should take into for his progress forward and move with courage.

THE DIGNITY OF THE CHILD

Now and then, to keep my teaching tempo in good quality, I keep visiting some of the local schools. The purpose was to give a few tips to teachers on teaching and high school students on the importance of English speaking skills.

One of the commonest sights I come across in the classes will be the sounds of spanking the children. Or a teacher arrogantly scanning the restive children and yelling at the top of her voice “you stupid rascals, shut your mouths.”  Or some kids embarrassingly head down standing outside their respective classrooms enjoying a punishment.

Teachers have as many crude ideas in dispensing harsh punishments as many years of their experience could summon. More the experience more the amount of intolerance and severe the punishments they are ready to enforce.

Teachers’ and sometimes parents’ in a thoughtless moment have showered their children with countless ways to attack. That will tear down the dignity of the children. They call them dumb, stupid, foolish, idiot, empty, senseless, bore, cheat, bluff. We run short of words when it comes to encouraging our children. But for abusing them, our crooked jargon is a mouthful and on the tip of the sarcastic tongue.

With all these curse words we as teachers and parents say in countless more ways to our children “you are not worth very much” “you are not up to the mark.”

Parents and teachers must remember whatever you are cursing is an attack on the child’s dignity. You have to remember deeply; a child is a person with his dignity.

If once the children treated with such an abusive language. There is a likelihood that they try to live and prove to you that what you have said is correct. They may remember the rest of their lives the attack on their dignity in every detail. 

Many of the parents, teachers, and educators speak chiefly about curriculum, exams, ranks, tests, and teaching methods. They would, not once openly reflect about the safeguarding the dignity of a child.

But how many of them are aware of, “that each child has value and deserves respect. And that learning is tied to the child’s perception of the respect he receives. Further that it depends upon the self- estimate of his sense of worthiness”. How many parents and teachers keep this aspect ‘the dignity of a child” when they are coaching them.

These are some finer psychological and emotional and intellectual factors. That considered when recognizing and protecting the dignity of the children you are nurturing.

Children whose dignity upheld at all times seemed to succeed in the long run in his life.

“Every child has dignity built into them. It’s there already; we need not create one for him. Our job is to recognize its presence in him: to protect it and work with it”.

We have step back and see our children as with people with heart and feelings. They have a way to work, react, move, and process information. And never take a child for granted.

And finally, kids are always kids. They are no bad kids or good kids. There are just kids.

I believe that children are lovable and capable. It is our responsibility as parents and teachers to honor their dignity by seeing them as they are how they are, the way they are.

TEACHING YOUR CHILD SOCIAL SKILLS

If you spend one hour in a play school looking at children, you would observe two categories of children. Some children are overly active, speak out loudly, and laugh heartily. They easily mingle with others, and they seem to carry a lot of energy with them.

The other lot are passive, withdrawn, and shy. We have to pull them to join the group. They seem to hide in the corners, not willing to laugh or speak out freely.

WHAT ARE SOCIAL SKILLS?

Social skills are what we use every day to interact and communicate with others. They include verbal and non-verbal communication: such as speech, gesture, facial expression and body language.

Good social or ‘people skills ‘are very important for success in life. A person can be very book smart and have impressive knowledge. But he probably will not get as far as someone with average intelligence. Like one with a keen sense of how to interact positively with people.

Today ‘social intelligence” is identified as a science which deals with the cluster of skills and abilities essential for making positive and effective contacts with people.

WHAT PARENTS CAN DO TO HELP THEIR CHILDREN

In a child, good social skills are a foundation for good interpersonal relationships. It is the fundamental responsibility of the parents to enhance these abilities in children.

A few important social skills are:

TEACHING CHILDREN HOW TO SAY ‘HELLO.’

Start by teaching your children how to approach and introduce themselves. It can be new friends at the school, or to relatives, or anyone whom he wants to approach and favor.

Tell him it’s ok by introducing, “Hello, my name is Ram.”

Introducing themselves is one stumbling block in many people. You have to make sure that your child doesn’t keep out due to this ‘shyness’ in social situations.

Not all children are born active and outgoing, and chatty. They should learn even the simple skills such as introducing themselves.

LEARNING HOW TO PUT PEOPLE AT EASE

Children need to know that they are many ways to communicate that they are happy to see someone. Some involve nonverbal gestures such as a handshake, a smile, or a pat on the arm or a hug. Others involve questions that show you are interested in the general well-being of the other person.

“How are you,” ‘How are you doing,” “Is everything fine,” “So nice to see you.”

Children should be well at ease to express when they meet their new friends.

Saying ‘hello’ with a warm smile is one of the remarkable ways to enhance a person’s popularity.

Children with good social skills have a pleasant personal style and know how to put people at ease.

 UNDERSTANDING THE IMPORTANCE OF LOYALTY

Loyalty is the feeling of faithfulness and affection we display to our friends or dear ones.  Loyalty is protecting those we love from harm or any negative forces around. Loyalty says, “I have cared about you, I care for you, and I will continue to care about you.”

The children between ages say five and ten usually form friendships based on usefulness or utility. It’s something like better toys, or something more interesting to do are enough reasons to bond with friends. When children grow older, however, loyalty and trustworthiness become the foundations for good and lasting relationships.

Loyalty is a quality that is very important in everyone’s life. As a parent, we have to ensure that our kids are loyal – to their friends, family, studies or for that matter any task they do!

Loyalty teaches children to commit and persevere.

HELPING TO UNDERSTAND BODY LANGUAGE

People, in general, use more body movements than words to convey their feelings. But children should be able to understand how different movements can convey various moods and emotions.

Children must understand how people convey their feelings through body language. Like how to recognize by looking at a face and posturing moods like happiness, irritation, sadness, angry, tired, etc.

Children who are aware of the body language are likely to show confidence in their walk, their smile, and with their gestures. They know how to protect their personal space. They know what type of touch is appropriate and what type of physical touch in not appropriate.

Teaching your child the appropriate body language is one top priority of the parents. To understand which manners of behavior are acceptable and which are not.

TEACHING HOW TO SAY “IM SORRY”

When a child has done wrong, the parent should be able to speak to the child, “what you have done is not correct” The child must be able to realize that it is “his bad behavior.”

Forgiveness and saying ‘sorry’ are important in maintaining good relationships with friends and also with all the family members.

Many children don’t know how to respond in a tricky or bad situation. They don’t know how to come out of it with a better response. In such situation, it’s important for parents to model good behavior.

Saying that we are sorry, whenever things go wrong if parents can use them as frequently and as freely as they can, children learn from their parents the correctness of using “I’m sorry and thank you.”