Nivedita Mukerjee
Education consultancy for parents and schools
You want to change your child’s behaviour?Here are 5 things you need to know.
Where do you think your parenting responses lie when it comes to behaviour of your child on the spectrum of – Achievement based (western approach) to Pressure based (Eastern approach)? While one is more focused on the goal, the other focusses on the way to achieve the goal. Think of it, are they mutually exclusive when it comes to behaviour? Somewhere on the spectrum perhaps lies the sweet spot of balance that all of us as parents wish to achieve every time we want to address our child’s behaviour. As most matters of parenting, our response reflects our personal values and beliefs.
Here are 5 key things you need to know when you adjust the slider on that spectrum of your personal parenting approach.
- Behaviour is driven by emotions
Open ended surveys of adolescent children and their parents for qualitative analyses have often shown significant differences between what children think their parent’s expectations of their academic and co-curricular goals are and what actually their parents self-reported expectations are. Children have always rated the expectations much higher and as a result felt much more pressured leading to a range of behaviour, from rebelling to depression.
Younger children express it quite similarly. They throw tantrum or ignore your instructions.
- Parenting based on “carrot and stick” does not work
Fear based parenting or reward based parenting works immediately. Fails long term. Parenting is a marathon and not a sprint and thus what works only short term is not a good strategy to adopt. Should you reward when your child shows kindness? Do you reprimand when your child is lying? What would you have liked when you showed such virtue or vice? How was it when you were kind last time? Was the satisfaction it’s own reward? And why did you lie last time – what did you feel about yourself – what situation made you lie – under what situation you would have not lied? You may want to ask these to yourself and then work it out with your child similarly. You will develop your own unique recipe that will work perfectly to suit your personal parenting style.
- Check your definition of mis-behaviour
Much of what we define as mis-behaviour is actually normal and needs to be understood over the growing years of the child. A toddler child will not share his/her toy with another child and is a sensory-motor scientist touching-licking-pulling –spilling – squishing things. A 5-6 year old will play away from parent and have more elaborate discussion of emotions and group rules just as a teenager will turn to their peers for suggestion instead of adults.
- Positive affirmations lead to positive behaviour
Rosenthal and Jacobson’s work on Expectancy Effects demonstrate the power of self-fulfilling prophecy. In their study, students believed to be on the verge of great academic success performed in accordance with these expectations; students not labelled this way did not. Later research and my personal experience as an educator over the years has supported Rosenthal’s original conclusion – that teacher expectations can have a substantial effect on students’ scholastic performance. This works similarly on parental expectations from their children’s behaviour as well. Appreciating the behaviour that is in accordance to your family/personal values, reinforces. Reprimanding an action that you do not want to become a behaviour sometimes brings it to more focus than deserved. Ignoring or calmly mentioning might just be enough. Positive words lead to positive behaviour.
- All behaviours can’t be changed
And that’s okay. If it’s not life threatening and completely amoral, you may want to move on to what you would like your child to do instead of listing what you would not.
The paradox of child-raising is that you truly can raise your child essentially for free, although it will cost you your life. A young parent recently asked me how I felt as a parent as our son is all grown up and independent. I feel great I said, and will continue to be a parent. Parenting? That’s a verb. The action keeps changing with your own and your child’s age and needs.
What is your personal parenting dilemma on behaviour of your child? Sound off below.
Kozhukatta – a children’s book review
Sumi Chandrashekharan’s ‘Kozhukatta’ was read once by me a couple of weeks ago sitting with her, sipping tea in the patio, in about 5 minutes. Yes, it’s about 8 pages, illustrated story book and that’s the time it would take it for an adult to read silently cover to cover. But it is a whole new matter when you read it again, time extends from the 5 minute of quick read to about a good 10 minutes. You discover some new illustrations and several new words that you glazed past in your first read. Then, if you read aloud to yourself, it would take you anywhere from about 15 minutes to as long as 25 minutes. All of this calculation of time taken to read goes for a complete toss if you read it aloud to a child!
That’s right. When you are reading to a child, the story of ‘Kozhukatta’ is exactly that. Something soft, something white, something round, something delicious… literally and metaphorically. The character of forgetful Ponnu is at the same time irritating and endearing. It is that of a child and also of a grown person. The setting is Kerala, a state in the southern part of India and is adapted from a traditional tale but is quite transferable to any geography. On a visit to a friend’s house, forgetful Ponnu is offered delicious dumplings. He has no intention of letting its name slip from his memory… what happens next? Find out in this noodlehead story.
‘Kozhukatta’ – pronounced Ko-rrru-ka-tta, where the zh is like the rrr in purr says a cat (go look for it amongst the many bold and some subtle illustrations on the pages) is a fun read. You can see the author’s understanding as an early childhood educator herself, of what makes a good story for young children. For those who have read stories to children know that children like to listen to the same story over and over again. Young children enjoy simple stories that are layered so that while it is being read to them for the nth time, they can ask you something or exclaim at something or anticipate something each time. Children look at illustrations while you read to them and just you finish the last word or sentence on the page, they are still looking at something on that page and ask you to wait a few seconds more before you flip to the next. The narrative and the illustration of ‘Kozhukatta’ provides adequate opportunities for both.
So this morning when I read ‘Kozhukatta’ the 8 page, 5 minute to read and see book for an adult, the educator in me took a good half hour. I found that crow peeping out from the bush as the birds flew with the word. I discovered that each of the alphabets had a body shape to it – just like I have seen our preschool teachers working it out with the children. That Ponnu had his dress folded up while performing the alphabets just as it is done by men in Kerala when they get up to start a walk or ride a bike!
P.S. I had a noodlehead moment myself as I was telling about the book to a friend whether it was ‘Kozhakattu’ or ‘Kottukazha’ or ‘Kokkazhattu’… So is there a Ponnu – noodlehead story series in there somewhere Sumi from this part of the world?
Illustrated by Zafouko Yamamoto and Published by Tota books, the book is now available in stores and on amazon.
“Can We Bring Them Down?” An illustrated e-book for young children from TanaBana series.
“Can We Bring Them Down?”, is the third illustrated story book for young children in the series of TanaBana. It is free for you to read and share with your friends and family.
Can We Bring Them Down?(Click to download PDF)
If you have missed out on the other two books, here are both the links for you to download and enjoy.
I can see a rainbow (Click to download PDF).
Hi! I am Kyra (Click to download the PDF)
TanaBana, means warp and weft of a weave, in the Hindi language. And that’s what it is. A story woven with the ‘Tana‘ of ideas, and the ‘Bana‘ of pictures from everyday events that happen in a child’s life. The idea of this series emerged, during a conversation amongst a couple of us friends who share the passion of story, of education. The precious nano interactions that take place every day amongst young children and between a child and an adult in their environment have the possibility of making a deep and meaningful impact on the mind of a growing child.
We would love to hear your and your child’s feedback on any aspect of the book. Let us know what you liked and what we can do better. We hope you and your child enjoy reading it as much as the TanaBana team enjoyed weaving it.
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Problem solving is a skill. You can teach it to your child.
Everyting is figureoutable – Marie Forleo.
You can figure it out! Just start taking action, take a grab at it and see where it leads you!
The shuttle cock is stuck on the tree while your child is playing a game of badminton in your house compound with a couple of his friends. What does he do? Rushes to call the watchman to bring it down? Runs to get a pole to shake the branches? Opens a new box of shuttle cocks? And if he does that, does he leave the shuttle up after he finishes the game? You can assume that your child can think of all of the above and some more. Or can he? Does he figure it out? Does he talk to his team mates to sort it out? Does he come running to you for help in the first instance or after exhausting all options? What is your reaction? Which one of the following is the closest to your response:
- Go figure it out; Stop playing badminton, play something else; I told you not to play in the yard; Take out another shuttle cock; Let’s see how we can get it down; Don’t bother me now I have other things to attend to, go study.
Flash back to baby days. The toy rolls under the sofa. What did you do? Rushed in and pushed the sofa aside and get the toy out? found a stick to nudge it from underneath the space? Quickly fetched another toy? Sat down with your toddler and wonder together what is to be done at that point in time and why which option is best in the given circumstances?
We all understand that managing our own emotions and role modelling our actions-reactions to situations is one of the fundamentals of teaching skills and attitudes to our children.
“The problem isn’t a problem, the problem is your attitude to the problem” Captain Jack Sparrow.
How do you approach a problem yourself?
- Do you anticipate a problem? if you do that how do you mitigate the negative impact?
- When a problem erupts suddenly – what is your response to it? Fear, anger, denial, acceptance, seeking assistance? Using it as a practice ground?
- When sometimes you react in ways that you regret, do you apologize to your kids because you are still learning and parents make mistakes too?
What is the lens with which you perceive something as a problem?
- Your child behaves in a way that clash with your beliefs.
Example: Your child can’t finish the food served to him/or he has served himself.
- Your child’s behaviour may evoke a childhood memory and response.
Example: Your child not performing academically at a level you expect him/her to and you feel as if you failed as a parent. This could be because only when you got a good grade, your parents found you worthy of attention.
- Your child’s behaviour may evoke a traumatic state or event.
Example: If you broke your nose playing soccer as a kid and you are scared every time your child ties up his cleats.
During a stressful parenting moment, when you may “lose control”” and let your amygdala hijack your logic, i.e. when your emotions control your reactions, you possibly stop thinking about how your child is perceiving you and your reactions. This can be very scary to kids. You are at that point in time, modelling to your child: this is how it is an expected and accepted reaction to stress.
How do you teach a skill on which you yourself are yet to get mastery over? Well, one way is to learn it together.
Here is an effective 5 step strategy for you to try out.
- Whose problem is it? Understand that entity.
Is it one person’s problem? If yes, then who is that person. If it is a group like a family or friends’ problem, then understand the dynamics of it. If it is your own problem, then reflect on it. The problem and the one who has it form an inseparable dynamic. That is why one solution can’t fit all even if the problem is seemingly similar. It may be a localised problem like a broken toy or an out there problem like poverty and illiteracy. The solution will need to emerge based on the one who is affected. Poverty in America, Africa, India need different solutions. “Broken toy” problem of a 6-year-old child with many other toys, of a 6-year-old child with special needs, of a 6-year-old child who has suffered a loss recently will all need to be addressed completely differently.
- What is the problem? Define it.
The problem is the sum of something actual and somethings perceived. For e.g. A child going to a new school after a change of city was excited at first but is anxious now. What is the real issue? What is the perceived one? The child can’t locate the class room/rest room/lunch room? The child is uncomfortable in the new uniform? new environment? No-buddy for play time? Or the child is feeling lost and lonely. What could you do to understand the issues? What can you do to help your child help himself to find his way through? For this situation will get repeated when the child moves into another school, another college, another job, another relationship.
- What if? Brainstorm the possible solutions and consequences of each.
Could there be different ways to approach the problems? Simulation computer games like Simcity, Mindstorm, Robot kit, board games like Chess, Lego kits, puzzles of various kinds build those skills at all ages to try and approach a situation in multiple ways.
- Check it out.
Try out the most plausible solution or eliminate the obvious improbable/unacceptable solutions. Pilot it, share and take feedback, iterate, tinker. Try again. Fall again, fail better.
- Go for it.
Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.
T. S. Eliot.
Nivedita Mukerjee is a journalist, educator and parent. She writes about matters that concern a child’s success and well-being. She can be reached at https://about.me/niveditamukerjee
Independence by Grit
Give the gift of GRIT to your child this year on Independence Day.
For our generation it is an accepted socio-cultural norm to live one’s lives on other people’s terms and expectations of us, primarily our parents. Many of us continue to perpetuate this because it’s the only worldview we have been taught. However, we all quite understand that our children, most of them millennials, are growing up in a world that is encountering paradigms significantly different than ours. New career options, new technologies, new ways of communication. Its a whole new world order reflected in news media, sci-fi movies and popular television serials like Stranger Things, Orphan Black, Sense8 etc. A world with a perspective that we cannot possibly prepare our children for with our own set of knowledge and skills. What we can instead do is work on the third aspect of this holy trinity of survival kit – attitude.
This Independence Day, let us offer the gift of GRIT to our children. Falling, as you know by now, is not the issue. We fell. They will fall too. It is the attitude of rising from falls that needs passion and perseverance. A combination of these two attitudes make what we now understand as Grit.
Psychologist Angela Duckworth, recipient of the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship, also known as the “Genius Grant”, in her book, Grit: The power of passion and perseverance (and her immensely popular Ted Talk) explains why Grit is important and what is its correlation with success.
Grit, gives us the motivation to achieve our objectives through persistent effort. It is essential to accomplish anything of significance. It is also one big factor that makes your child independent of circumstances that s/he encounters throughout life. Grit is something that can be nurtured and grown within oneself. It’s that lifelong gift which becomes the source of power with consistent use.
We don’t always get to see anything beyond the end result. Both, of failure and success. For most struggles are endured alone or behind closed doors and not shared. Think of it, how often have our parents discussed their struggles with us? If they have discussed the difficulties or struggles, did they also share along the way which strategies were used? Which ones failed and which ones were useful and why? What kind of energy and effort was needed to come out of it? Where did they muster that Grit from? Which matters they persevered and which ones they gave up and why? What about you? How often do you share your challenges and your strategies to overcome them with your growing and even grown up children? Or with your spouse ? Most of the time, the struggles and the strategies are in one’s mind and heart. Are you ‘giving up’ or ‘holding up’ – using your attitude of Grit.
How does one harness Grit? What does it entail? How can you possibly “gift” Grit when it is so intrinsic whilst gift implies something completely extrinsic. That is where the significance of parenting comes in.
Parenting is a verb. It is a role performed. It can be for your biological child, for your adopted child, for your neighbour or relative’s child, for your student and so on. Any adult who interacts with a child performs some aspect of the parenting role. For those of us who do that on a daily basis, here are a few pointers to gifting our children with Grit.
Passion: the first half of Grit
How does one define it? How does one find it? One thing must be clear, passion is to be understood not in the granularity but in the big picture. It can’t just be temporary excitement. Nor does it have to be a thing that you love every component of. It’s a combination of deep interest and meaning.
How do you live it and share it with your child?
-If you are into sports, share with your child the passion of your sport and the fact that you may not like the fact of getting up 5 am in the morning to practice or prepare your body. But you do it for you like the big picture of what sports means for you.
-If you are a teacher, share with your child your passion and satisfaction you get of sharing knowledge and mentoring young minds. Also share the fact that you may not like doing some of the drudgery that comes along with it, like filling up lesson plans or administrative documentation, assessments or difficult parent teacher meetings. Yet the impact your teaching has on young minds, helping shape lives – is what you look forward to.
-If you are into music, share with your child the passion you have and what music means to you. Share the tedious practice you underwent or are still undergoing over several years. That oftentimes you were possibly at the brink of giving up but continued nevertheless as you had the eye on the big picture.
You can draw this out for any profession/entrepreneurship. Each of it has a big portion that can come under drudgery or routine or preparation, which comes attached for completing the big picture.
Amitabh Bachchan, the iconic actor comes to my mind as an epitome of the combination of passion and perseverance – Grit! His journey from voice narrator in Mrinal Sen’s Bhuvan Shome to supporting actor in Anand and angry young man in Zanjeer to the iconic Deewar. Sholay released on 15th August, 1975 and the rest is history. Or is it? We know the successful ones and we also know that most of his early films did very badly. Fatal injury and recovery during shooting of Coolie in Bangalore. The Bofors scandal followed by financial crisis, ABCL debacle to the point where his home nearly got auctioned. He went on to working on his comeback and how! From what became the household lexicon of “lock kar diya jaye?” in KBC TV series and many a Film awards and honorary doctorates, books, temples and memorials later to the current celluloid success of Paa, Piku and Pink.
Perseverance: the second half of Grit
When reality falls short of expectations. Many of us give up because we don’t fully realize what it takes. The mind set of perseverance is about seeing failure differently. How to use failure as a tool rather than a hindrance? How does one be honest with self and consider the pain of defeat before accepting that it’s worth enduring towards the goal one has set out to achieve.
How do you live it and share it with your child?
The story of the Three little Pigs is read out to all children at some point in time of growing up, in school or at home. Hard work pays off – is a well-known adage that is sermonised ever so often in parenting and teaching. For a good reason! It surely must have been difficult for the third pig to persevere even after his other brothers built their homes of straw and sticks with very little time and effort, isn’t it? The third pig however knew it was worth enduring all the hassle and drudgery for the matter of long term safety. All the brothers did have the knowledge that there was a big-bad wolf out there. They all had the skill to bring a strong house. Whereas only the third pig had the Attitude.
- Share your story of persevering for the long term safety, joy, success in the face of difficulty, hardship and failures with your child.
- Share how you have saved and invested even when you wanted to spend, it will teach them delayed gratification and how it works towards financial independence.
- Share with your child how you got up and went to work every day because you thought what you were doing is important and significant as contribution to family and work.
- Share with your child your trysts and tribulations during your years of education and skill acquisition and how you went through with the right attitude as you considered these were key requirements for success in any domain.
Grit is an attitude which can be acquired and honed. Continue to build yours along with your child and find success in your parenting goals. We all have our own ideas of success, and the word itself isn’t worth generalising. To me, it correlates with time invested.
Meaningful success takes a long time, and the longer it takes, the more opportunities arise for failure and disinterest. Grit plays the role of the discipline of a recurring deposit or systemic investment plan – if you will, for long term gains. Of course, time alone doesn’t drive progress. Feedback, along with deliberate and effective practice, are needed, too.
Benjamin Jones and Bruce Weinberg published a paper, Age dynamics in scientific creativity, in which they analyzed 525 Nobel prizes awarded between 1900 and 2008. The study was to see if there was a link between age and when important discoveries were made. They found that with a few exceptions, all winners produced their greatest work well past the age of 30.
It’s easy to say you need passion and perseverance to succeed, but it’s also important to know what these two entail. If your child is young, you have a high degree of control on your child. As the child grows, while your control decreases, your influence starts to show. If you want your child to show Grit in their attitude, start early by sharing your personal stories of Grit. Your efforts to come out of loss and grief. Of reinventing after job loss. Of getting out of your comfort zone and staying there until you were enjoying it. The pictures here give a glimpse into mine as I cycled through a high altitude terrain of Ladakh with a bunch of my teenage students. At the time I was 50year old with a fairly sedentary lifestyle.
So the next time you grit your teeth and continue with effective and involved parenting which by all means is tedious – know that you are showing Grit for the long term success of your child. All the best to us on living and gifting Grit. Do share your thoughts and stories of your Grit.
Happy Independence Day!
5 effective and time tested ideas for motivating your child
5 effective and time tested ideas for motivating your Child.
“You can steer yourself any direction you choose”. – Dr. Suess. His book Oh, the places You’ll go? has been one of the most popular choices as the graduation gift for the preschool children over the years. The intention is to reinforce the belief that children are naturally endowed with curiosity and the capability to work on their curiosity. Children believe that they can do everything! They always imagine what they want in great zest and detail. It is up to us as adults – both parents and teachers to not shake off that belief as we are the biggest influencers around them. A big responsibility that, isn’t it?
What drives children to do things that they should and stop what they shouldn’t? As adults, we know that how we respond to what is happening around us is always up to us. We are in control of our responses with the deeper understanding of the fact that whatever is happening around us, to us, with us, may not be under our control at all times. What we do is take control of our actions in a given situation. Once that is done, we can increase our circle of influence to situations or people around us. There would still remain a wider area, that would always be outside of our control but will influence our wellbeing. How can we instil that attitude of optimism and grit? How can we exemplify that to our children?
Kids have a strong sense of connection with parents and that is a very powerful tool for motivation. Studies have shown that children who feel secure in their attachment to their parents are more resilient. It is known now that character strengths like curiosity and self-control are teachable skills.
How shall we invest in their character? Here are 5 effective and time tested ideas for your consideration:
- Rewards and consequences
- It is true that rewards can sometimes be useful in getting things done in the short term. This works in organised sports. However, it is also true that when this is applied to manage behaviour, your child will become dependent on rewards. Consequently, when the reward stops, the behaviour stops. When the reward is not good enough, the behaviour is also not good enough. The benchmark of the quality and quantity of the reward will continuously need to rise higher if reward is used regularly to motivate your child.
- Even if the activity you want your child to engage in is intrinsically enjoyable, if your child associates it with extrinsic motivation, the child will stop doing the activity if there is no extrinsic reward as it has been observed that a reward centric method somehow extinguishes the child’s passion.
- Conversations
- When your child complains about a task at hand, share your thoughts on why you think the activity is useful. If your child is unwilling to clean up the room, understand why – is he/she tired or bored or finds the task too complicated and possibly does not know where to start from. Same goes for homework and any action that is considered as a chore by the child.
- Avoid using should or must as part of the instruction. Replace them with could, consider, because, however etcetera and get on the same side of the problem as your child. Work out the solution together.
- Understanding
- Lace your asks for tasks that are particularly disliked by your child with creativity – like using a puppet or a song during clean-up time.
- Use challenge for tasks that you want done quickly, example – racing a sibling home from the park.
- Give choice for non-negotiables. Say for dinner time, child can sit either next to you or next to dad. For brushing – it can be before bath or after. You get the drift.
- Expectation setting
- Set realistic expectations from your child by understanding the actual capabilities and interests while you set the bar. The key word here is “realistic”. For this you need to keep a very open mind. Children blossom at different rates.
- Appreciate when some expectations are met or exceeded. For example – if the child has got a B+ after getting C or is practicing regularly for a match or a concert, praise the effort that he/she is putting in.
- Role model
- This is simple but often forgotten in the pressure of parenting. When you are working and your child needs your attention, instead of saying wait a minute and then take half hour, give realistic time for the wait. If it’s urgent, address it right away. Remember, everything that the child wants you to hear is important. You would want your child respond to you similarly, for example – when you headed to the airport and are waiting for your child to join the group, at that point in time, “just a minute” by your child will mean exactly that.
- Show by example how conflicts can be resolved by modelling it yourself. For e.g. when you have differences with your spouse or with anyone that the child can see or hear, be mindful of the tone of your voice, your body language, the approach you are taking for conflict resolution. These are all learned behaviours.
- If you want the child to learn their manners, you are the best role model. Starting from using please and thank you to whoever serves you, including your house staff. Also, not using language you don’t approve of for your child, yourselves at any time.
Here are a few suggestions to take your understanding further:
- Read :
- How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character. By Paul Tough
- http://www.huffingtonpost.com/julie-handler/50-inspiring-childrens-books-with-positive-message_b_1557914.html?slideshow=true#gallery/229352/0
– great list of books to have in your child’s home library.
– check out this ted talk by Rita Pierson. She calls for educators to believe in their students and build connections with them
– a Tedx talk by Jennifer Nacif who tells parents exactly how to motivate your children, by changing your ways from manipulations to motivation.
For years it has been believed that cognitive capabilities are the key drivers of success. However, over the years, research has shown as has my experience of being an educator, that persistence and grit, self-control and optimism are some of the key qualities that help children succeed and remain happy. A strong and positive relationship with parents motivates the child to not only achieve but exceed their own capabilities.
Nivedita Mukerjee is a journalist, educator and parent. She writes about matters that concern a child’s success and well-being. She can be reached at niveditamukerjee10@gmail.com.
A version of this post is also published here:
https://www.parentcircle.com/article/5-proven-ideas-for-motivating-your-child/
Boosting concentration and memory power in pre-schoolers
Within their first couple of parent-teacher meetings the preschool teachers repeatedly hear the following concerns, with varying degrees of anxiousness :
“My child can’t sit still for 5 minutes!”
“My child day dreams randomly while doing something and sits at a task unfinished.”
“I can’t seem to get my child to finish even a simple puzzle.”
Does any of the above sound familiar to you?
Here are some ways that you can help your child concentrate better:
- Consider the challenge level of the work. Sometimes the task is too easy and sometimes too difficult. The level should match the capability and/or instructional range of the child’s age.
- Try motivating by using sand timers of varying lengths of time as per the task as visual reminder for the task underway. It can become a game later to beat the timer as proficiency and concentration increase. This is a good way of self-monitoring as well.
- Break up the task into steps to give multiple achievement levels within the overall task as steps. Solving a small portion of the puzzle or colouring one portion of the picture or making a part of a clay model etc.
- Check for any environmental factor that might contribute to distraction. For e.g. Fan above the head or air-conditioning unit sound, open window to noisy street/moving people, uncomfortable seating, fidgety student (at school) or sibling (at home) next to him/her etc. A change of place might just make it several notches more conducive to focus on task at hand.
- Peers or buddy system in class might work for assisting and/or encouraging the child to focus and finish the work, especially if it is a collaborative project.
- Sometimes sitting next to teacher/teaching assistant in the class or parent at home while the parent is doing their own work and role modelling focus on task, works as a visual reminder to stay on task.
- Sometimes young children find it helpful to talk about what they want to write or do and then do it, as it helps them get clarity as to what they are setting out to do.
You would need to keep re-evaluating the suggestions mentioned and discuss the same with your child’s teacher to figure out what works for your child and in which situation. As your child grows, crossing various milestones in his/her preschool years, the needs and thus the techniques to enhance concentration, would change.
Games and activities that help building capability to concentrate in your child:
For pre-schoolers, there are several simple games and activities that you can engage in with your child at home, to help him/her focus on a given task while having loads of fun. A lot of them are variations of dot to dot activities that build up the attention span while improving the hand-eye coordination and teaching number, colour, pattern etc. Here are a few references for free printables :
http://www.education.com/worksheets/preschool/dot-to-dots/
http://www.preschool-printable-activities.com/dot-to-dot-printables.html
There are YouTube videos that guide you to make your own dot to dot activity sheet like this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rb8Dynf0js
There are some memory games available online for kids like:
http://www.memozor.com/memory-game-online-free/for-kids
http://www.sproutonline.com/games
Many activity kits and board games for memory building for young children are available, for example :
http://www.activityvillage.co.uk/memory-games
http://littlebinsforlittlehands.com/10-best-preschool-board-games/
Amongst the concerns that parents of a pre-schooler may have on their child’s attention span, I have often heard parents wondering :
“Is it normal for my child to be bouncing up and down while watching TV?”
“ My child moves on to playing with another toy even as he has taken out something else to play with!”
“My child can’t hold a conversation or a line of thought.”
“Does my child have ADHD?”
While ADHD (Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder) is one of the most common brain-based condition of childhood, all restless ness cannot be labelled as ADHD.
What is ADHD? Before you get worked up, here’s a link for you to know more:
http://www.webmd.com/add-adhd/guide/attention-deficit-hyperactivity-disorder-adhd#1
The children with ADHD may not:
- Be able to filter out unimportant visuals and audio from what is relevant and important to them.
- Focus for age-appropriate durations without getting distracted.
- Concentrate on one instruction or activity at a time.
- Hold a string of thought or a conversation.
- Follow a task with oral instructions.
The signs of ADHD also change over time. The struggles that a child suffering with ADHD in preschool will go through would be quite different in elementary, middle and high school. You may consider early intervention once you have observed your child carefully, discussed with the child’s teacher, consulted your child’s paediatrician and consulted the learning specialists or specialists like audiologist (for hearing issues), speech pathologist (for speech and language related issues), neurologist, behavioural paediatrician etc. Observe your child and make notes so that you can share the same with the teacher/s and specialists for better understanding.
As an educator, some activities that I have seen having positive influence on memory and focus are :
- Rhymes and poems- with chanting, clapping and movements associated with them.
- Stories – listening to and sequencing activities associated with stories that keep the child engaged and are great fun to recall, talk about the characters and wonder what could happen if they were one of the characters. This can be done with any of the children’s stories, without any special aids. The children can draw, make play-dough characters or play dress up. All of which would need the child to stay focussed on the story and it’s various elements.
- Role playing – if there are other children participating in the story telling-playacting then it is even better as they as give cues to each other for the sequence. In that process, they can all be focussed on the same activity for a fairly long time with each other’s help.
- Outdoor games, obstacle course, Simon says and I Spy with my little eye.
Each of the above help in the following ways:
- Exercise their working memory.
- They have to adjust to each other’s imagination.
- They have to keep track of and relate to what has happened and what is anticipated.
- They have to problem solve – like play two or more characters if there are less members in the game or figure out way through various barriers in the obstacle course indoors/outdoors.
- Most of these activities, whether rhyming or navigating obstacles are interactive and multi-step towards achieving completion.
Some of my all-time favourite outdoor games for pre-schoolers can be found here :
http://www.education.com/activity/preschool/outdoor/
You can try including these activities in your everyday routine:
- Making cookies and chapatti/paratha.
This is an all-time favourite sensorial activity – kneading dough is fun, messy, works out the muscles of fingers and arms; following a recipe also helps your child to plan a sequence of actions and possibility to modify when repeated. Opportunities of creativity with different kinds of ingredients to add to cookies and/or stuffing the parathas, making variations to tweak them to their own and their family/friends suggestions and taste is very good for their emotional and cognitive capabilities. Both of these support development of executive function.
- Mystery bags/feely bags.
These require specific use of working memory. As you put in familiar objects, whether the child’s toys or everyday items that child is familiar with like cell phone, spectacle case, toffee etc. and ask the child to feel the objects from outside or by putting the hand inside the bag and guess what they are. It would need the child to use their sensory information of touch to imagine the shape and form of the object to recognise it.
Relationship of aerobic fitness and motor skills with memory and attention in pre-schoolers(Ballabeina): A cross-sectional and longitudinal study done by Iris Niederer, Susi Kriemler, Janine Gut, Tim Hartmann, Christial Schindler, Jerome Barral and Jardena Puder led to the conclusion that –
“…In young children, higher baseline aerobic fitness and motor skills were related to a better spatial working memory and/or attention at baseline, and to some extent also to their future improvements over the following 9 months.”
Here’s a link to their study.
https://bmcpediatr.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1471-2431-11-34
Based on their results, they have suggested that exercises involving specific mental processing, including executive functions like reasoning, problem solving, planning etc. which go on to help in managing time and paying attention – are most suitable to trigger overall cognitive development in young children. They further mention that their data contributes to the emerging field of brain fitness and highlight the importance of a promotion of physical education.
The link above will take you to a list of 8 key executive functions that your child needs in order to organise their time and work. Each of these may be strengthened using various strategies that would help your child organise and act on information received. You can help your child or take him/her to a specialist to learn ways to hone them or work around, if there are issues in this area.
To help your child with improving their working memory, you will find some very useful tips here:
http://learningworksforkids.com/2013/04/5-ways-to-maximize-attention-and-boost-memory/
Choice of appropriate diet is essential in helping your child focus:
High sugar foods set kids up for a mid-morning energy crash. Proteins and complex carbs, that take time to digest, make ideal breakfast combinations not only for adults, but more so for kids whose day might peak with literacy/numeracy – high cognition activity in the mid mornings. Options of oatmeal or upama, eggs and toast/French toast, rava idlis with grated vegetables, dal-dosas, dal and vegetable mixed parathas, nuts and berries, whole wheat bread and cheese or peanut butter and jelly, whole wheat crackers or tortillas with cheese, these coupled with unsweetened juice, chocolate milk, fruit salads with curd are good to keep your child going through the day without the sugar crash and feeling sluggish, lethargic, anxious and distracted.
Include your child in planning for his/her meals from the time you visit the grocery store. Have them help you pick up the fruits and vegetables they would like to be served up. It is a sensorial experience for them and they remember and enjoy their meals when they have picked it up themselves. The four nutritious groups you need to keep in mind to include in each of the meals would be:
- Starchy foods
- Fruits and vegetables
- High iron and high protein foods
- Milk (check the contents of whole and skimmed in order to ensure that it contains Vitamin D and A), cheese, curds/yoghurt
The foods to be limited and/or avoided would be:
- Sweets and chocolates
- Salty foods (avoid chips and salty snacks like papads, pakodas, samosas; use herbs and spices to flavour the food instead of salt) The FSSAI recommends only 2g of salt a day for pre-schoolers.
- All whole grains only (they might feel full before they have eaten enough)
- Raw or partially cooked eggs, shell fish, large fish that might contain high levels of mercury
- Whole nuts (they might choke)
- Tea and coffee (they reduce the absorption of iron from foods)
- Carbonated drinks (can damage teeth)
Fussy eaters under 5 year old, might need supplements containing Vitamins A and D. This can be done under advisement from your paediatrician.
A study, “Impact of iron supplementation on cognitive functions in preschool and school-aged children : the Indian experience” By Subadra Seshadri and Tara Gopaldas talks about the significance of managing iron levels for young children. Click here to read more.
http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/50/3/675.2.short
Finally, developing executive functions – attention, impulse control, working memory, planning – all are a combination of nature and nurture. And while it might be hard to change IQ, it is definitely possibly to improve a child’s ability to concentrate and increase executive functions. Do remember however, keeping on task longer should not be confused with compliance, obedience, sitting quietly or staying still etc. It has to be about children to persist to achieve the goal they have set for themselves and solve the problems to satisfy themselves and not for consequence of reward or punishment.
Nivedita Mukerjee is a journalist, educator and parent. She writes about matters that concern a child’s success and well-being. She can be reached at niveditamukerjee10@gmail.com.
This post has also been published by 6D news. Please find the link here : http://6dnews.com/boosting-concentration-memory-power-in-pre-schoolers/
A version of this post has also been published here:
https://www.parentcircle.com/article/boosting-concentration-and-memory-power-in-pre-schoolers/
Teaching your teen time management
“Ma! I am tired now, please don’t tell me to clean my room.”
“But dad, I have been on the net for only an hour, how can you say I have been on face book all day!”
“I have no time to chill. All I get to do is school, homework and tuitions. I hate it!”
“Am not hungry now, don’t want to eat anything. Just let me sleep!”
Any of the above exasperations sound familiar? If yes, then go ahead, ask your teen the following questions, and match it with your own understanding of his/her stress levels. Mind it, don’t ask them all at the same time!
- Do you get enough sleep every day?
- Do you get time to hang out with friends over the week?
- Are you tired/energised all day?
- Do you get enough time to do your homework and projects?
- Are you always rushing till last minute preparing for tests and exams?
- What is the current distribution of your day between studying, playing and leisure?
- Are you satisfied with the time you get spend on the net/social media?
- How do you feel about the list of things that you have to do and want to do?
- Do you have daily/weekly/monthly goals for yourself?
- What activities do you consider as non-negotiables for feeling good?
Discuss with your teen, what does he/she feel about the answers and what would he/she like help with. More often than not, it would be “I just need more time!” and the only sure way to get that is to be able to organise it better. For time as we all know, is finite and measurable. This attribute of time can be used to work for us instead of against.
As an educator, I have often discussed and counselled parents who are either concerned or frustrated with their teen’s time management habits. The list of top 5 non-negotiable expectations from their growing child that I have heard from them are listed below. You may want to list yours, chances are it would be some or all of the following:
- Eating healthy, sleeping enough and personal hygiene.
- School and homework.
- Sharing household responsibilities like laying the table for dinner, taking the dog for a walk, helping grandmother with her skype call.
- Spending time with family, especially on occasions that are significant like birthdays, rituals, outings.
- Working towards a defined goal – short and long term. For eg. A short term goal could be baking a cake for friend’s birthday party or planting in the garden patch and a longer one could be learning to play soccer for school team or learning to play the guitar.
While all of the above need time, there are some other essentials in your teen’s life which when overtake their day’s schedule, end up being the time guzzlers. I asked a few teens on what do they want to do with their time and yet at the same time be-grudge as being the ones that make them waste time – they picked the following. You can help them manage these.
Taming your teen’s top time guzzlers:
- Television : suggest your teen to pick out specific shows that interest him/her and put them on record so that he/she does not have to watch them by appointment. He/she can schedule a specific amount of time during the day or week to catch up with that favourite show. A routine can also be made to watch it with the family or friends to combine the hang out time and entertainment time.
- Video games : if you see that gaming is taking up more time than your teen can afford in his/her schedule, use it as a reward time. For e.g. After finishing homework, you will turn on the play station or catch Pokémon for an hour.
- Social media : face book updates, you-tube videos, What’s app and Instagram etc. are part of our lives. Definitely that of your teen’s. Set aside time for that specifically. Allocating time, will stop any of the activity from overflowing into the rest of the schedule.
- Sports and hobbies : these are necessary but sometimes they end up becoming time guzzlers. For example, there’s the phenomena of skate boarding/roller blading/wave-boarding amongst teens. This is a great one for outdoors and core-muscle building but can get out of hand with respect to time when coupled with Pokémon catching or for that matter just plain hanging out before and after. Similarly goes for sports whether swimming, tennis or soccer. If it’s a club that your teen is part of, discuss with the parents of other children and sort out the logistics and time for practice, with due consideration to the activities that are already in the schedule that you have charted out with our teen already. Overall time needs to be balanced and spread across the interest areas in discussion with your teen. Avoid overscheduling. Keep breathers within the schedule.
- Hanging out : there’s a thin line in understanding this one as it is as much a time guzzler as much being an actual emotional need for teenagers. They want to spend extended periods of time with their peers and any amount of hang out time feels less. You can combine one or all of the above to an overall chunk of time to be spent socialising – virtually and physically.
Help your teen break down the time and tasks:
- Scheduling is key : discuss with your teen every week once on what would be the broad outline of the week. To begin with, you can share yours. Role modelling is the best way to teach (and preach!). You may consider a side by side list to be put up on a white board, soft board or on the refrigerator – which would include to do list in the categories of:
- Definitely (just have to be done)
- Should be ( can be partially done or pushed if ‘definitely’ is taking more time)
- Love to ( leisure and feel good activities, include some short and some long duration to be able to fit in as the schedule permits)
Once this list is made, schedule them day wise. A to-do list remains a to-do if not scheduled. Allocation of dedicated time is critical to achieve success of a to-do list. You can use technology for this with apps and planners. Model good time management habits yourself and share your challenges and successes with your teen. If you are asking your child to fill in the schedule, go ahead and fill in one yourself. Remember to schedule leisure! As you discuss yours and your child’s schedule week on week, you would find yourself more understanding of your own and your child’s needs and priorities without nagging. You will find that routines would develop over time, of doing certain activities in a certain order like playing a game right after school or doing some specific chores at home right before or after dinner and so forth.
- Setting rules and expectations clearly with consequences – (that have been discussed and those that you would follow through) works better than continuous reminders which in turn reduces the child’s responsibility and ownership for his/her schedule. Use this opportunity to instil a long term life skill of time management in your child. This will go a long way for not only estimating the time that will take him/her to work on a project but to manage and work towards much complicated long term goals. And while at it, manage your own time as well which is at a premium, fraught with distractions and responsibilities. It’s alright to feel stressed at times – tell your teen to accept it when he/she feels stressed. Share with him/her what you do to relax when you are stressed.
Here are some suggestions for both parents and teens to try out:
- Make a list of immediate matters that are causing the stress and prioritise – helps in avoiding procrastinations.
- Break a big task into modules – for eg. When I have to take a workshop, make a presentation or write an article, I write down the sub topics, sort out the research papers I would need to read, short list and book mark the sites I need to refer, list of people I I would like to tackle; similarly, if you ask your child to clean their room, break it down further by listing smaller tasks within – as cleaning out drawers, sorting out cupboard, clearing the desk, arranging the shelves and so on so that one task at a time can be achieved.
- Do something to clear your mind of stress and think clearly like go out for a walk, swim, run outdoors. If indoors, take a shower, do a couple of yoga poses, drink hot tea/chocolate.
- Take a small break to read a short article or watch a TED talk.
- Call a friend or family for a quick chat.
- Seek help if you think someone in your network would be able to support you in it – same for your child – sometimes putting on music and cleaning one’s room with a friend becomes the most fun thing that teens can engage with turning a chore into a playdate.
- Last but not the least – if you or your child has overcommitted, do not hesitate to pull back from one or two of those.
As your teen starts enjoying the benefits of time management skills, it would become a virtuous cycle for attending any task of significance. The immediate benefits would be palpable, like:
- Relative calm before projects are due or before school tests.
- Sense of responsibility and independence.
- Increased time for socialising with friends.
- Guilt-free time for chilling out.
- Over all better demeanour and better performance at school and home.
https://www.ted.com/talks/laura_vanderkam_how_to_gain_control_of_your_free_time
Nivedita Mukerjee is a journalist, educator and parent. She writes about matters that concern a child’s success and well-being. She can be reached at niveditamukerjee10@gmail.com.
A version of this post has also been published here:
https://www.parentcircle.com/article/teaching-your-teen-time-management/
The right measure for judging your pre-teen’s academic performance; More or less!
As your child gets to his/her first ‘double digit’ milestone birthday – the big 10, something turns in the attitude of parenting in you. Have you noticed that? All that was cute and cuddly, now looks like a box tied up neatly with a bow of expectations. Of your own. Could be reminiscent of what your family expected from you. Or possibly some of what you expected of yourself. Add to this, what you aspire for your child. So much potential! Alongside these expectations from your child, you also create expectations from yourselves for a new wave of parenting that sweeps over you. Rightly so, for now, the existential nurturing needs that you fulfilled for your child is over taken by the child himself/herself. The child can pretty much take care of all his/her needs. From feeding, bathing to asking and negotiating. Both your and your child’s roles and responsibilities now need to go through an overhaul! Your parenting style needs to move from that of primarily nurturing and stimulating, to providing for wider exposure, higher challenges and connecting-communicating for a deeper relationship.
It is typically around the age of 10, when your child is most likely to be in grade 5, a new sense of independence dawns. Sometimes you will feel that your child is pushing you away. He/she tests the limits that have been set by you over the past years of growing up. What has happened is that your child is changing both physically and emotionally. This has led to significant development in the cognitive as well as social aspects of the child’s personality. The child is now demanding autonomy. Time for you to respect that. However, parental support, supervision, monitoring, tracking performance and growth in various areas assume even greater importance during these pre-adolescent years.
While your child is not a teen yet, he/she is out of his/her childhood. Remember:
- Your child’s pushing you away is nothing personal.
- Keeping small secrets from you is normal.
- Your child will often not respond to your inquiries into his/her routines and about friends.
- Your child expects you to listen but not always comment or advice.
- The child is looking for non-judgmental responses from you.
- Expect that the norms of discipline, school, home-work, family time – all will be re-negotiated.
- To launch themselves to the outside world, they need you as the anchor.
- They want to fit with their friends but they want you to keep them safe
What is it that most children exhibit during these wonderful years of growing out of childhood and becoming an adolescent teen? Over the years of being an educator, I have conducted several sessions on puberty and changes with this age group. Have taught and discussed with them content ranging from lake eutrophication and impact on ecosystem to classification in animal and plant kingdom. From Shakespeare – the bard and Steve Jobs the entrepreneur to Claude Monet – the impressionist. Have travelled with them for days on multiple school trips to a range of destinations, to study history, geography, sciences – all the while understanding each other. I must say, I have enjoyed and learned much about the behaviour of pre-adolescents during these long and intense interactions. What I am sharing below are general characteristics as observed and understood by me. Read this keeping in consideration the understanding that you have of your own child. His/her temperament, factors of home and family, friends in school and neighbourhood, tasks undertaken, maturity level and if there’s any ongoing factor of illness, changes, happenings like birth, death, adoption, marriage etc. – that could potentially put your child either in a state of flux or stability.
These three years are seen as the calm before storm and is actually the best time for both teachers and parents to establish a long lasting connection with the soon to be the belligerent full blown teenager.
The 10 to 12-year old’s behaviour is typically:
- A spectrum. From relaxed and easy-going, to swinging between extremes and settling down, before it all erupts in the teens.
- A talkative, friendly – may sometimes be more self-assertive and border on rude.
- Likes school, is alright with reasonable amount of homework and is good at memorising.
- Is curious, impulsive, interrupts, wiggles and fidgets.
- Enjoys physical activities like swimming, running, climbing, jumping, riding but also tires easily.
- Rebels against you, argues, talk back and name calling is common.
- Is hungry all the time, for food and for experiences.
- Resists tasks that are imposed. Does not care for consequences but has sense of right and wrong so can be reasoned with.
- Shows care for pets and siblings, great age to introduce to community service activities and opportunities to build empathy.
- Enjoys participating in group activities, forming special clubs, presenting skills to peers and competing.
You may want to order yourself a copy of Louise Bates Ames, Frances L. llg and Sidney M Baker’s ‘Your Ten-to Fourteen-Year-Old’. They have presented their observation, consultation and discussion with parents. Loise Bates Ames is also the founder of Gesell Institute of Child Development. You may also want to read Gottman’s book ‘Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child’.
With all the understanding – of your child’s circumstances and development — should you venture into measuring your pre-teen child’s academic performance.
What should be your method of measuring?
- Standardised tests?
- Personal graphs?
- Individual education plans?
- Profiles of achievements?
- Measuring their co-curricular achievements with academic achievement?
- Personality development with or without academic progress?
Then you also have to answer the following questions :
- How do you wish to track these achievements?
- What should be your response on high/low performance?
- Should you discuss the performance first with the teacher and then with your child or should you do it along with the teacher, or only with your child one on one?
- Should both parents take equal interest and praise/reprimand? Or one of you should take back-seat? Or while one of you measure one kind of performance, the other parent should pursue another?
- How much weightage should you give to the factor of emotional wellbeing of the child vis-à-vis scores in these pre-teen years.
Academic performance is understood to be a measurable outcome of education, vis-à-vis the goals set by the student, teacher or institution and the parent. Most common measure of this achievement is by formative (continuous) assessment or summative (term end test/examinations) assessments. And it’s in this context that you need to argue and ask questions, some of which are listed above. There are no clear answers. Even within standardised tests administered to a class group in the same institution, it is argued whether procedural knowledge (skills and concepts) or declarative knowledge (information on content and facts) should be given more significance. IQ tests are scored by students with higher mental ability and is linked with effort and motivation for achievement in very academic environments. Whereas if your child is attending a school which is more flexible on curricular achievements and has plenty of co-curricular activities or even if your home learning environment is semi-structured, your child’s academic achievement would differ. You must factor in the discourse you have with your child on academic achievement, skill development and expectations of behaviour and attitude.
Another key factor that should be included as you measure your child’s academic performance would be your own academic socialisation. Your socio-economic status and that of your friends and family. Research has shown that the quality of relationship that you have with your child will influence the self-efficacy of your child and thus the academic achievement. Do measure your own quality time spent with your child, while judging your child’s academic performance.
Some of the practical ways to judge your child’s academic performance are:
- To keep an eye on the actual grades achieved in various subjects, in the projects, term reports, graded tasks.
- To chart it with dates and keep a chronological record to discuss if the child is consistently maintaining, improving or regressing in grades.
- To keep the big picture in mind that whether the child is able to understand and apply the material which he/she is working upon and is developing a critical thinking and application based information.
- Take an overview of all the subjects being tackled at the grade level and see if some subjects/topics within the subjects are being understood at the level of mastery and whether some concepts are remaining fuzzy. This may have a compounding impact later especially in Language, Mathematics and Sciences.
- Besides Grades and test scores, be cognisant of participation in extracurricular activities as well. The ability to master a variety of skills in sports, arts, literary areas might support your child to have a well-rounded personality. This is great for the development of the child as well as for senior school/college applications.
- Initiatives, volunteering, leadership positions for organising events and activities in school community and/or in the neighbourhood would stand in good stead for your child and should compensate adequately for any lack of grades/scores.
According to studies conducted by Broh, 2002; Mahoney, Larson, Ecce, and Lord, 2005, participation in extracurricular activities have a positive influence on academic performance. Theatre rehearsal, soccer practice, piano lessons – all contribute towards academic achievement. So, when measuring your child’s academic performance, check out how the child is performing/engaging in the co-curricular activities and check if the graph is positive and indicating growth over time. Positive social relationships and behaviour, developing self-esteem, sense of citizenship – all of these are key markers to keep in mind, while measuring your child’s performance.
One of the areas I have spent most time as a K-12 educator are in discussions with parents to understand the changes that their child goes through at various ages. The ages of 10 to 12, as I have mentioned earlier in this article, are the early adolescent ones. They are not children; they are not young adults. The milestones are not as clearly defined as they are in the preschoolers or early primary years. The boys and girls go through many physical changes and not all of it begins or proceeds at the same pace. Along with the physical changes come the cognitive changes. These are less visible but are palpable to an involved parent. During this time, most of the children learn to think, reason and learn. They are able to conceive of ideas and projects in abstraction. They do not need to see or touch them to plan a project with the materials. They also want to experiment with reasoning and consequences. They can understand complicated emotions like for e.g. the fact that you can hide your sadness with a smile on your face. Your child can start anticipating how you will react to something he/she will say or do and is prepared with an explanation or an excuse or even fabricate a cover up story. As a parent, it is expected of you to be more open, show your trust, be less judgmental in your words as well as show it in your actions. It is important that your child should think it alright to tell the truth to you no matter what has happened.
During these years, it is best that you come to terms with the fact that your child is starting to think with more cognitive maturity, which is almost adult-like, even without having gone through the experiences of adulthood. The mental changes that your child is undergoing, is part of the process of ‘identity formation’. During these years, you will feel that your child is going through phases. It is important for them to go through this and struggle through their understanding of self – as a daughter/son, as a friend, as a class mate, as a student, as a team mate, as a sibling etc. These help them to handle their negative emotions like fear, sadness and anxiety in future. You might observe some contradictory habits like taking a long shower while participating in a marathon for a saving water campaign. He/she may spend hours texting with their friends only to criticize a peer for gossip.
You may want to check out some of the following links for further understanding of early adolescence.
http://www.hunter.cuny.edu/socwork/nrcfcpp/pass/learning-circles/four/Early%20adolescence.pdf
http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/childdevelopment/positiveparenting/middle2.html
While you are making an effort to understand your child, make yourself better understood by your child as well. How well does your child know you? Find out with this quiz. Make up some more questions and substitute mummy/daddy as applicable. This might encourage your child to make one on themselves as a result of which you will have known some more about your own child!
Here are 20 questions on you for your child (be prepared for the most unexpectedly honest answers that your child might come up with):
- What makes mummy/daddy happy?
- What makes mummy/daddy sad?
- What makes mummy/daddy laugh?
- What does mummy call daddy when she is upset?
- How does daddy call mummy when he is looking for something?
- How old is mummy/daddy?
- How tall is mummy/daddy?
- How did mummy/daddy look when they were children?
- What does mummy/daddy do best?
- What is the most used phrase by mummy/daddy?
- What is the job of mummy/daddy?
- What does mummy/daddy do when you are not home?
- What does mummy/daddy like best about you?
- What is the favourite place for mummy/daddy that you to go?
- How do you know that mummy/daddy love you?
- If you were to name your mummy/daddy (like they did for you), what would it be?
- If your mummy/daddy were characters in a film/cartoon/computer game, what would they be?
- What is the favourite activity for your mummy/daddy?
- What does your mummy/daddy always say to you?
- How does mummy/daddy make you laugh?
It would take you time to understand your pre-adolescent child and then some more to understand your adolescent child in years to come. As an educator and a parent, my advice would be to have patience, spend time to sit and chat without agenda, listen more – advise less, share more – ask less, understand more – judge less. As for academic performance – discuss more – measure less.
Nivedita Mukerjee is a journalist and an educator. She enjoys travelling and writes about travel and education with equal passion. She can be reached at niveditamukerjee10@gmail.com.
A version of this post has also been published here:
https://www.parentcircle.com/article/how-to-measure-your-preteens-academic-performance/
Hi! I am Kyra – A TanaBana Story Book
Hi! I am Kyra, is the second one in the series of TanaBana. It is free for you to download Hi! I am Kyra (Click to download the PDF) on a device of your choice.
TanaBana, means warp and weft of a weave, in the Hindi language. And that’s what it is. A story woven with the ‘Tana‘ of ideas, and the ‘Bana‘ of pictures from everyday events that happen in a child’s life. The idea of this series emerged, during a conversation amongst a couple of us friends who share the passion of story, of education. The precious Nano interactions that happen every day amongst young children and between a child and the adult in their environment have the possibility of making a deep and meaningful impact on the mind of a growing child.
We would love to hear your and your child’s feedback on any aspect of the book. Let us know what you liked and what we can do better. We hope you and your child enjoy reading it as much as the TanaBana team enjoyed weaving it.
For those of you who missed out on the first one, I can see a rainbow, here’s the link again I can see a rainbow (Click to download PDF). Enjoy!
Nivedita Mukerjee 