Family Matters

Posts Tagged ‘early childhood’

Sooner or later, every parent faces this dilemma: what to do with the kids’ drawing or art creation? When I had an early childhood center, I ran workshops for parents to explain how important it is to keep a record of their children’s development. If you have more than one child, you know that we forget.

This is a lot like taking photos of the first child, but not as many of the second and only capturing the third child on special occasions (I do not even envy those with more than 3 kids). Keeping a record of our children’s progress and development gets harder with every child.

In all the early childhood centers I have managed and directed, I used to send home all the kids’ artwork every week and record it. I created a folder with the kids where their parents could keep all their work to make sure it does not get lost. But the folder filled up so quickly that after a very short time, they had to clear it to allow more room for new artwork.

So how can all this artwork be kept without overflowing?

This is the message from Julia, describing her sleep problem with her daughter. When she sent me the question, it was easier for me to give her a call and answer her question, but I wanted to share it with you too, just in case you are having similar challenges.

Hi Ronit,

I have looked around your site to try and find some info on sleep problems with kids but had no luck. I know you are very busy, but thought I would ask just in case you can direct me to something that could help me?

My 8 1/2 yr old daughter cannot put herself to sleep, we have her in a single bed next to ours, and one of us has to go to bed at the same time as her, and usually we fall asleep, as it takes her a while to nod off. So as you can see, there is never any ”adult time” in our house. Things are getting rather desperate, as it creates a lot of problems as you can imagine. Hoping you might have time at some point to help me.

Thank you,

Julia.

My kids had their one year old birthday years ago. Eden, my eldest, had her first birthday 20 years ago. She was our first and it was a fun party.

Some friends said to us, “It’s silly to have a party for a 1-year-old, because they don’t understand what’s going on and will never remember”.

Recently, my two sisters had their sons’ first birthdays. People around them said that it was not worth the effort, because the kids would not understand it was their birthday and would never remember it anyway. That brought back all my memories about my kids’ first birthdays.

I am not sure what people mean when they say kids do not “understand”. What is there to understand? And what do they mean when they say this kids will not “remember”? Do they mean the food?

One of the biggest challenges for parents in our time is, well, time. Or at least the shortage of it. Having to keep up with inflation, with the Joneses, with technology, with the news and with ever-increasing demands at work means that many parents need a place for their kids to be after school hours.

Of course, we do not want our kids to be just anywhere. We want to keep them in a safe place, operated by friendly people who like kids, where our children will be kept occupied, interested and preferably even educated. Not an easy thing to find, especially when that place also needs to make money…

On the emotional side, leaving our kids with others and staying long hours at work creates loads of guilt feelings. If you have ever put your child in childcare, I am sure you have thought to yourself, “What kind of a parent am I if my kids spend most of their days away from me and get most of their care from other people?”

This story is not just about one place. It is not even just about after school care. This story is to tell you that when you have to find a place for your kids to spend some time, you can actually find them and your kids can actually be happy there.

Parenting and families are important parts of our society. However, many decisions made by governments recognize the role of parents in building the future only partly. Unfortunately, ignoring the important role parents play in building our society has a direct impact on every section of our life.

When parents cannot support themselves, it is hard to expect them to support their children. Many of the skills required to be a good parent cannot be developed from feeling enormous love towards the kids. I used to say that “love is the answer”, but although love is the foundation of parenting, it is not enough in order to raise healthy, happy, good, smart, social, successful and contributing citizens.

Governments can support parents by investing in the right places to prevent greater expenses in the future. For example, if parents could support their kids’ health and wellbeing, the health system could be smaller. If parents could support their kids’ relationships or to manage their finances, the welfare system could shrink and the government could invest more in development, infrastructure and economic growth.

This week, I asked the top parenting bloggers for suggestions we could give government policy makers to support parents and improve parenting and here is what they thought about it. It is interesting to read what they think. Enjoy!

This week, my 9-year-old daughter Noff went to a play day with 4 of her friends. The parents who came to pick them up also had a bit of “play” time socializing and having a nice pizza and some watermelon.

The discussion was about kids, Santa Clause and fairies. We talked about the right time to tell kids who really puts the money under their pillow and who really buys their gifts for Christmas. I had taken part in similar debates and they always become passionate, as did this one.

Is it honest to tell kids about Santa and the Tooth Fairy?
What should we say when they ask? (Liar, liar pants of fire!)
When is the right time to tell them about the role their parents play in this?
What will they think when they find out we are the real fairies?

Recently, Gal and I saw the movie Avatar. It was a very good movie and ticked most of the boxes for me – it was visually stunning and for a visual person like me, watching it in 3D was an amazing experience and the messages were very clear and very much in line with my philosophy about nature and spirituality.

I could not stop thinking of another amazing animated film I had watched with my kids and loved very much called FernGully: The Last Rainforest. Avatar was a magnificent replication of the messages in FernGully using technology that had not yet been invented in 1992 and a futuristic spin.

When I went to the cinema with Gal, it was packed. To my surprise, there were many young kids there, as young as 3 years old. It immediately made me wonder about the right age to watch that movie (or any movie, for that matter).

Although I had no problem watching FernGully with my kids at the age of 5, I was not sure about letting my 8-year-old daughter watch Avatar. The level of violence in the movie was above and beyond what I thought an 8-year-old kid should be exposed to.

Last weekend, I had a chance to talk to a mother about my better parenting skills program. She told me about her son’s behavior problems and wanted to know what was so magical about my program that made kids perform so well. I said to her, “There is no magic in the program. It is just based on understanding of the human brain, as every one of my parent coaching clients and better parenting skills workshop participants discovers”.

Although I like the thought that I work magic in my programs, I truly believe this magic can be done by everyone who understands the importance of having fun in the learning process and focusing their energy in a positive direction.

The woman told me her son was “hyperactive”.

Now that my birthday is approaching, I wish to bless myself and all my readers with many “F” words.

Yes, I know many people feel offended by being blessed with the “F” word, but I think it is actually Fun.

As a parent, you probably think many times about kids’ manners. For some reason, there is too much attention (in my opinion) to kids using swear words. You see, saying the word “F” has become a rude word. It is not the word that is offensive (what can be offensive about the letter “F”?). It is the meaning people give it.

Last week, I wrote about the influence of watching TV on kids’ and adults’ perception of relationships as disposable and easy to change. Today, I want to write about something very close to my heart – learning and education – and how watching TV affects them.

Some people might say, “Big deal. Not every child has to do well at school. Besides, there are things kids can learn from watching TV too”.

Well, humans must learn to survive. Your kids’ opportunities in life depend very much on their abilities to learn and develop new skills. Read on and you will see that watching TV causes kids to do poorly at school, but this also sets them up for a much more limited life long after they finish school.