practical parenting / parents Tag | Family Matters

When Do Kids Learn Left and Right and How to Teach It Best

Telling left from right is very useful in life. Without it, we lose our sense of direction. Every parent tries to teach their young children to tell which is their right hand, and which is their left, so they can do basic things.

Many parents ask me why their children confuse right and left and how to teach them easily.

The reason children confuse between right and left can be organic (learning difficulties), emotional (stress and low emotional intelligence) or bad teaching.

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Who’s Afraid of Teens Using Drugs?

Research with parent and children indicates that one of the most effective methods to prevent young people from using drugs is a devoted parent who spends time with their teens, talks with them (not to them) about their friends, their school, their sports and what interests them. The research also reports that teens appreciate parents’ advice and care a lot about what their parents think of them, their actions and their friends and consider this parental feedback a sign of caring.

But how do we get to be our teens’ friends?

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Anorexia: Dying to Be Thin!

I recently spent some time coaching a woman suffering from Anorexia Nervosa. She weighed 32kg and would not eat to save her life!

A study in high schools in Canada found that 50% of girls were on a diet because they thought they were overweight. If your daughter is young and you think, “I’ll deal with it when she is a teen”, think again. Records show that eating disorders are increasingly seen in children as young as 10. A research in Canada in 2002 found 37% of Canadian females aged 11, 42% aged 13 and 48% aged 15 say they need to lose weight. By the way, 52% of them started dieting before the age of 14.

What can we do about it? I think we can do a lot.

This post is part 1 of 8 in the series Anorexia

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Teen(r)age: In Search of Love and Uniqueness

Many parents report frustration and doubt regarding their parenting when their wonderful children reach teen age. They dread this period and express tension and even fear. Instead of getting closer to their growing children, their child’s first teen birthday marks the formation of “the generation gap”. Teens become emotional, irrational and mysterious. Parents ask themselves “Why do teens behave the way they do? Is it hormonal? Why are they so emotional? Is it normal?”

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Hugs: The Ultimate Antidepressant

For a while, I’ve been thinking of ways to motivate my readers to live an inspiring life that will make a difference. Many people think that the way we can make a difference is by doing big things and I think we need to re-define the meaning of “big”.

I think we can make a difference, a big difference, by changing the depression statistics in the world. One person at a time, we can teach how to put happiness in our hearts and chase away the darkness. And you are probably asking yourself, “And how do we do that with no budget, without the support of the government and without organizing ourselves in a formal way?”

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Happiness!

During the holiday season, when people sum up the last year and get ready for the new year, we wish them a special wish of happiness. A simple, but the ultimate wish.

During the holidays, when the shops are full of people buying presents to each other, with much love and care, it is the best time to ask why.

Why do we buy things for each other? Why do we pay an expensive flight ticket to celebrate with the family? Why do we diet before a get together?
Deep inside, we all know that the reason we buy things, get together with family, diet or clean the carpet is our desire for good, happy feelings.

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Celebrate!

It is a unique point in time when a person contemplates his or her purpose in life. When I was a kid, I had different reasons for being. I couldn’t see the stream and I couldn’t imagine the destination it could take me to. Staying in one place was a goal I spent a lot of energy on because it was easy and comfortable. For children, life is a chain of continuous changes. Finding rules, structure, logic and sense only promotes the fear of change and blocks the eyes from seeing options. In every period, I think I had more rules to live by and at the same time felt it was much harder to let go of them and allow the stream to take me to fascinating destinations I could hardly imagine.

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