Posts in category: Child Development

Your child has begun school!

This first big step is perhaps the most significant moment in the life of a two year old and the second most significant moment in your life as a parent, the first being the moment of her birth itself.

Separation anxiety is a natural phenomenon that every pre-schooler and every parent goes through.
As it is the first time that the child spends time away from you, it is also the first time that you spent your first hours away from the apple of your eye. As much as the child feels in awe of his/her new surroundings, so will the parents feel the vacuum of those few hours hanging heavy on them. 

So invariably the moment the child steps out of the vicinity of the playschool and into your waiting arms, your first question fired at her is: ‘How was school?’.   

1.     To assuage the feeling of guilt arising within you because you packed off your two year old to a new place, away from you. It is almost as if you were a surgeon cutting the umbilical cord all over again!
2.     To re assure yourself that you made the right choice by sending your child to a particular preschool.
3.     To be a part of her whole new world that has suddenly sprouted up! In other words, the parent is wanting a legitimate entry into the child’s ‘home away from home ‘
4.     To soothe your parental nerves with regards to safety and security of your child.
Whatever be the case, it is but natural for a parent to want to know each and every detail of the moments the child spent away from their watchful eyes.

Fair enough. If that is the aim, the urge to ask such a question is a natural offshoot of parental mindset. But to elicit apt feedback from the child, it is desirable that the parent  be equipped with  suitable questions which are open ended and do not draw a monosyllabic response from a child (a monosyllabic response in this case would be the words yes’ or ‘no’, ‘good’ or ‘bad’).

Open ended questions encourage the child to think and respond, to respond and not react and to go beyond the monosyllables and answer in context using sentences.
So dear parents instead of asking, ‘How was school’, try asking:

1.     What was the best thing that happened at school today?
2.     Whom did you play with during playtime or recess? What did you play?
3.     Who is the funniest person in the class? Why is she/he so funny?
4.     If you could change seats with anyone in the class, who would you trade with? Why?
5.     Is there anyone in your class who needs a time- out? Why do you say so?
6.     Tell me 5 new words that you learnt at school today.
7.     If you became the teacher of your class tomorrow, what would you do?
8.     Who would you not want to sit with in class? Why?
9.     How did you help someone in class today?
10.     When did you get bored in school today?
11.     Tell me three times when you used a pencil in school today?
12.     How did you help someone in class today?
13.     Did you make any new friends in school today? Tell me their names please.
14.     Where do you play the most during playtime /snack break/ recess?
15.     Did you have a fight with anyone today? What happened?

Outcome:

•   The answers that such questions elicit will help you to know more about your child’s day at school.
•    It will also help to soothe anxious nerves as the child learns to share all aspects of her school time with you.
•    As you hear her answers, it helps the child to validate her feelings as well.
•    By asking such questions, you are creating a strong link between the school and home. The child understands that the two are connected.

Remember, parenting is a skill! And each skill requires continuous honing.

A smile is one of the healthiest amours that you can equip your child with.
A smile has benefits which touch the cognitive, the socio emotional, the inter personal and the individual potential skills of each child. It is the forerunner amongst all qualities required for making an impactful first impression and desirable body language. It is like the principal amount which you invest in a child’s first bank account hoping to use it years later for end number of reasons. A smile is exactly like that deposit, or if I may say, even better. It begins to get immediate returns, it attracts a higher interest and has huge pay offs.
It is a God gifted priceless non-verbal communication skill that Nature gifts you absolutely free of charge! In a recent research scientists concluded “that smiling can be as stimulating as receiving up to 16,000 Pounds Sterling in cash.”
Given the demonetization period that each one of us is going through, this fact is sure to bring a smile to your face.
To understand the benefits of a ‘smile’, and to know better as to why we should encourage our kids to smile more often, let us study it from various angles:

The science behind a Smile
To quote scientist Andrew Newberg, “When you smile, neuron signals travel from the cortex of your brain to the brainstem (the oldest part of our brains). From there, the cranial muscle carries the signal further towards the smiling muscles in your face. Once the smiling muscles in our face contract, there is a positive feedback loop that now goes back to the brain and reinforces our feeling of joy.” This not only relaxes your body, but it can lower your heart rate and blood pressure. It leads the receiver to feel ‘rewarded’ and the giver to feel equally ‘rewarded back’ as well

The Smile & Body language connect
Pediatricians often tell us that babies ‘smile even when in the womb’.
Within a few months of being born, before an infant can speak she/he connects with others through the act of smiling.
Be it an adult or a child, you actually generate positive energy and transmit positive energy when you smile. A smiling face is definitely more pleasing, attractive, relaxed and appears more sincere &genuine as compared to a no smile facial contour. It’s like comparing an oasis with a desert! When you smile, not only do people treat you differently but even you tend to treat people differently. There is a lot of research which suggests that seeing a smiling face activates your orbit frontal cortex, the region in your brain that process sensory rewards. In simple words it means that when you view a person smiling, you actually feel rewarded.

Smile and the world smiles back at you!
Remember the age old quote – “If you see someone without a smile, give them one of yours.”
The above holds true and works like a plague. A smile is even more infectious than a yawn. When you smile at another person, it generates an unconscious automatic response. A frown begets a frown, a scowl begets another scowl and a smile begets a replica smile. It is as simple as that. This holds true for all adults and doubly so for kids. Kids being the purest form of energy are naturally wired to express laughter, joy and smile much more often than adults.

Smile and the Preschool Connect:
As your child steps into the pre-schooling years, his /her social interaction with peers and others increases dramatically. The child is exposed to members outside his /her immediate family circle. Important life skills are learnt and imbibed within the classroom; playground and all forms of interaction . Social skills such as smiling and laughter are further honed and all studies clearly reveal that 95 per cent of these behaviours occurred when the child was interacting with others and only 5 per cent when the child was alone.Children find it easier to laugh physically in a group. No differences can be found between girls and boys in the overall frequency of smiling and laughter across all preschool age groups. So smiling and laughter increases considerably in context of playful interactions with other children and caregivers during these years. Hence it follows that preschool is the just the right breeding ground for lots of laughter and smiles!

Smiling leads to laughter and ultimately to developing a good sense of humour.
Let us understand the difference between a smile and laughter.
To put it in simple words, Smiling is personal and laughing is public. People often smile when they are reading or when they are having private thoughts.Laughter on the other hand is a social phenomenon. You tend to laugh when in public and tend to smile when in private mode. A sense of humour is the brain’s capacity to perceive, relate, and experience a situation and assess if the situation is funny or not. We acquire this judgmental skill as our mental abilities develop during mid and late childhood. So in that sense, sense of humour is a very mental and intellectual phenomenon.
Children laugh without any mental or cognitive filter. Most of their laughter is an outcome of playfulness and inherent joyfulness.
But as we grow in years, inhibitions, self-doubts, societal programming and mental roadblocks created by self, family, and society block our natural laughter response. So for an adult to laugh as freely as a child, he/she needs to work doubly hard to shed years of such programming.
So as parents, we need to ensure that children do not imbibe these roadblocks to such an extent that they find it difficult to laugh. Inhibitions to laughter once imbibed take years to clear.
On the contrary, Smile and playfulness in childhood help to develop a natural sense of humour amongst kids, leading to laughter. In fact, laughter and humour share a cause-and-effect relationship. They are in unison and cannot be separated. One leads to another.
A good sense of humour can make kids smarter, healthier, and better able to cope with challenges.
So if I were to sum up the benefits of a smiling attitude, they would be as below:
Smiling leads to positive emotional health:
A smiling persona is more approachable, sincere and attractive.
A smile facilitates relationship building.
It helps turn grim situations into bright and sunny ones.
It helps the child see the lighter side of things.
It makes the child feel rewarded.
It helps the child develop social skills and be more adept at handling social interactions.
It breaks down barriers between cultures, race, gender and economic classes.
It helps the child learn that interactions with peers and others can be fun and rewarding.
A smile and laughter eases out stranger anxiety and makes it easier to form friendships.
It ultimately helps the child build a healthy sense of humour.
Children gradually learn to laugh at their own funny physical or verbal behavior.
It builds the belief that a smile is something which can help the world set right.
It helps the child see the lighter side of things and enjoy more than crib.
Many a times it helps them see things from a perspective beyond the obvious. Fact is that everyone loves a person who makes him/her laugh. A smile or laughter leads the body into automated relaxation mode. It reads like the signal – No Danger here!

Having said that, parents, at times, need help to make a stoic child smile more often. Use the following tips and tricks to make them loosen up and smile:
Tell a funny story or read a funny book
Tickle them silly at times
Play lots of happy music
Make funny faces and surprise them at times
Do a funny jig to set the mood right
Set up a routine of practicing laughter yoga.
Help arrange play dates with peers. Social interactions facilitate laughter.
Throw a surprise. Children tend to react to surprises with peals of laughter.
Create a secret password accessible only to the two of you. The thought of secrets and surprises are very amusing to a child’s mind.
And most importantly, to be with a child- become a child. There can be nothing more amusing to a child than the sight of a parent crawling on all fours or diving under a sofa tunnel.
Wishing you loads of smiles to light up your life!

As adults, we have come to understand the importance of reading in our lives. Almost all parents realize that their children need to read for better growth and development. And hence they give a lot of importance to the literacy learning that their child receives from their preschool. As much as it is fair, the entire exercise of reading cannot, or rather should not be limited to an academic environment. Parents of toddlers don’t need to wait till the child reaches the ‘reading age’. Instead, they can familiarize their little ones to the art of reading from their infancy stage, and make it a part of their child’s life.

Importance of reading

There’s a famous saying by Dr. Seuss which goes as, “The more you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” Even though the significance of this statement is quite difficult to comprehend for young minds, it is upon the parents to drive their child towards learning and exposing their minds to new ideas and all that the world has to offer. Helping your child to develop pre-reading skills is one of the best things a parent can do.

Reading is the first step to learning

Introducing the art of reading in your child’s life can be effectively done through audio-visual interaction, much before they can learn to read themselves. In fact, research says, that the ideal place for parents to start reading out to their child is soon after birth. Orienting them gradually with reading at home, creates a mental comfort for the tender minds, which eventually makes learning to read easier for them when they start on their own.

Language and vocabulary development

To help with language development of your child, it is important for you to interact with them and expose them to language that they would speak in. Experts believe that parents can start building their child’s vocabulary by reading out new words and phrases to them. Pre-reading skills contribute to language development through exposure to a wide vocabulary of words, expressions, sentence structures and so on. Reading out and repeating the words and sentences in the most interactive manner will allow children absorb, even if they cannot speak. When they start reading, their brain would automatically relate to those words which they have been read out to.
It is important for them to recognize how words are made up of smaller sounds or phonemes. Actions like clapping for syllables, rhyming, and creating sounds for sounding words, can help your child identify the word or the letter they hear. By hearing and seeing your actions, children combine the phonemes and form words and phrases, which is the first step to language development. This helps develop their ‘phonological awareness’ which leads them to be successful in literacy learning when they start preschool. Phonological understanding in children is also critical for reading and writing as they grow up. And reading is a great platform to make them aware of phonetics.

Reading can be motivational

How to make reading a motivational activity? The way to do this is to make the reading experience full of joy and wonder. Because when children find anything joyful or intriguing, they enjoy it more and find the activity motivating. It creates energy for them. Learning is more meaningful and effective when children are stimulated and inspired. Children whose parents read out to them from infancy and who themselves enjoy the act of reading, are more likely to have better pre-reading skills and are more motivated to read, as opposed to those who have not experienced being read to.

Instilling pre-reading skills in your child

To instill good reading habits and nurture pre-reading skills in your toddlers, here are a few things you could integrate into your child’s life:

Start from the start

At first, children are not able to read but can hear and remember things. So use that potential of your child by making them listen to nursery rhymes. And this exercise is most likely to be effective if you sing out yourself to your little one. The more animated you can be, the more fun it is for your child.

Read out loud

Extending from our previous point of how children can remember from hearing much before they can read, it is essential to make sure that your voice is audible when you read out to you child. Research also shows that reading out loud can increase the brain capacity of children with respect to linguistic skills.

Make the reading activity a special one

Making the entire exercise of reading a special thing to do in the day, or some days of the week can make it more enjoyable for your child. A classic example followed traditionally is the ritual of ‘bedtime stories’. Similarly, you could make going to your neighborhood library or children’s bookstore a singular activity, so your child relates it to reading. Perhaps a Sunday morning picnic in the park with some swing time and some reading time. Or call your child’s friends over for a story-telling session, so they get to listen to stories with their friends. A reading ritual can bring motivation and make your child look forward to that ‘special time’

Integrate simple questions and answers

While you read out a story or pronounce words, create an interactive session with your child by introducing questions and answers. With infants, you might answer the questions yourself. With preschoolers, you could instigate them to give the answer. Always remember to ‘ask’ and not ‘grill’.

On a parting note…
Learning is a complex process for children. For them, to listen, comprehend and process new words every day is a magnanimous task and requires multiple skills at the same time. Every child develops these skills gradually. While some children are fast learners, others might take time. Every child is unique and has their own learning curve. As a parent, you need to be doubly patient with your child and enjoy the journey yourself.

“There is no such thing as a perfect parent. So just be a real one.”

– Sue Atkins, (Specialist in Parenting Issues, Also published several books, including Raising Happy Children for Dummies and Parenting Made Easy).

Fall. Rise. Learn. Repeat.

This is the natural order of a child’s growth. Children are born with an amazing degree of self-confidence, fearlessness and curiosity to explore the world around them and learn on their own. How a child learns to walk and talk almost on his/her own is the simplest and earliest manifestation of this natural ability! This natural urge for autonomy and independence also grows within the child, as he/she grows up.  

With all the good and well-meaning intentions, parents at times miss or overlook this natural need of a child, simply out of their love, affection or even insecurities. It is then, that their love, guidance, help, planning or supervision amplifies into what can be called as 

In today’s age and era with the internet flooding with so much information around the world, some parents have become stressed and feel under too much pressure to produce perfect kids. Over-parenting to a very considerable extent is an outcome of this stress. Just like excess water or sunlight interferes with the growth of a plant, so can excessive parenting interfere with the natural spread of growth of our children. So the secret to raising successful kids without over-parenting lies in simply not over-parenting. We know it is easier said than done. That is why we have prepared a quick checklist of gentle reminders for parents:

•    Effective Communication: Communicate, a lot, communicate often discuss and have conversations as if talking to an adult. Be loving, be strict, listen, listen, listen. Validate their reality. Find time to talk about all things that your child wants to talk about.  

•    Draw no comparisons: Each child is unique and has immense potential to succeed in one or the other area of life. The goal of parenting is “helping your child realize their potential – whatever it is” rightly observed by Amy Chua, Yale Professor and author of the book “ Battle hymn of the tiger mother’’.

•    Foster independence in kids: Step back. Let them sort out their own issues. Let them take some decisions. As L.R.Knost, an independent child development researcher Founder and Director of advocacy and consulting group called “Little Hearts/Gentle Parenting” has observed in one of his researches that “the role of gentle parenting is to help our children learn to control themselves instead of trying to control our children.”  

•    Assign chores at home to develop self-reliance and sense of responsibility: Childhood should prepare kids for adulthood. Parents should give ample opportunities to their kids to get involved in daily chores of the household and praise them when the work is done responsibly. The famous Harvard’s Grant Study on Happiness and life has revealed “that happiness in life comes from the ability to accomplish chores”. Kids need to have the attitude to take up and finish the unpleasant tasks at hand. This is an attitude that also guarantees work life success in future.

•    Limit instant gratification: Kids should be allowed the opportunity to “value” time and money. The attitude to wait, differentiate between need and desire and value resources is again an inevitable key to their success.

•    Guide. Do not take control: “Tell me and I forget, teach me and I remember, involve me and I learn” ~ Benjamin Farnklin. Let them learn from their mistakes. This develops resilience, creativity, problem solving skills and an attitude to accept failures in life and move on bravely.

•    Model resilience: Resilience comes from an opportunity to face failures, endure pain and move on. Parents should not be overprotective about their kids as it interferes with their ability to tackle unpleasant situations and handle them without depression, anxiety or fear, later in their life. It is an important life skill that stands threatened by over-parenting.

•    Let them learn self-advocacy: Kids do not always need parental mediators to solve their problems. Parents should ignore a few occasions to let the child learn to speak up for himself. This builds important survival skills for future.

•    Allow free time: Over structuring a child’s free time with different extracurricular activities is also an aspect of over-parenting. Parents feel the urge to protect their kids from boredom. Not realizing that facing boredom, is an opportunity to develop life skills and nurture creativity. Children need free time to find out their own likes, tastes, interests, hobbies and this is important for successful career as well as personal life. 

•    Avoid overpraising: An important goal of parenting is to foster self-esteem in kids and also at the same time encourage them to excel in their area of interest or choice. Too much of overpraising may lead to overconfidence. A research study conducted by the Columbia University in 2007 found that the overpraised kids tend to avoid activities where they believe they won’t excel.

Conclusion:

Kids need both freedom and boundaries to grow up to be the best they can. But more importantly they need a childhood richly nourished with love, understanding, time and attention of their parents. Knowingly or unknowingly they are constantly preparing the little blueprints for their value system, deciphering that of their parents.

Hence, as parents we should understand that

 “We may not be able to prepare the future for our kids but we can definitely prepare our kids for the future.” – as quoted thoughtfully by Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up. –Pablo Picasso

Art and Craft is a process of exploring, discovering, experimenting and creating. This process holds great value for young children, for it allows them to be creative, imaginative, spontaneous and expressive, all without any kind of inhibition. Simple creative activities engage a child’s senses and are important building blocks of early childhood education and child development.

We all know that creating and appreciating visual art enhances creativity, imagination, and self-esteem, but studies have shown that art and craft activities can also increase a child’s cognitive and social development skills. Art can be an important link in developing the crucial thinking skills and also the motivation that children need to succeed at higher levels.

Building key developmental skills through Art and Craft

Motor Skills: Drawing with a pencil, painting with a brush or doodling with a crayon, are vital to the growth of fine motor skills in young children. Similarly using scissors for a craft activity helps develops the dexterity children will need for writing in later years.

Language Development: Making and talking about art, or describing their own creation, helps children to learn new words, as well as fosters their language and communication skills. It also prompts them to express their feelings without inhibition.

Cognitive Development: According to studies, art strengthens problem-solving and critical-thinking skills children during early age. Making art offers children a multitude of choices and an experience in decision making,  which is a crucial skill required for future success. Thinking, experimenting and creating new ideas will also foster creativity.

Visual Processing: Craft activities like, sculpting with clay, weaving, threading, origami or other paper crafts, all develop visual-spatial skills, which is the ability to mentally manipulate two, three and four-dimensional figures. Strong spatial skills will help young learners in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Playing with colours, patterns, textures, shapes and forms, also encourages perceptual.

Inventiveness: The 21st century needs people with right brain qualities – people who can visualise, problem solve, understand others’ viewpoints, think creatively, and innovate or invent new things. Art is a way to encourage creative and innovative perspectives on things and situations. Expressing, experimenting and taking risks while making art and craft fosters right brain characteristics like innovation and creativity in children.

Let your child play and engage in art & craft activities, as it is more than just play, after all, play is also a form of learning

We often hear parents profess that it is difficult to take out time to play with their child/children. Parents have over busy days, there may be very important work matters to be attended to and several personal commitments to cater to. In the day to day rigmarole, parents often confess to having very less energy to spend with over energized children, especially after a long day at work!

But what a parent misses out is, the understanding of a proven fact that ‘play is undoubtedly the purest form and opportunity ‘of connecting with your child.  During those moments of play, the child’s world just shrinks to just ‘you and him/her’. You are the centre of their microcosm.

45% percent of all Parents feel they DON’T HAVE TIME to play with their children

So why is taking out time and playing with your child/children important?

•    To quote, Lawrence J. Cohen, Ph.D., a psychologist, play therapist and author of ‘Playful Parenting’, ‘Play allows parents to enter a child’s world on the child’s terms’.  It fosters closeness, confidence and connection.

•    Playing is how children reveal themselves to us.

•    It’s also a way to be close and to reconnect after closeness has been severed, let’s say by an argument or conflict or limit setting. The more we join them in their world, the more cooperative they will be when we drag them along to ours.

•    Playing can be a way to find out what’s going on in children’s lives. With their dolls or action figures, children often replay scenes from their lives, putting their own emotional spin on the day’s events. Joining those, gives parents insight into their thoughts and concerns, enabling them to find solutions to conflicts. Interactive play with their parents helps children develop the social skills necessary for getting along with others and is core to their healthy development.  In other words, play encourages emotional literacy.

•    When you play with your child, you are not only connecting and engaging, you’re exchanging back-and-forth emotional signals, which is helping the child regulate mood and behavior, learning to read social signals and learning to communicate. Each of these abilities contributes to a child’s sense of security.

•    Playing with your child demonstrates your respect for them as you show interest in what they do and what they have to say.

•    Children crave time with parents. It makes them feel special. Playing with kids builds a bond that will last forever. It lets the child know he or she is loved and appreciated. It helps the parent get to know and understand the uniqueness of each child. It is also a great stress reducer for overworked parents. This fact alone should be motivating enough to encourage each parent to find time to play!

•    Play could include one to one time with each child and group time with all of the adults and kids in the home. Family Activities are great for the whole family. They help develop strong family bonds which can last a lifetime. It can be said that a family who plays together stays together. If you are a single parent or have an only child, occasionally invite family or friends over to spend time and play with your child.

Having said that, here are a few activities to get parents started with on how they can effectively engage to play with their child. These are simple hands down activities which encourage spontaneous as well as planned play.

•    Go on a scavenger hunt – in the garden, balcony or maybe even the living room. Look for hidden treasures such as family photographs, round pebbles, a discarded peg table or even a red coloured towel. Just make sure there are no items around which could cause injury.

•    Play in a cardboard box! Save the next cardboard box that comes home, big or small and play with it! If you have a large one, go playing housie! If it’s just a small one, try colouring or painting it.

•    Save the bubble wrap that the courier item was delivered in and make a bubble wrap runway for the kids to pop, pop, pop!

•    Make a fort with cushions. Big ones, small ones – use them all.

•    Reuse the play dough jars, or any small containers such as yogurt/jam containers lying around the house and fill them up to make sound jars. Play soft sound and harsh sound game with your toddlers.

•     Get outside and just play catch! All you require is a ball and a partner!

•    Just dig through your store and pull out all the junk you find. Put it together and make a junk art robot! It’s hilariously fun!

•    On a hot summer day, line up all the pillows on the cool floor and walk on pillows. Take turns and have fun while burning some calories as well.

•    Test out your green thumb and try growing a plant! An Indoor Gardening Kit comes with all you need to start growing one.

•    On a lazy Sunday morning, fill up a tub of soapy water to wash your child’s favourite toys.

•    Cut up a side of a cereal box to make a simple 4 or 6 or 8 piece homemade puzzle.  Joining the pieces will improve vocabulary as well.

•    Create music on pots and pans with spoons and ladles to make music! This idea never gets old for kids, no matter how old!  Just make sure that the neighbours do not get a chance to complain.

•    Draw 6 lines on the sidewalk with chalk (like a ladder).  Check how far you and your child can jump.

Once you get started, the ideas pour in magically!
All it needs is the will to shut off the computer, put down your phone, and engage with your child via play.
You will soon discover a different world altogether when you regularly play with your child!

Mindful usage of the word very

A lot of recent research centred on using communicative English Language tells us that we have grown lazy!

Language is the poetry of the heart and should know no shortcuts. What is actually happening these days in the ‘touch button technology’ era is that we have started looking for quick fix expressions. Moreover usage of powerful adjectives has made commonplace by simply adding the prefix – ‘very’
Let’s pause, let’s not be lazy, let’s allow the neurons to strengthen their sheath and the occipital lobe and the frontal lobe deliver their best. The below list has some words for mindful usage in English language, hope it helps you all.

At Little Millennium preschools we encourage and educate the parents continuously with innovative ideas and thoughts that they can practice in there day to day life. Especially it helps kids learn faster, when their parents are using the right English language and avoiding these nuances!

“Your kids require you most of all to love them for who they are, not to spend your whole time trying to correct them.”

― Bill Ayers (William Charles “Bill” Ayers is an American elementary education theorist).

Parenting is an extremely overwhelming experience for an individual, full of highs and lows. Each parent knowingly or unknowingly draws upon and consumes a lot of their creative, emotional, intuitive and intellectual resources to be a better parent. A question that bothers parents today is OVER-PARENTING! How do you realize as a parent when you cross that thin line and start over-parenting, over-structuring and over-controlling your child’s life.

Parenting is a natural skill that is not learnt, taught or followed. For each parent this natural ability to deal with his/her child goes through refinements over a period of time With every new experience had, lesson learnt, guilt borne, promises made to be better tomorrow, a parent evolves his/her parenting techniques, customized to meet his/her child’s needs and nature.

Parenting presents its own unique demands and expectations which are influenced sometimes by genetic, socio economic, psychological or other factors. But the larger common goal of parenting remains the same. And it is, to provide joys and happiness to children and prepare them for a future that is unknown, unpredictable yet full of hopes and promises.

So what is Over-parenting?

Simply put, parenting more than needed or required by/for a child, considering his age, stage of life, specific personality traits is what we can call over parenting. It can manifest itself in one or more of the following ways:

1. Over protective or excessive handholding
2. Over directive or micro managing aspects of child’s life
3. Excessive mollycoddling and instant gratification of child’s demands

Parents need to listen to their own inner voice guiding and telling them when it is time to step back a little and provide the space and opportunities that a child seeks to explore and enjoy. Parenting that keeps pace with the developmental milestones and needs of the child and changes/ adapts to it stays well within the right side of that thin line. Which of course is one tricky aspect for parents!

Why is over-parenting dangerous?

The perils of over-parenting are far overbearing in the later life of a child as an adult. With lesser opportunities of decision making, risk taking, failures, self-advocacy, planning, organizing, reflecting about own likes and dislikes, strengths and weaknesses, over-parented kids often grow into adults ill-equipped to take on the heavy weights that real life has to offer.

Over-parenting and controlling behavior of the parents leads to children finding lesser opportunities to take decisions and face challenges on their own.

Following are the common problems that over-parented kids may face:

1. Poor decision making
2. Lack of self-advocacy skills
3. Fear from taking risks in life
4. Fear of failures
5. Poor levels of planning and organizing
6. Low motivation levels to take responsibilities
7. Poor self-connection
8. Lack of knowledge about personal strengths and weakness
9. Decline in  natural creative abilities
10. Prone to anxiety and depression

According to a research at Johns Hopkins University, published in Child Psychiatry and Human Development in 2012 “Such children believe that they were less competent, and hence suffer from triggered increases in anxiety levels.”  The same outcome was achieved from a separate study published in the Parenting: Science and Practice in 2013 which found that “the lower levels of autonomy along with controlling behaviors were found to be detrimental to social adjustment, a circumstance that may lead to behavioral or emotional issues such as anxiety.”

Conclusion:
Times have changed with the advent of technology especially with both the parents joining the workforce. But a child’s need for their parent’s time, attention, love and trust still remains the same, even today. The deeper the connection between a child and a parent, the bleaker are the possibilities of over-parenting. The right amount of parenting makes childhood an eventful and happy preparation for later life.

After all, it is not what you do for your children, but what you have taught them to do for themselves that will make them successful human beings.

Your child has begun school!

This first big step is perhaps the most significant moment in the life of a two year old and the second most significant moment in your life as a parent, the first being the moment of his/her birth itself.

Separation anxiety is a natural phenomenon   that not only every pre-schooler goes through but also their parents.  And naturally so, as it is the first time that the child attends playschool, it is also the first time that you (as a parent) probably spend all of two hours away from the apple of your eye. As much as the child feels in awe of his/her new surroundings, so will the parents feel the vacuum of those two hours hanging heavy on them.  

So invariably the moment your child steps out of the vicinity of the playschool and into your waiting arms, your first question fired at him is: “How was school?”

The aim of this question could be any of the following:

1. To assuage the feeling of guilt arising within you because you packed off your two year old to a new place, away from you, for all off 2 – 3 hours. It is almost as if you were a surgeon cutting the umbilical cord all over again!
2. To re-assure yourself that you made the right choice by sending the kid to a particular preschool
3. To attempt to be a part of his whole new world that has suddenly sprouted up! In other words, the parent is wanting a legitimate entry into the child’s ‘home away from home ‘
4. To soothe your parental nerves with regards to safety and security of your ward

Whatever be the cause, it is but natural for parents to want to know each and every detail of the moments the child spent away from their watchful eyes.

Fair enough. If that is the aim, the urge to ask such a question is a natural offshoot of parental mind-set. But to elicit apt feedback from the child, it is desirable that the parent be equipped with suitable questions, which are open ended and do not draw a monosyllabic response from a child (a monosyllabic response in the this case would be the words – ‘yes’ or ‘no’, ‘good’ or ‘bad’)

Open ended questions encourage the child to think and respond, to respond and not react and to go beyond the monosyllables and answer in context using sentences. So dear parents, instead of asking, “How was school”, try asking :

1.  What was the best thing that happened at school today?
2.  Whom did you play with during playtime or recess? What did you play?
3.  What word did your teacher say the most today?
4.  Who is the funniest person in the class? Why is she/he so funny?
5.  If you could change seats with anyone in the class, who would you trade with? Why?
6.  Is there anyone in your class who needs a time-out? Why do you say so?
7.  Tell me 5 new words that you learnt at school today.
8.  If you became the teacher of your class tomorrow, what would you do?
9.  Who would you not want to sit with in class? Why?
10. How did you help someone in class today?
11. When did you get bored in school today?
12. Tell me three times when you used a pencil in school today?
13. How did you help someone in class today?
14. Did you make any new friends in school today? Tell me their names please.
15. Where do you play the most during playtime /snack break/ recess?
16. If I called your teacher today, what do you think she will say?

Outcome:
• The answers that such questions elicit will help you to know more about your child’s day at school.
• It will also help to soothe anxious nerves as the child learns to share all aspects of his/her school time with you.
• It breeds honesty and forthrightness.
• As you hear his /her answers, it helps the child to validate his/her feelings as well.
• By asking such questions, you are creating a strong link between the school and home. The child understands that the two are connected.

Remember, parenting is a skill! And each skill requires continuous honing.
All the very best.

“The world is so full of a number of things, I’m sure we should be as happy as kings.”
~Robert Louis Stevenson

And yet boredom, above all the poetic utopia is a fact and a reality that exists. Especially with children. In simple words, boredom is a signal that our brain is

(i) either disinterested in the activity at hand, or

(ii) has no activity at all to be engaged in

In both cases the brain seeks excitement or stimulation to release endorphins (the happiness hormone), so that it can make us feel happy, motivated and content once again.

When it comes to children, boredom has been a subject of many scientific researches and ongoing studies. Educational experts and psychologists have shown immense interest in boredom as a subject of research. Growing parental concerns regarding addressing or ignoring the boredom nags of a child has remained a debatable topic. Let us discuss this.

Children are naturally curious.

 Children are naturally curious and their appetite to learn new concepts leads them from one activity to another. They yearn to engage themselves in new and stimulating activities; that is how their brain naturally develops sharper and faster. They are always learning, even when they are simply observing.

As Prof. E.S. Krishnamoorthy, Director, Institute of Neurological Sciences, Chennai states “It is normal for a child to be curious and seek novelty. It protects their brains from degeneration later”. Boredom in kids therefore is a temporary phase that they naturally learn to deal with, if given the opportunity to do so.

Children are naturally wired to tackle monotony.

Ray L. Wilbur, of Stanford University observed that “the potential possibilities of any child are the most intriguing and stimulating in all creation.” Children have a natural resilience to tackle ennui and boredom. Children are blessed with the ability to create, innovate and invent new means to entertain themselves.

Boredom is therefore crucial for the development of imagination and the ability to develop ‘internal stimulus which allows true creativity’’ as observed by Dr. Teresa Belton, visiting fellow at the University of East Anglia. The ability to develop the internal stimulus sparks creativity, inventiveness, friendliness, resourcefulness, hones the planning and problem solving skills of children and inculcates leadership when left to devise self-directed activities in groups.

Children naturally utilize idle time to create self-awareness and reflect on their own interests.

Dealing with boredom effectively is a life-skill that kids need to be left alone to master. This aspect of boredom versus the children was studied by Adam Philips, a British psychoanalyst in 1993. He argued in his essay that in the irritable confusion of boredom, the child often reaches a state of “emptiness from where his real desire crystallizes.”

This is infact a subtle journey of self-actualization for children and is essential for them to find that deeper connect with their own personalities. Baroness Greenfield, a neuroscientist and an Oxford University professor has also made a similar observation in her works and said that ‘youngsters develop a sense of identity from having to find things to do’.

Parents respond to child’s boredom in primarily two ways:

(I) Engagement in structured activities

Boredom as unpleasant as it may seem is a modern day luxury. In our new social and cultural set up, we have overloaded our kids with our expectations. Parents are generally hard pressed on time, and prefer to keep their kids engaged in a lot of activities to avoid an empty mind. There is a whole new economy thriving on keeping the kids engaged and busy. Apart from a variety of structured activities like dance, drama, theatre, art and crafts, skating, swimming, karate and several other sports activities we now see a rising trend of weekend and holiday workshops.

While these activities do offer a lot of exposure to the kids, it does rob them off the free and idle time to simply stare, observe, reflect and think. An over stimulated brain suffers habituation effect of a constant supply of external stimulus. Such children may have low levels of self-motivation and creativity when it comes to utilizing the rich moments of solitude. In his book titled ‘The Conquest of happiness’ famous philosopher Sir Bertrund Russel devoted a chapter to the importance of boredom for children. He observed, ‘too much travel, too much variety of impressions are not good for the young’ as it causes them to become incapable of enduring monotony later in life. He rightly observed that the “imagination and capacity to cope with boredom must be learnt as a child”.

Children need some time to daydream and just be. They need some time to stand and stare, to reflect and introspect. This span of mental downtime as they call it is prone to episodes of boredom, which can safely be ignored in their larger interest. This is an integral part of growing up and essential to develop an inner focus, observe, make opinions, and internalize feelings and emotions. A lot of structured time offers no space to children for mind wandering and to figure out their propensities which are the foundation for later life choices in both academics and career.

 (II) Instant gratification with technological aids

Another way in which parents often tend to treat boredom of kids is by offering instant gratification by way of screen time on laptops, iPads, smart phones and television, to avoid the corrosive guilt pangs on their parental mettle. Such instant gratification is a ‘misguided approach’ by parents as claimed by Adam Philips.

Understandably, the goal of all these activities that parents engage their kids with is to offer them exposure to various activities and let them discover their own special talents as well as interests they are gifted with. But more often than not, there is a real risk of over stimulating and over planning your child’s life as well!

Technological aids offer a connection with virtual world only, thus impeding the growth of social emotional component in kids. Moreover being a directed activity, technological entertainment has complete dependency on external stimulus. An exposure to a lot of information on media and other technological tools consumes the attention of children and researches have seen a rise in the number of kids identified with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHd). Dr Teresa Belton, an academic and education expert observed that screen time tends to “short circuit the process of development of creative capacity and for the sake of creativity we need to slow down and stay offline”.

What Parents can do apart from what they usually do

Sometimes, being bored for a child means an inability to find deeper connections with people around or with his/her surroundings. It could also be due to communication starvation or togetherness depravity. Parents often overlook the reasons for a child’s boredom and handle it with quick fixes that only end up aggravating the problems later in life. Parents can rise to the occasion and make better parent child bonding during such phases of boredom faced by a child. Togetherness and communication are healthier and gentle responses to a bored child.

John Gottman, a child psychologist and a Professor at University of Washington, has found that parents who expose their children to negative emotions like sadness and boredom without distracting them raise more emotionally intelligent children as these children fully feel and work through these emotions. This is a subtle preparation for later life crisis and challenges.

CONCLUSON

Samuel Johnson, a prolific English writer has articulately stated ‘it is every man’s duty to assume the moral responsibility for his own boredom.” In our increasingly hyper connected and fast paced life, boredom is a luxury, parents are duty bound to allow their kids to explore and tackle. It will help them develop life skills, fuel creativity, instill the art of imagination and inculcate self-reliance.