How To Get My Child To Read

How To Get My Child To Read

The following advice is based on my Montessori and teaching experience, psychotherapy experience, and my experience educating my own four boys. As I am fluent in three foreign languages, I am familiar with the challenges of tackling new language material. It was through enjoyment of the beauty of those languages that I saw that enjoyment was the surest path to appreciation of language and reading. So when asked, “How to get my child to read?” I answer, through teaching him to enjoy it.

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Dealing with misbehavior… Think Happiness!

Dealing with misbehavior… Think Happiness!

When dealing with misbehavior, we have to look at what is its’ root and source. If we look we will find that most misbehaviors are fueled by unhappiness. The child has a low sense of well-being, he or she is frustrated, bored or feels powerless and misbehaves in a desperate attempt to relieve that unhappiness. Therefore the solution for dealing with misbehavior is to raise his happiness level. We do this by injecting joy into his day at key points.

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How to Get My Child to Obey: Parenting Tips that Work

How to Get My Child to Obey: Parenting Tips that Work

Every parent has gone through a period where their child refuses to follow instructions. Children often misbehave or disobey because a want or need is not being met. When we, as parents, recognize why our children are being uncooperative, we can take steps to improve communication and compliance. The following parenting tips can help you address behavior challenges so you no longer have to think, “I don’t know how to get my child to obey.” Please bear in mind that the following principles represent a parenting ideal, and I don’t expect anyone to fulfill them perfectly. Therefore, have patience with yourself and try to implement new ideas gradually.

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Praising Your Child: Common Parenting Challenges

Praising Your Child: Common Parenting Challenges

We all understand that a wise parent doesn’t put down his or her child verbally. Instead, many parenting guides will say to catch your child doing good and praise him. Lavishly extoll his virtues and qualities, his brains, beauty, and especially his good deeds. This, they say, is the way to build healthy self-esteem in a child. However, as we shall see, there are many difficulties with this approach.

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How to Get My Child to Cooperate…

How to Get My Child to Cooperate…

Almost every parent has thought at some point, “I don’t know how to get my child to cooperate.” You may feel like you are at your wits’ end, unsure what else you can try to improve your child’s behavior and compliance. The following suggestions are based on the work of Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish, renowned parenting experts, synthesized with my own ideas that come from my research, training and experience helping parents and children learn to communicate and cooperate. Please bear in mind that the principles I offer here represent a parenting ideal, and I don’t expect anyone to fulfil them perfectly. Have patience with yourself and your child, and try to implement new ideas gradually.

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How To Stop A Temper Tantrum: 7 Tips for Tired Parents

How To Stop A Temper Tantrum: 7 Tips for Tired Parents

It’s probably not an exaggeration to describe young children as nearly helpless. They are completely dependent on their parents for all their physical and emotional needs. Most misbehavior is a misguided, desperate attempt to fulfill those needs. Therefore, we can learn how to stop a temper tantrum and other misbehavior by being careful and planning ahead to ensure we are fulfilling our children’s needs.

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How to Validate Your Child’s Feelings

How to Validate Your Child’s Feelings

It can be unhealthy or disruptive to allow your child to do whatever he or she wants whenever he or she wants. You have to limit his or her behavior for everyone’s safety and well-being. However, your child can and should be able to feel anything he or she needs or wants to feel. Feelings are involuntary and automatic. We cannot control them and they are not the result of choice. Therefore, we should not be held responsible for how we feel, even if it is uncomfortable to someone else. You must accept and validate your child’s feelings if you wish to foster greater emotional health and resiliency. 

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How to Get My Child to Listen: 5 Techniques to Gain a Child’s Cooperation

How to Get My Child to Listen: 5 Techniques to Gain a Child’s Cooperation

In their classic book “How To Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk”, Faber and Mazlish, international experts on parent-child communication, list five amazing techniques to deal with children’s difficult or oppositional behaviors and emotions. By describing, giving information, saying with one word, saying how you feel and writing notes, you can learn how to get your child to listen. In this post, I’ve synthesized Faber’s and Mazlish’s thoughts with my own ideas on how to gain a child’s cooperation and added elucidation. Please bear in mind that the following principles represent a parenting ideal, and I don’t expect anyone to fulfil them perfectly. Therefore, have patience with yourself and try to implement new ideas gradually.

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Supporting Children Through a Separation or Divorce

Supporting Children Through a Separation or Divorce

During and after the separation, it is crucial to remember this point. Parents’ fighting severely traumatizes children. He fears that if Mommy and Daddy are going to abandon each other, then they will abandon him too. This is called an abandonment annihilation trauma. He further fears that if his parents are going to mistreat each other, they will mistreat him too. If you need to argue, put on the T.V. loudly and go behind closed doors. It’s hard to stick by this rule when passions flare up, but it pays to try your best.

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Education Tips for Parents

Education Tips for Parents

The following education tips for parents will not only improve your child’s education, but will do wonders for his or her emotional health and your relationship as parents, two things that are arguably even more important that education. I have developed these tips based on my Montessori and teaching experience, clinical experience, advice from my mentors and experience educating my own four boys.

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Toys, Junk Food, Video Games and T.V. – Finding Healthy Child Activities

Toys, Junk Food, Video Games and T.V. – Finding Healthy Child Activities

The name of the game with these items is balance. If they get too much it is unhealthy and corrupting. If they don’t get enough it is intolerable for them, they feel deprived, are miserable and tend to get obsessed with what they’re missing. You need to use great wisdom to figure out exactly how much each child needs.

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