Repeat after me "I don't care whether you win or lose"
parents who overemphasize achievement are more likely to have kids with high levels of depression, anxiety, and substance abuse compared to other kids.
I know you can do it if you put your mind to it.
You did really well. You must have worked hard.
When we praise children for the effort and hard work that leads to achievement, they want to keep engaging in that process. They are not diverted from the task of learning by a concern with how smart they might or might not look.
When we praise our kids by unintentionally attributing their successss to their innate gifts, we hand them a recipe for anxiety and joyless achievement.
We can praise our kids all day long, as long as we are attributing success to things such as effort, commitment, resourcefulness, hard work and practice.
How to criticize our kids
when we feel disappointed in a child, it is important to approach the topic constructively. outright criticism rarely achieves the results we are after. The best first step is often to do nothing. Cool off and wait until you have your emotions in check. bring it up later when you're able to use a tone of voice that sounds loving and inquisitive rather than disappointed and critical.
Then ask them to evaluate their performance or behavior themselves:“ARE you happy with what you did” "Is there anything you would do differently next time" . Tone matters. Your tone should communicate love and support, not accusation and judgement.
Second, make it clear that you see failure as an event, not an identity.
Failure
The ability to learn and recover from failure is an essential life skill.Rather than seeing failure as fertile ground for learning and growth, too often we treat it as something to be avoided at all costs. That's all, just a mark missed.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Raising Happiness
Happiness is a skill set that parents can teach to their kids. If we want to be happy, and if we want our children to be happy, we have to learn how to turn the skills presented and the positive skills we already have, into automatic habits.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
mindful parenting
Keys to mindful parenting:
1. notice what is happening and what you are feeling and thinking.
2. accept what is going on without judgement. a book: everyday blessings: the inner work of mindful parenting. 7 intentions and 12 exercises for mindful parenting.
Example of mindful parenting.
kids get up late in the morning. Asked her to get dressed but she didn't respond, instead, plays with some toys. I got cats litter to clean, dog to feed. I became more and more irritated with the kid. I wasn't ready for work myself and was beginning to worry about impending deadlines. I started to bark orders. Get dressed！ What's up with you?
To rewind the morning, what's mindful parenting? All I need to do was take stock of the situation. Notice my feelings of anxiety and exhaustion. Notice the kid's exhaustion was also making her distractible and emotional. Notice that no matter how speedy we had been, I still would not have been able to get to work on time. Accepting this situation nonjudgementally rather than futilely trying to force it to be something other than it was. I might have been able to help my kid be more mindful by putting her in touch with her tiredness was making her more distratible. Then I could have ushered her along in a more supportive way, by showing empathy, offering her a meaningful rationale, and giving her choices.
1. notice what is happening and what you are feeling and thinking.
2. accept what is going on without judgement. a book: everyday blessings: the inner work of mindful parenting. 7 intentions and 12 exercises for mindful parenting.
Example of mindful parenting.
kids get up late in the morning. Asked her to get dressed but she didn't respond, instead, plays with some toys. I got cats litter to clean, dog to feed. I became more and more irritated with the kid. I wasn't ready for work myself and was beginning to worry about impending deadlines. I started to bark orders. Get dressed！ What's up with you?
To rewind the morning, what's mindful parenting? All I need to do was take stock of the situation. Notice my feelings of anxiety and exhaustion. Notice the kid's exhaustion was also making her distractible and emotional. Notice that no matter how speedy we had been, I still would not have been able to get to work on time. Accepting this situation nonjudgementally rather than futilely trying to force it to be something other than it was. I might have been able to help my kid be more mindful by putting her in touch with her tiredness was making her more distratible. Then I could have ushered her along in a more supportive way, by showing empathy, offering her a meaningful rationale, and giving her choices.
imaginative play,pretend play
particularly beneficial.make sure kids have ample time for it.
Dramatic pretend play with two or more children stimulates social and intellectual growth.
The more complex the imaginative play, the better. Make sure that kids have enough time: a half hour is the minimum. Play that lasts several hours is better. Encourage kids to use symbolic props- sticks for fairy wands and boxes for cars or houses--rather than prefab toys. Older children can be encouraged to participate in drama classes and clubs. But remember: ballet class isn't the same as making up a dance with friends in the backyard.
when playing, let kids lead. if you notice yourself frowning, sighing, or rolling your eyes when your children aren't playing the way you want them to, take a step back and let them run the show.
If you don't enjoy participating in kids' pretend play, skip doing that part to avoid sending the messages that they shouldn't like it either. It's perfectly fine for parents to back off a little and let children play on their own or with other children, especially once they are four to five years old.
Dramatic pretend play with two or more children stimulates social and intellectual growth.
The more complex the imaginative play, the better. Make sure that kids have enough time: a half hour is the minimum. Play that lasts several hours is better. Encourage kids to use symbolic props- sticks for fairy wands and boxes for cars or houses--rather than prefab toys. Older children can be encouraged to participate in drama classes and clubs. But remember: ballet class isn't the same as making up a dance with friends in the backyard.
when playing, let kids lead. if you notice yourself frowning, sighing, or rolling your eyes when your children aren't playing the way you want them to, take a step back and let them run the show.
If you don't enjoy participating in kids' pretend play, skip doing that part to avoid sending the messages that they shouldn't like it either. It's perfectly fine for parents to back off a little and let children play on their own or with other children, especially once they are four to five years old.
Raising Happiness-Teach Self-Discipline
The ability of self-regulate is an important key to success and happiness.Self-discipline facilitates learning and information processing. Self-disciplined kids cope better with frustration and stress and tend to have a greater sense of social responsibility.
The Go system in our brains is the basis of our emotions and fears and passions. It helps us process emotional information quickly and react fast when we are in danger. It makes us grab that marshmallow instead of patiently waiting for researcher to return. The Go system reacts to external stimulus and is literally under stimulus control rather than self control.
The Know system is the seat of self-regulation and self-control. It is slow and strategic, taking time to think and consider consequences. The go system is thought to exist at birth. The know system develops throughout childhood.
How to be an authoritative parent:
Set clear firm limits, do follow-through,supervision and be there.
but don't be controlling, even in a well-meaning way.
Exude warmth.
Don't react to misbehavior, preempt it.
Techniques that cool the go system and engage the know system:
play games that teach self-regulation. Simon Says and Freeze Tag. Cooking.
Let kids ample time for complex imaginative play. Unstructured and imaginative playtime builds executive function in kids, an important cognitive skill related to self-regulation. Martial arts, dance, music, and storytelling build self-discipline by requiring kids to hold complex info in their mind.
Encourage self talk. Another reason why imaginative play is good for building self-regulation is that it often involves the kids' talking to themselves or their playmates in a way that directs their actions. Encourage kids to talk to themselves and listen to that little voice in their head.
Teach them to distract themselves.
Reduce their stress
Turn off the boob tube.
Have realistic expectations.
The thing with punishment--physically punitive practices such as spanking as well as threatning behaviors such as yelling, grabbing, and verbal coercion, is, they are ineffective.
Alphie Kohn king of don't reward or punish your kids. his book--Punished by Rewards.
Beyond Bribes, threats and dangling carrots:
pick your battles. If you are having a hard time rationalizing your request, maybe it isn't important enough.
Use a light touch. Thinking in terms of creating structure and limits rather than in terms of control. There is a world of difference between setting limits--establishing the structure you need to disciplin--and bossing kids around.
Appeal to kids reason.
The Go system in our brains is the basis of our emotions and fears and passions. It helps us process emotional information quickly and react fast when we are in danger. It makes us grab that marshmallow instead of patiently waiting for researcher to return. The Go system reacts to external stimulus and is literally under stimulus control rather than self control.
The Know system is the seat of self-regulation and self-control. It is slow and strategic, taking time to think and consider consequences. The go system is thought to exist at birth. The know system develops throughout childhood.
How to be an authoritative parent:
Set clear firm limits, do follow-through,supervision and be there.
but don't be controlling, even in a well-meaning way.
Exude warmth.
Don't react to misbehavior, preempt it.
Techniques that cool the go system and engage the know system:
play games that teach self-regulation. Simon Says and Freeze Tag. Cooking.
Let kids ample time for complex imaginative play. Unstructured and imaginative playtime builds executive function in kids, an important cognitive skill related to self-regulation. Martial arts, dance, music, and storytelling build self-discipline by requiring kids to hold complex info in their mind.
Encourage self talk. Another reason why imaginative play is good for building self-regulation is that it often involves the kids' talking to themselves or their playmates in a way that directs their actions. Encourage kids to talk to themselves and listen to that little voice in their head.
Teach them to distract themselves.
Reduce their stress
Turn off the boob tube.
Have realistic expectations.
The thing with punishment--physically punitive practices such as spanking as well as threatning behaviors such as yelling, grabbing, and verbal coercion, is, they are ineffective.
Alphie Kohn king of don't reward or punish your kids. his book--Punished by Rewards.
Beyond Bribes, threats and dangling carrots:
pick your battles. If you are having a hard time rationalizing your request, maybe it isn't important enough.
Use a light touch. Thinking in terms of creating structure and limits rather than in terms of control. There is a world of difference between setting limits--establishing the structure you need to disciplin--and bossing kids around.
Appeal to kids reason.
Friday, March 25, 2011
mindset
Today most experts agree it''s not either-or.It's not nature or nurture, genes or environment. It's both. Gilbert Gottlieb an eminent neuroscientist put it, not only do genes and environment cooperate as we develop, but genes require input from the environment to work properly. At the same time, scientists are learning that people have more capacity for lifelong learning and brain development than they ever thought.
Parents think they can hand children permanent confidence-like a gift-praising their brains and talent. It doesn't work, and in fact has the opposite effect. We should keep away from a certain kind of praise-praise that judges their intelligence or talent. Or praise that implies we are proud of the for their intelligence or talent.
We can praise them as much as we want for the growth-oriented process-what they accomplished through practice, study, persistence, and good strategies. And we can ask them about their work in a way that admires and appreciates their efforts and choices.
Haim Ginott, came to the same conclusion "Praise should deal, not with the child's personality attributes, but with his efforts and achievements".
Constructive criticism is a feedback that helps the child to understand how to fix something.
----
I know most of you can't spell your name. You don't know the alphabet, you don't know how to read. I promise you that you will. None of you has ever failed. School may have failed you. Goodbye to failure, children. Welcome to success. You will read hard books in her and understand what you read. But you must help me to help you. If you don't give anything, don't expect anything. Success is not coming to you, you must come to it.
Great teachers set high standards for all their students, not just the ones that are already achieving.
Parents think they can hand children permanent confidence-like a gift-praising their brains and talent. It doesn't work, and in fact has the opposite effect. We should keep away from a certain kind of praise-praise that judges their intelligence or talent. Or praise that implies we are proud of the for their intelligence or talent.
We can praise them as much as we want for the growth-oriented process-what they accomplished through practice, study, persistence, and good strategies. And we can ask them about their work in a way that admires and appreciates their efforts and choices.
Haim Ginott, came to the same conclusion "Praise should deal, not with the child's personality attributes, but with his efforts and achievements".
Constructive criticism is a feedback that helps the child to understand how to fix something.
----
I know most of you can't spell your name. You don't know the alphabet, you don't know how to read. I promise you that you will. None of you has ever failed. School may have failed you. Goodbye to failure, children. Welcome to success. You will read hard books in her and understand what you read. But you must help me to help you. If you don't give anything, don't expect anything. Success is not coming to you, you must come to it.
Great teachers set high standards for all their students, not just the ones that are already achieving.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Nutureshock--could self-control be taught
The notion of being able to sustain one's own interest is considered a core building blocks in Tools.Parent usually thinks of urging their children to pay attention, to be obedient to a teacher. They recognize that a child can't learn unless she has the ability to avoid distractions. Tools emphasizes the flip-side--kids won't be distracted because they're so consumed in the activities they've chosen. By acting the roles they've adopted in their play plans, the kids are thoroughly in the moment.
tools suggest a different benefit entirely--that during playtime, children learn basic developmental building blocks necessary for later academic success, and in fact they develop these building blocks better while playing than while in traditional class.
Take, for example, symbolic thought. almost everything a classroom demans a child learn requires grasping the connection between reality and symbolic, abstract representation: letters of the alphabet are symbols for sounds and speech, the map on the wall is a symbol of the world. the calendar is a symbol to measure the passage of time.words on paper,such as the word TREE, looks nothing at all like an actual tree.
Young children learn abstract thinking through play, where a desk and some chairs become a fire engine. More importantly, when play has interacting components, as in Tools, the child's brain learns how one symbol combines with multiple other symbols, akin to high-order abstract thinking. A child masters the intellectual process of holding multiple thoughts in his head and stacking them together.
Consider high-order thinking like self-reflection, an internal dilogue within one's own mind, where opposing alternatives are weighed and carefully considered. This thought-conversation is the opposite of impulsive reaction, where reactions are made without forethought. All adults can think through ideas in their heads, to differing abilities. Tools is designed to encourage early development of this Socratic consciousneess, so that kids don't just react impulsively in class, and they can willfully avoid distraction. Tools does this by encouraging that voice in the head, private speech, by first teaching kids to do it out loud- they talk themselves through their activities.
The upshot of Tools is kids who are not merely behaved, but self-organized and self-directed.
Executive funtion--planning, predicting, controlling impulses, persisting through trouble, and orchestrating thoughts to fulfill a goal. though these are very adult attributes, executive function begins in preschool, and preschooler's executive function can be measured with simple computerized tests.
Every parent has observed a young child nd wondered, with some frustration, when he'll be able to sit still, to sustain an activity for a sold half-hour?. At times it seems that a child's cognitive ability, which might be very high, is at war with his distractability. Being able to concentrat, a skill might be just as valuable as math ability, or reading ability, or even raw intelligence.
Being disciplined is more important than being smart. Being both is not just a little better--it's exponentially better. Self-control or self-discpline is malleable.
Due to multitude of empirical evidence, there is now consensus on the effectiveness of self-regulated learning on academic achievement, as well as on learning motivation.
tools suggest a different benefit entirely--that during playtime, children learn basic developmental building blocks necessary for later academic success, and in fact they develop these building blocks better while playing than while in traditional class.
Take, for example, symbolic thought. almost everything a classroom demans a child learn requires grasping the connection between reality and symbolic, abstract representation: letters of the alphabet are symbols for sounds and speech, the map on the wall is a symbol of the world. the calendar is a symbol to measure the passage of time.words on paper,such as the word TREE, looks nothing at all like an actual tree.
Young children learn abstract thinking through play, where a desk and some chairs become a fire engine. More importantly, when play has interacting components, as in Tools, the child's brain learns how one symbol combines with multiple other symbols, akin to high-order abstract thinking. A child masters the intellectual process of holding multiple thoughts in his head and stacking them together.
Consider high-order thinking like self-reflection, an internal dilogue within one's own mind, where opposing alternatives are weighed and carefully considered. This thought-conversation is the opposite of impulsive reaction, where reactions are made without forethought. All adults can think through ideas in their heads, to differing abilities. Tools is designed to encourage early development of this Socratic consciousneess, so that kids don't just react impulsively in class, and they can willfully avoid distraction. Tools does this by encouraging that voice in the head, private speech, by first teaching kids to do it out loud- they talk themselves through their activities.
The upshot of Tools is kids who are not merely behaved, but self-organized and self-directed.
Executive funtion--planning, predicting, controlling impulses, persisting through trouble, and orchestrating thoughts to fulfill a goal. though these are very adult attributes, executive function begins in preschool, and preschooler's executive function can be measured with simple computerized tests.
Every parent has observed a young child nd wondered, with some frustration, when he'll be able to sit still, to sustain an activity for a sold half-hour?. At times it seems that a child's cognitive ability, which might be very high, is at war with his distractability. Being able to concentrat, a skill might be just as valuable as math ability, or reading ability, or even raw intelligence.
Being disciplined is more important than being smart. Being both is not just a little better--it's exponentially better. Self-control or self-discpline is malleable.
Due to multitude of empirical evidence, there is now consensus on the effectiveness of self-regulated learning on academic achievement, as well as on learning motivation.
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