Want to help your toddler develop healthy eating habits? Offer him only healthy food. There's no reason he needs sweets or junk food at all. But even more important than what he eats is his relationship with food. You want him to be in charge of how much he eats, and of getting it into his own mouth. The basic rule of thumb on feeding your toddler: You choose what foods he eats. He chooses how much he eats, and how. Why? Because each of us is born with inner signals that tell us how much we need to eat. When we override our children's innate knowledge, we handicap them for life, and set them up to be unable to regulate their own eating. Toddlers don't need much. Many of them eat a lot one day and very little the next, but children don't starve themselves. If you obsess about how much she eats, or get into fights with her about food, you're setting up power struggles. You can't win a fight with someone about their own body. And you wouldn't want to. Your goal? To give her a sense of control over her food, which will eliminate power struggles and later eating disorders. At the same time, of course, you want what she eats to be healthy. Your strategy? Wait as long as possible before introducing sweets and don't keep sweets in the house. Offer a variety of healthy foods at each meal. Let him feed himself. Don't push her to eat more than she wants or reward her for eating a lot. Don't follow her around shoveling food into her mouth. And if your toddler is anything like mine, use a splat mat, and dunk him in the bath after each meal! What about snacks? Toddlers' little stomachs need numerous smallish meals throughout the day. That means snacks, but it doesn't ever mean unhealthy food. The best toddler snacks are simply smaller portions of food you would be happy to see them eat at a meal: healthy crackers with cheese or peanut butter, cut up fruit, soup, hard boiled eggs, yogurt, steamed broccoli. Many toddlers are too busy during the day to eat enough and ask for food at bedtime. This can drive a parent around the bend, unless you build a bedtime snack into the schedule – which also often helps kids settle down and sleep better. You can combine it with the bedtime story if you’re short on time, but bedtime snacks for toddlers are always a good idea. Worried about a picky eater? Most toddlers go through a picky stage. There's an evolutionary reason -- toddlers are "programmed" genetically to only eat familiar foods because unfamiliar foods could be poisonous. Those toddlers who were adventurous eaters probably didn't live long enough to pass their genes on to us, so we most likely come from a long line of picky toddler eaters! Don't make extra food for your toddler at dinner because you're bound to resent it and it sends her the wrong message. Just serve a variety of healthy foods and let them decide what to try. If your dinner isn't toddler-friendly -- if, heaven forbid, all the food is touching in a casserole, for instance -- then put some simple extras on the table, such as cheese slices, hard-boiled egg, or veggies with hummus for dipping. Don't worry that your child will always be a picky eater. That's rare, as long as they have an array of healthy foods from which to choose, and don't get addicted to junk food. Talk about healthy food choices, but above all, talk about taste. When you say "Delicious!" and clearly mean it as you take a taste of a food, your child is much more likely to want to try it than when you say "This is so good for you!" Taste buds change to enjoy a variety of tastes, including bitter tastes, as kids get older. Eventually virtually all kids come to enjoy the foods they've seen their parents enjoy. You should teach your kids by taking help from Point-system for kids which would help you to develop a healthy and happy child.
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So she’s giving up the crib? Or moving out of the family bed? You’ve been to the store and picked out the cutest toddler bed? All of you are totally excited? Except instead of rolling over and falling asleep, now she comes out every two minutes to find you? All evening long? And the next day she’s a basket case because she’s so exhausted? Welcome to the Toddler bed. Kids love the new-found freedom. They can’t help but test the limits. And being all by herself with no sides can feel very scary. So how can you get her to form the new habit of falling asleep in her new big-girl bed without you losing your mind? Be aware, going into this transition, that this is a big move for your child. Naturally, it makes her insecure. She needs your support to learn how to go to sleep in her big-girl bed. Sure, it comes naturally to you. But you've been doing it for many years. To her, this is a new skill, and she needs your help to get used to it. So cultivate a sense of humor. Tell yourself this is a test to show what a patient parent you are. Don’t expect to have much of an evening for a week or so. Then, just stay calm and keep reinforcing the limit that it’s bedtime. Here’s how: 1. Before you make the big transition, be sure your child has a regular bedtime routine. Then follow that exact routine when he moves to his new bed. (For help with bedtime routines, see Helping Your Toddler Learn to Put Himself to Sleep.) 2. Introduce the subject by pointing out any friends or cousins with “big kid” beds. Get him excited before you get the new bed. Reading books is also a terrific way to introduce the idea; there are links at the end of this article to some good books to check out. 3. Don’t initiate the transition from the crib while he’s potty training, or when you’re moving to a new house. It might seem easiest not to move the crib, but that’s more change than most little people can handle all at once, and you’ll find it just isn’t worth it. 4. If you’re moving your child to make room in the crib for a new sibling, be sure the transition occurs a good three months before you expect the new baby. You want your toddler to be happy in his new bed before he sees an interloper in his crib. If your child is not really ready to leave his crib, you can save yourself and him a lot of grief by borrowing a second crib for awhile, until he’s ready. 5. It’s a good idea if the toddler bed can be in the same place where his crib was. If your kids will share the room, move the crib to a new place in the room if you can. 6. If at all possible, let your child pick the bed. If someone is giving or loaning you a toddler bed, stress to your child that she gets Cousin Jane’s bed now because she is almost as big as Cousin Jane. When the bed is delivered, let your child help unpack and assemble it. 7. If you're using a regular twin bed, start off with the mattress on the floor. Rather than on a bedframe, for both safety and coziness. You can add the bed frame in a couple of years. 8. Make his new bed cozy, like a little den. It’s important to make sure you use as many things from the crib as possible (blankets, for instance) so that he feels comfortable in the new bed. It’s fine to let him pick out new superhero sheets, but his crib blanket is what he’ll need most. Most kids love being surrounded by stuffed animals. Be sure to use guardrails; in addition to being more safe, they help kids feel more secure, so he's less likely to keep getting out of bed. 9. If your bedtime routine does not include audio, consider adding it.Many toddlers fall asleep more easily while listening to familiar, calming music. Over time, as soon as they hear the music, it will become a cue for their body to begin settling into sleepiness. Depending on the age of your child, there are also wonderful bedtime story and relaxation audios, but you'll need to read reviews and listen in advance to be sure they're age appropriate. The great thing about a story, even one that's repeated every night, is that it keeps your child's attention so he doesn't get worried and keep coming to find you. 10. Before the big night, act out the scenario with stuffed animals. Your toddler will watch avidly as the little elephant kisses mama or daddy goodnight and snuggles under the covers in his own bed. Have the parent sing the little elephant the same good night songs you sing to your little one. This will help him understand what's going to happen. 11. On the big night, initiate bedtime an hour earlier than usual. Explain to your child that she is going to sleep in the big bed tonight. Go through the normal bedtime routine. What you do next depends on your child. Some kids can handle it if you sit in the doorway of the room, reading with a book light, while they fall asleep. But most kids need us to sit right next to them, on the bed. That way she feels your presence acutely, which will give her great reassurance. Of course, if you need to cuddle her so she feels safe enough to fall asleep, by all means do so. She doesn't need to get out of bed to find you, so she’ll develop the habit of snuggling down and going to sleep rather than of getting out of bed to look for you. 12. If he tries to engage you in conversation, just say “We’ll talk tomorrow. It’s sleep time now.”Keep your attitude positive, respectful, and detached. Be boring and consistent. 13. If he starts to get out of bed, say "It's bedtime, you need to stay in bed." Move closer so you can gently keep him in bed if he starts to get up. Stay calm, respectful, and empathic, as in “It’s a big change, sleeping in your new bed. Soon you’ll be used to it.” But don’t let him get out of bed. You don’t want him developing that habit. Stay as close to the bed as you need to, to start. This eases the transition and lets your child learn to fall asleep in the new bed. Are you developing a bad habit? No, this is a transition, and you will be able to ease out of it, once your child is comfortable in the bed. 14. If your child cries, comfort him. Some children are very frightened of their parent leaving, and will cling to you. In that case, remind yourself that this fear needs expression, and don't leave your child alone to cry. Instead, when she begins crying, stay with her and let her cry as much as she needs to. As she begins to stop, let her know that now you'll be leaving. In other words, you don't actually ever leave her crying. You simply remind her that you'll be leaving, and then help her with the anxiety that surfaces. Stay as close as you need to, to comfort her -- and move only as far away as you need to so that her fear comes up. After she "shows you" her fear, it will evaporate. Yes, that may take a few days, but sooner or later she will no longer be frightened when you say you need to leave. Is this sleep training? It would be more accurate to say that your child was having a hard time separating from you to fall asleep, so you helped her surface and dissolve the fears that were causing her separation anxiety. Notice that you never left her alone to cry. Instead, you announced your plan to leave and then helped your child through her fearful reaction. Anxiety—another word for fear—is often at the root of children’s sleep issues. While there is nothing at all wrong with a toddler sharing her parents’ bed, children who can verbally understand are certainly capable of sleeping alone, once they get some help with their fears. You can help your children to learn different things from the popular children book series and they can learn about financial freedom and life lessons. Tantrums are normal for toddlers, even legendary. Toddlers feel so passionately about everything, and they simply don't have enough frontal cortex capacity yet to control themselves when they're upset. That said, you'll be glad to know that many tantrums are avoidable. Since a good number of tantrums result from feeling powerless, toddlers who feel they have some control over their lives have fewer tantrums. And since toddlers who are tired and hungry don't have the inner resources to handle frustration, managing your toddler's life so he isn't asked to cope when he's hungry or tired will reduce tantrums. An ounce of prevention really is worth a pound of cure. Here's how to tame those toddler tantrums: 1. Stay calm and re-connect. Remember that once your toddler is upset, her brain isn't capable of calming her down. She needs a calm adult to soothe her so she can re-regulate. So when she feels disconnected or overwhelmed, your priority is to calm yourself and reconnect with her. 2. Try to handle upsets so they don’t escalate. It's amazing how acknowledging your child's anger can stop a brewing tantrum in its tracks. Before you set a limit, acknowledge what your child wants. 3. Since most tantrums happen when kids are hungry or tired, think ahead. Preemptive feeding and napping, firm bedtimes, enforced rests, cozy times, peaceful quiet time without media stimulation -- whatever it takes -- prevent most tantrums, and reground kids who are getting whiny. Learn to just say no -- to yourself! Don't squeeze in that last errand. Don't drag a hungry or tired kid to the store. Make do or do it tomorrow. 4. Make sure your child has a full reservoir of your love and attention. Kids who feel needy are more likely to tantrum. If you've been separated all day, make sure you reconnect before you try to shop for dinner. 5. Sidestep power struggles. You don't have to prove you're right. Your child is trying to assert that he is a real person, with some real power in the world. That's totally appropriate. Let him say no whenever you can do so without compromise to safety, health, or other peoples' rights. 6. When your child gets angry, remember that all anger is a defense. Against more uncomfortable feelings-- vulnerability, fear, hurt, grief.If you can get him to go back to those underlying feelings, his anger will dissipate. 7. Create Safety.Usually at this point your child will cry. If he'll let you hold him, do so. If he won't, stay close, even if he won't let you touch him. He needs to know you're there, and still love him. Be calm and reassuring. Don’t try to reason with him. Your goal is just to create safety, so he can let all those feelings come up. Once he gets a chance to show you his sad feelings, he'll feel, and act, a lot better. Think about what you feel like when you’re swept with exhaustion, rage and hopelessness. If you do lose it, you want someone else there holding things together, reassuring you and helping you get yourself under control -- but only after you've had a good cry. After the tantrum: First, take some “cozy time” together to reconnect and reassure. (No, you're not "rewarding" the tantrum. She needed this connection with you or she wouldn't have had the tantrum to begin with! And of course, make sure that your child gets enough “cozy time” with you that she doesn’t have to tantrum to get it.) Second, tell the story of what happened, so that your child can understand and reflect, which builds the pre-frontal cortex. At the time of pregnancy, managing your wife's emotions is a difficult thing because she needs more care and attention, if you want to learn more about it then please drop your comments in the comment section. As Father's Day approached, a group of dads got together in Shawnee Park to play kickball and catch up. The men are part of a Kentucky-based program that teaches them how to better communicate with and care for their kids. James Bush Jr., 42, is an alumnus of the 4 Your Child program, which launched about four years ago and is led by University of Louisville professor Armon Perry. Bush brought a couple of his kids, including his 21-year-old son Tavion Mitchell, to the park. He and Mitchell played some kickball with other folks who showed up for the gathering that evening before everyone stopped to snack and chat for a while. Bush was in the 4 Your Child program's inaugural class and credits the initiative with giving dads like him a space to talk about the challenges they struggle with and hear about better ways of handling those setbacks. "It's a way of venting and getting knowledge at the same time," he explained. His son said he's noticed a change in his father since he completed the program a few years ago, noting that Bush is now more up-front if something important is bothering him. "He's a lot better at communicating," Mitchell said of his father. "I prefer that than just keeping quiet. Nobody's a mind reader, especially not me." Perry, an associate professor at U of L's Kent School of Social Work, said the 4 Your Child project is meant to help fathers who want to take a more active role in their children's lives increase their personal capacity to do that. This isn't a remedial program, Perry stressed. It simply gives men who want to be better fathers some guidance and support. "We're just stepping in and connecting them with the resources that will allow them to act on their intentions," he said. Participants receive 28 hours of parenting-related education over seven weeks, during which they attend workshops on topics like co-parenting. "We're talking positive communication, we're talking empathy, we're talking conflict resolution skills," he said of the topics the program tackles. "We equip them with additional information around child development so that they can begin to have a much clearer understanding of what they should expect out of their children at different points in their children's lives." One of the first things they do is talk to the men about masculinity and help them deconstruct gendered expectations of fatherhood, Perry said. Being a dad is about more than just providing financially for your kids, although that's still important to many men. "In a more contemporary society, we're asking men to not only be providers but (also) we're asking them to be nurturers and caregivers," he said, and many fathers could use some tips on how best to do that. Participating fathers also are eligible for up to six months of case management services, where professionals can help them identify their goals and leverage their personal strengths and available community resources. The top two goals the men cite most often are spending more time with their children and finding more gainful employment, Perry said. To join the program, fathers must be at least 16 years old and have at least one child they don't live with all the time. It's free to participate. Bush and other dads who came to Shawnee Park for a mini-Father's Day celebration especially credited the program with improving their co-parenting skills. "This program has done a lot for me as a man and as a father," said Dominique Price, a 38-year-old alumnus of the 4 Your Child initiative. He has a more regular, structured presence in the lives of his three children now and has a more peaceful (and less stressful) relationship with their mother. They're on the same page in terms of how to parent at this point. "That was vital," he said. Detrick Ellery, 31, said he's been learning how to communicate better with his children, among other skills. The 4 Your Child program has been particularly helpful to him as a young father, he said, and it's a big deal to have someone from the program he can call for advice whenever he needs it. Willie Wright, 60, is also in the middle of the program right now and is already seeing improvements in his approach to parenting. "It's making me a little bit smarter when I make choices for my younger (9-year-old) son," he said. "I'm an old man raising a young kid, and I don't always see things the way they see things." Bush sees the 4 Your Child initiative as a brotherhood because the fathers who go through it end up building relationships with one another, as well as with their children. "I don't care if you've got a great relationship with your kids, at least check it out," he suggested to men who are considering whether to get involved in the program. Those bonds with other fathers are something Price also values. He said he hopes to strengthen the ties between 4 Your Child alumni so they can support one another and remind themselves of the lessons they've learned. When 4 Your Child launched in 2015, it was envisioned as a five-year program. It operates not only in Louisville but also in Morehead, Owensboro and Paducah, providing support and resources to dads across Kentucky. To date, about 900 fathers have participated. The project has been funded by a federal grant and is set to run through September 2020, but Perry's looking at how it might be able to keep going after that. "We feel as though we've built something that is important and necessary," he said. "We're trying to build a community of support around our guys." You can find out more information from Dad blogs about how to develop healthy habits among your kids. Almost 2 million children could lose out on vital public health care and food assistance due to a proposed Trump administration rule change related to U.S. immigration, a new study argues. As many as 1.9 million children with specific medical problems are projected to drop out of federal health and nutrition benefit programs if the administration follows through on a plan to broaden the definition of "public charge," researchers estimate. When an immigrant applies for entry into the United States or a green card, immigration officials judge whether the person is likely to become a "public charge" -- dependent on public benefits for the long term. "It was intended to identify individuals who are expected to rely on government benefits for life," said lead researcher Dr. Leah Zallman, an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. Current policy holds that an immigrant who has received cash assistance or has been institutionalized in a government-funded facility can be deemed a public charge, researchers said in background notes. But in October 2018 the Trump administration proposed adding a broad array of benefits to the list that immigration officials consider when assessing a person's potential to become a public charge. These include enrollment in Medicaid, the Supplemental Nutrition Insurance Assistance Program (SNAP), and Section 8 housing vouchers. "These really aren't benefits that are in any way indicative of people likely to be reliant for life," Zallman said. "They really are benefits that are geared towards helping families lead successful and healthy lives, and traditionally have been ones that people use briefly and then move on to having lifetimes of advancing local economies and local cultures in the U.S." The rule isn't in effect yet, but pediatricians say it's already had a chilling effect among immigrant families whose children need these benefits for their health and well-being, said Dr. Lanre Falusi, a pediatrician in Washington, D.C. and a spokeswoman for the American Academy of Pediatrics. In recent weeks, an immigrant mother took her newborn child to Falusi's office for a well-baby checkup. As part of the visit, Falusi recommended that the mom apply for SNAP and the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) on her baby's behalf. "She declined, saying she heard that accepting these programs -- even for her child, who was born here in the United States -- would be harmful for her in terms of her immigration status in the future," Falusi said. "I see this more and more frequently." To estimate the number of kids who would go without needed programs due to this rule change, Zallman and her colleagues evaluated data from a 2015 federal survey that assesses health care needs, use, expenditures and medical conditions within households across the nation. The data showed that 8.3 million children currently receiving Medicaid, CHIP or SNAP benefits are potentially at risk of disenrollment. Of those kids, 5.5 million have specific medical needs: more than 615,000 with asthma, 53,000 with epilepsy, 3,600 with cancer and 583,000 with disabilities. Parents worried about their immigration status could pull as many as 1.9 million kids with these sorts of medical problems out of programs that would help keep them healthy, the researchers estimate. "The children we are talking about here are for the most part citizen children who need medical care and are likely to be disenrolled from these benefits," Zallman noted. The kids whose parents pull them from these programs will be at higher risk of health problems and will be less likely to do well developmentally and excel in school, Falusi said. They also will be at greater risk of dying, Zallman said. "When that asthma attack flares up, those kids can die. Diabetic kids going without insulin can be fatal. Epilepsy without proper treatment can be fatal," Zallman said. Zallman and Falusi urge immigrant parents whose kids qualify for benefits to sign up or stay enrolled, because current enrollment cannot be used against them after the final rule takes effect. "There's a lot of good guidance right now for people to stay enrolled," Zallman said. "It's not going to be retroactive. There's no reason to disenroll now." More than 260,000 comments were submitted in response to the proposed rule, most in opposition, Zallman said. The Department of Homeland Security is required to read and respond to the comments before issuing a final rule. It is important for the parents to keep a check on what their kids are doing on a regular basis. It is the duty of every parent about explaining government to kids and try to make them better human beings in there lives. IT SEEMS LIKE EVERYONE is trying a gluten-free diet these days. For about 1 in 100 children though, celiac disease makes a gluten-free diet a medical necessity. Celiac disease is an autoimmune condition in which exposure to gluten, a protein found in wheat, barley and rye, can result in damage to the digestive system and widespread inflammation in the body. Celiac disease can show up at any point in life, and cause symptoms ranging from severe digestive problems, joint pain and fatigue to emotional issues – or no symptoms at all. The good news? We know exactly how to treat celiac disease: Take gluten out of the body. Right now, a strict gluten-free diet is the only treatment, and there is no magic pill (although scientists are certainly trying to develop medication that would treat celiac disease). People with celiac disease are very sensitive to gluten – just a few crumbs can trigger an immune reaction. Aside from food, gluten may be hidden in everyday items like lip balm, medicine and art supplies. For a parent of a child with celiac disease, that means thinking about everything your child puts into his or her mouth. The gluten-free diet can feel complicated, limiting and just plain hard, which is one reason why psychologists are helping families on their gluten-free journey. Education about the gluten-free diet is important, but learning to cope with everything that comes along with it is also crucial to succeed and thrive. Here are some tips to help support your child living with celiac disease:
Start Small If you or your child feels overwhelmed about switching to a gluten-free diet, you’re not alone. Some people find it’s easier to adopt a gluten-free diet all at once while others may need to make incremental changes. If it feels like a lot, start with one change each week that seems manageable. Pick your child’s favorite gluten-containing food and look for a good replacement. Most people find that it feels hard at first but it gets easier over time. Make Arrangements at Home Cross-contamination of gluten is a major source of accidental gluten exposure, which can be enough to keep celiac disease active. Some people keep a separate gluten-free cabinet and condiments, while others make their entire home gluten-free. There is no right way to go – just what’s right for you and your family. Get School Accommodations Children with celiac disease and gluten sensitivity qualify for accommodations under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Ask for a meeting with school administrators to discuss setting up what's called a 504 plan. As you advocate for your child, don’t forget to be grateful and polite with school staff. They will be more likely to learn how to protect your child by partnering with them. Check Your Favorite Brands, Recipes and Restaurants Don’t assume your favorite products, recipes and restaurants are a no-go. Contact manufacturers or look on their websites to see if your favorite products are gluten-free. Chances are some recipes you already use can be easily modified. Attend a gluten-free expo to sample new foods before you buy them, such as the Washington DC Gluten-Free Expo & Education Day, which Children’s National Health System is organizing this year, the Celiac Disease Foundation’s Gluten-Free Expo in Pasadena, California, and the Nourished Festival, which appears in 10 cities per year. There are many websites and apps, including barcode scanners and databases, to help. Don’t forget to continue to check labels and talk to servers, as recipes and formulations can change unexpectedly. As you navigate celiac disease, you’ll find tons of information online, from recipes, grocery-shopping guides and research to support groups and discussion threads. Take advantage of these resources and learn about the condition, but beware of misinformation. You’ll find the best, up-to-date information from nonprofit organizations, medical institutions and the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. When in doubt, ask your doctor or dietitian or contact a celiac expert like a gastroenterologist who specializes in treating the condition. Be Careful About Hypervigilance It’s a tough balance between avoiding gluten and feeling overwhelmed or anxious. If your fears of possible exposure are getting out of control and undermining your or your child’s quality of life, consider whether there is a safe way to face your fears while minimizing the chance of exposure. Use Positive Parenting Strategies Just as with upholding other household rules, be firm about what foods are off limits. This supports healthy growth and development. Employ the same strategies you use to teach your child how to brush teeth, be polite or look both ways before crossing the street. You can help ease distress by focusing on the positives – “You can still enjoy chocolate!” – and offer options so they feel a sense of control. Reinforce these rules in a way that’s consistent with your parenting style and that works well for your child. Empower your Child With your help, encourage your child to be an active part of managing his or her diet. Young children can learn to ask, “Is that gluten-free?” or say no when offered food. Elementary school-age children can start to read food labels, and middle schoolers can help with shopping lists and practice asking questions at restaurants. With your help, teens might order their own food at restaurants or plan ahead for meals out of the house. Apps and website searches can be helpful in this process. With your supervision and guidance, your child can learn self-advocacy skills to last a lifetime. You can easily find out the ways to build your child's self esteem from popular children book series and can help them to learn about how to face hurdles of their life and solve them easily.. Childhood social and personality development emerges through the interaction of social influences, biological maturation, and the child’s representations of the social world and the self. This interaction is illustrated in a discussion of the influence of significant relationships, the development of social understanding, the growth of personality, and the development of social and emotional competence in childhood. Learning Objectives:-
Introduction:- “How have I become the kind of person I am today?” Every adult ponders this question from time to time. The answers that readily come to mind include the influences of parents, peers, temperament, a moral compass, a strong sense of self, and sometimes critical life experiences such as parental divorce. Social and personality development encompasses these and many other influences on the growth of the person. In addition, it addresses questions that are at the heart of understanding how we develop as unique people. How much are we products of nature or nurture? How enduring are the influences of early experiences? The study of social and personality development offers perspective on these and other issues, often by showing how complex and multifaceted are the influences on developing children, and thus the intricate processes that have made you the person you are today. Humans are inherently social creatures. Mostly, we work, play, and live together in groups:- Understanding social and personality development requires looking at children from three perspectives that interact to shape development. The first is the social context in which each child lives, especially the relationships that provide security, guidance, and knowledge. The second is biological maturation that supports developing social and emotional competencies and underlies temperamental individuality. The third is children’s developing representations of themselves and the social world. Social and personality development is best understood as the continuous interaction between these social, biological, and representational aspects of psychological development. Relationships:- This interaction can be observed in the development of the earliest relationships between infants and their parents in the first year. Virtually all infants living in normal circumstances develop strong emotional attachments to those who care for them. Psychologists believe that the development of these attachments is as biologically natural as learning to walk and not simply a byproduct of the parents’ provision of food or warmth. Rather, attachments have evolved in humans because they promote children’s motivation to stay close to those who care for them and, as a consequence, to benefit from the learning, security, guidance, warmth, and affirmation that close relationships provide. One of the first and most important relationships is between mothers and infants. The quality of this relationship has an effect on later psychological and social development. Although nearly all infants develop emotional attachments to their caregivers–parents, relatives, nannies– their sense of security in those attachments varies. Infants become securely attached when their parents respond sensitively to them, reinforcing the infants’ confidence that their parents will provide support when needed. Infants become insecurely attached when care is inconsistent or neglectful; these infants tend to respond avoidantly, resistantly, or in a disorganized manner. Such insecure attachments are not necessarily the result of deliberately bad parenting but are often a byproduct of circumstances. For example, an overworked single mother may find herself overstressed and fatigued at the end of the day, making fully-involved childcare very difficult. In other cases, some parents are simply poorly emotionally equipped to take on the responsibility of caring for a child. The different behaviors of securely- and insecurely-attached infants can be observed especially when the infant needs the caregiver’s support. To assess the nature of attachment, researchers use a standard laboratory procedure called the “Strange Situation,” which involves brief separations from the caregiver (e.g., mother). In the Strange Situation, the caregiver is instructed to leave the child to play alone in a room for a short time, then return and greet the child while researchers observe the child’s response. Depending on the child’s level of attachment, he or she may reject the parent, cling to the parent, or simply welcome the parent—or, in some instances, react with an agitated combination of responses. Infants can be securely or insecurely attached with mothers, fathers, and other regular caregivers, and they can differ in their security with different people. The security of attachment is an important cornerstone of social and personality development, because infants and young children who are securely attached have been found to develop stronger friendships with peers, more advanced emotional understanding and early conscience development, and more positive self-concepts, compared with insecurely attached children. This is consistent with attachment theory’s premise that experiences of care, resulting in secure or insecure attachments, shape young children’s developing concepts of the self, as well as what people are like, and how to interact with them. As children mature, parent-child relationships naturally change. Preschool and grade-school children are more capable, have their own preferences, and sometimes refuse or seek to compromise with parental expectations. This can lead to greater parent-child conflict, and how conflict is managed by parents further shapes the quality of parent-child relationships. In general, children develop greater competence and self-confidence when parents have high (but reasonable) expectations for children’s behavior, communicate well with them, are warm and responsive, and use reasoning (rather than coercion) as preferred responses to children’s misbehavior. This kind of parenting style has been described as authoritative. Authoritative parents are supportive and show interest in their kids’ activities but are not overbearing and allow them to make constructive mistakes. By contrast, some less-constructive parent-child relationships result from authoritarian, uninvolved, or permissive parenting styles (see Table 1). Comparison of Four Parenting Styles:- Parental roles in relation to their children change in other ways, too. Parents increasingly become mediators (or gatekeepers) of their children’s involvement with peers and activities outside the family. Their communication and practice of values contributes to children’s academic achievement, moral development, and activity preferences. As children reach adolescence, the parent-child relationship increasingly becomes one of “coregulation,” in which both the parent(s) and the child recognizes the child’s growing competence and autonomy, and together they rebalance authority relations. We often see evidence of this as parents start accommodating their teenage kids’ sense of independence by allowing them to get cars, jobs, attend parties, and stay out later. Family relationships are significantly affected by conditions outside the home. For instance, the Family Stress Model describes how financial difficulties are associated with parents’ depressed moods, which in turn lead to marital problems and poor parenting that contributes to poorer child adjustment. Within the home, parental marital difficulty or divorce affects more than half the children growing up today in the United States. Divorce is typically associated with economic stresses for children and parents, the renegotiation of parent-child relationships (with one parent typically as primary custodian and the other assuming a visiting relationship), and many other significant adjustments for children. Divorce is often regarded by children as a sad turning point in their lives, although for most it is not associated with long-term problems of adjustment. Peer Relationships:- Peer relationships are particularly important for children. They can be supportive but also challenging. Peer rejection may lead to behavioral problems later in life. Parent-child relationships are not the only significant relationships in a child’s life. Peer relationships are also important. Social interaction with another child who is similar in age, skills, and knowledge provokes the development of many social skills that are valuable for the rest of life. In peer relationships, children learn how to initiate and maintain social interactions with other children. They learn skills for managing conflict, such as turn-taking, compromise, and bargaining. Play also involves the mutual, sometimes complex, coordination of goals, actions, and understanding. For example, as infants, children get their first encounter with sharing (of each other’s toys); during pretend play as preschoolers they create narratives together, choose roles, and collaborate to act out their stories; and in primary school, they may join a sports team, learning to work together and support each other emotionally and strategically toward a common goal. Through these experiences, children develop friendships that provide additional sources of security and support to those provided by their parents. Teaching money management to your kids is an other important part of personality development of kids which is very essential to make them completely ready to face all the phases of their lives. However, peer relationships can be challenging as well as supportive. Being accepted by other children is an important source of affirmation and self-esteem, but peer rejection can foreshadow later behavior problems (especially when children are rejected due to aggressive behavior). With increasing age, children confront the challenges of bullying, peer victimization, and managing conformity pressures. Social comparison with peers is an important means by which children evaluate their skills, knowledge, and personal qualities, but it may cause them to feel that they do not measure up well against others. For example, a boy who is not athletic may feel unworthy of his football-playing peers and revert to shy behavior, isolating himself and avoiding conversation. Conversely, an athlete who doesn’t “get” Shakespeare may feel embarrassed and avoid reading altogether. Also, with the approach of adolescence, peer relationships become focused on psychological intimacy, involving personal disclosure, vulnerability, and loyalty (or its betrayal)—which significantly affects a child’s outlook on the world. Each of these aspects of peer relationships requires developing very different social and emotional skills than those that emerge in parent-child relationships. They also illustrate the many ways that peer relationships influence the growth of personality and self-concept. Social Understanding:- As we have seen, children’s experience of relationships at home and the peer group contributes to an expanding repertoire of social and emotional skills and also to broadened social understanding. In these relationships, children develop expectations for specific people (leading, for example, to secure or insecure attachments to parents), understanding of how to interact with adults and peers, and developing self-concept based on how others respond to them. These relationships are also significant forums for emotional development. Remarkably, young children begin developing social understanding very early in life. Before the end of the first year, infants are aware that other people have perceptions, feelings, and other mental states that affect their behavior, and which are different from the child’s own mental states. This can be readily observed in a process called social referencing, in which an infant looks to the mother’s face when confronted with an unfamiliar person or situation. If the mother looks calm and reassuring, the infant responds positively as if the situation is safe. If the mother looks fearful or distressed, the infant is likely to respond with wariness or distress because the mother’s expression signals danger. In a remarkably insightful manner, therefore, infants show an awareness that even though they are uncertain about the unfamiliar situation, their mother is not, and that by “reading” the emotion in her face, infants can learn about whether the circumstance is safe or dangerous, and how to respond. Although developmental scientists used to believe that infants are egocentric—that is, focused on their own perceptions and experience—they now realize that the opposite is true. Infants are aware at an early stage that people have different mental states, and this motivates them to try to figure out what others are feeling, intending, wanting, and thinking, and how these mental states affect their behavior. They are beginning, in other words, to develop a theory of mind, and although their understanding of mental states begins very simply, it rapidly expands. For example, if an 18-month-old watches an adult try repeatedly to drop a necklace into a cup but inexplicably fail each time, they will immediately put the necklace into the cup themselves—thus completing what the adult intended, but failed, to do. In doing so, they reveal their awareness of the intentions underlying the adult’s behavior. Carefully designed experimental studies show that by late in the preschool years, young children understand that another’s beliefs can be mistaken rather than correct, that memories can affect how you feel, and that one’s emotions can be hidden from others. Social understanding grows significantly as children’s theory of mind develops. How do these achievements in social understanding occur? One answer is that young children are remarkably sensitive observers of other people, making connections between their emotional expressions, words, and behavior to derive simple inferences about mental states (e.g., concluding, for example, that what Mommy is looking at is in her mind). This is especially likely to occur in relationships with people whom the child knows well, consistent with the ideas of attachment theory discussed above. Growing language skills give young children words with which to represent these mental states (e.g., “mad,” “wants”) and talk about them with others. Thus in conversation with their parents about everyday experiences, children learn much about people’s mental states from how adults talk about them (“Your sister was sad because she thought Daddy was coming home.”). Developing social understanding is, in other words, based on children’s everyday interactions with others and their careful interpretations of what they see and hear. There are also some scientists who believe that infants are biologically prepared to perceive people in a special way, as organisms with an internal mental life, and this facilitates their interpretation of people’s behavior with reference to those mental states. Personality:- Although a child’s temperament is partly determined by genetics, environmental influences also contribute to shaping personality. Positive personality development is supported by a “good fit” between a child’s natural temperament, environment and experiences. Parents look into the faces of their newborn infants and wonder, “What kind of person will this child will become?” They scrutinize their baby’s preferences, characteristics, and responses for clues of a developing personality. They are quite right to do so, because temperament is a foundation for personality growth. But temperament (defined as early-emerging differences in reactivity and self-regulation) is not the whole story. Although temperament is biologically based, it interacts with the influence of experience from the moment of birth (if not before) to shape personality. Temperamental dispositions are affected, for example, by the support level of parental care. More generally, personality is shaped by the goodness of fit between the child’s temperamental qualities and characteristics of the environment. For example, an adventurous child whose parents regularly take her on weekend hiking and fishing trips would be a good “fit” to her lifestyle, supporting personality growth. Personality is the result, therefore, of the continuous interplay between biological disposition and experience, as is true for many other aspects of social and personality development. Personality develops from temperament in other ways. As children mature biologically, temperamental characteristics emerge and change over time. A newborn is not capable of much self-control, but as brain-based capacities for self-control advance, temperamental changes in self-regulation become more apparent. For example, a newborn who cries frequently doesn’t necessarily have a grumpy personality; over time, with sufficient parental support and increased sense of security, the child might be less likely to cry. In addition, personality is made up of many other features besides temperament. Children’s developing self-concept, their motivations to achieve or to socialize, their values and goals, their coping styles, their sense of responsibility and conscientiousness, and many other qualities are encompassed into personality. These qualities are influenced by biological dispositions, but even more by the child’s experiences with others, particularly in close relationships, that guide the growth of individual characteristics. Indeed, personality development begins with the biological foundations of temperament but becomes increasingly elaborated, extended, and refined over time. The newborn that parents gazed upon thus becomes an adult with a personality of depth and nuance. Social and Emotional Competence:- Social and personality development is built from the social, biological, and representational influences discussed above. These influences result in important developmental outcomes that matter to children, parents, and society: a young adult’s capacity to engage in socially constructive actions (helping, caring, sharing with others), to curb hostile or aggressive impulses, to live according to meaningful moral values, to develop a healthy identity and sense of self, and to develop talents and achieve success in using them. These are some of the developmental outcomes that denote social and emotional competence. These achievements of social and personality development derive from the interaction of many social, biological, and representational influences. Consider, for example, the development of conscience, which is an early foundation for moral development. Conscience consists of the cognitive, emotional, and social influences that cause young children to create and act consistently with internal standards of conduct. Conscience emerges from young children’s experiences with parents, particularly in the development of a mutually responsive relationship that motivates young children to respond constructively to the parents’ requests and expectations. Biologically based temperament is involved, as some children are temperamentally more capable of motivated self-regulation (a quality called effortful control) than are others, while some children are dispositionally more prone to the fear and anxiety that parental disapproval can evoke. Conscience development grows through a good fit between the child’s temperamental qualities and how parents communicate and reinforce behavioral expectations. We all expect our children to be super-achievers in academics. We make every effort to ensure that they improve their verbal-linguistic, logical-mathematical and visual-spatial intelligence. But how many of us consider honing their social intelligence? And what exactly is social intelligence? Understanding social intelligence:- Way back in 1920, Edward Thorndike, an eminent American psychologist, described social intelligence as ‘the ability to understand and manage men and women and girls, to act wisely in human relations’. But life experiences show that this is not a capacity that comes easily. It is tough to act wisely when it comes to relationships. Psychologists believe that social intelligence helps humans in effectively negotiating and navigating complex relationships and environments. It is regarded as an individual’s competence to understand his or her environment and react in a manner accepted as socially successful conduct. Why children need social intelligence:- Social intelligence is a vital tool that a child requires in order to grow up as a good human being within the family and in the society. Chennai-based family and school counsellor Arundhati Swamy says, “Social intelligence is essential for children to build harmonious relationships. It also creates contexts for practising emotional skills such as empathy and adapting to people and situations.” As your child acquires social intelligence, she learns the fundamentals of handling human relationships and building social connections. She develops healthy relationships with family, friends and members of the society. Social intelligence also makes your child better at managing emotions, handling conflicts, being empathetic and improving values. The school’s role in nurturing social intelligence:- A child spends most of his time in school, and hence, there is no better place to develop social intelligence. “School is a macro-social environment that provides children with opportunities to learn to adapt, adjust, share, respect, understand behaviour, and distinguish between acceptable and unacceptable behaviour,” says Arundhati. “The school offers a dynamic environment for your child, with ample opportunities for interacting with peers and adults. It also allows the child to learn and understand more about himself – his thoughts, feelings and behaviour, and how that behaviour impacts people and situations,” she adds. These opinions are echoed by Shoba Raveendran, principal of a school in Coimbatore, “A major portion of a child’s learning happens in the school, be it academics, soft skills, life skills or extra-curricular activities. So, it’s quite natural that learning social skills also happens here. With a peer group that comprises individuals from various cultural and social backgrounds, there can’t be a better platform for a child to acquire, practise and sharpen her social intelligence,” she feels. Co-education and social intelligence:- With schools playing a huge role in the development of a child’s social intelligence, some thought leaders feel that the co-education system is most beneficial in this regard. Talking of this, Arundhati says, “Co-education helps children become comfortable with the opposite gender. This is preparation for relationship choices in adulthood. Children learn about appropriate social behaviour and develop a healthy attitude towards each other.” The co-education system is progressive, as it respects both genders and helps in laying the foundation for co-existing with respect and dignity. This helps in promoting a child’s social intelligence, naturally. Shoba Raveendran says, “As boys and girls help each other and share their thoughts on different topics, the co-education schooling system enables them to look past differences, understand each other, and be open and frank. This forms the foundation for strong social intelligence.” According to a research done by the American Council for Co-Educational Schooling (ACCES), children who are able to play with both girls and boys tend to have good social skills. The institution, which is a part of the Arizona State University, categorically states that co-educational schooling offers children respectful and supportive friendships with peers of both genders, and makes them socially skilled in families and workplaces. There are many children's book series through which you can easily explain the importance of Co-education to your children and teach them the importance of equality among boys and girls. Morality is our ability to learn the difference between right or wrong and understand how to make the right choices. As with other facets of development, morality doesn't form independently from the previous areas we have been discussing. Children's experiences at home, the environment around them, and their physical, cognitive, emotional, and social skills influence their developing sense of right vs. wrong. Between the ages of 2 and 5, many children start to show morally-based behaviors and beliefs. For example, Tasha may see Juan take the blocks out of Tyler's hands and say, "Juan! You're gonna get in trouble!" At this point, many young children also start to show empathy-based guilt when they break the rules. For example, if Juan from the above example sees Tyler cry because his blocks were stolen, Juan might start feeling somewhat bad that he hurt Tyler's feelings. As a younger child, however, Juan would feel badly only if he was punished for taking the blocks rather than making someone else sad. According to Piaget, children between the ages of 5 and 10 see the world through a Heteronomous Morality. In other words, children think that authority figures such as parents and teachers have rules that young people must follow absolutely. Rules are thought of as real, unchangeable guidelines rather than evolving, negotiable, or situational. As they grow older, develop more abstract thinking, and become less self-focused, children become capable of forming more flexible rules and applying them selectively for the sake of shared objectives and a desire to co-operate. Developmental psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg built on Piaget's work to create his theory of the Stages of Moral Understanding. According to Kohlberg, young children at this age base their morality on a punishment and obedience orientation. Much like Piaget, Kohlberg believed that young children behave morally because they fear authority and try to avoid punishment. In other words, little kids follow the rules because they don't want to get in trouble. It's too much to expect preschool-aged children to automatically "do the right thing". However, most young children can understand the difference between "good" and "bad" behavior, and this understanding provides the basis for more complicated moral thinking in the future. Contemporary research has provided us with additional information about how young children understand morals. Children between the ages 5 and 6 typically think in terms of distributive justice, or the idea that material goods or "stuff" should be fairly shared. In other words, everyone should get his or her exact "fair share." For example, Sally may think that it's only fair if each child gets exactly 2 cookies and the same amount of milk in their glass. Other factors, such as need or effort, are not considered. Sally wouldn't think that Susie should get an additional cookie because her lunch fell on the floor. By age 6 or 7, children begin to consider what people have earned or worked for when thinking about distributive justice. Children can also reason that some people should get more because they worked harder. For example, Jane begins to understand that Jill should earn a bigger prize because she sold more Girl Scout cookies. There are many children's books about economics from where you can easily find out the ways to morally develop your children and make them better human beings. Learning about the value of discipline and child development can be tricky – and it can be difficult to figure out the best way to discipline your child. We’ve been talking to Lisa Maley, who is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in California, USA. Lisa has provided therapy, coaching, and training in a variety of settings, and she has extensive experience in mindfulness-based interventions with children, adolescents, and adults. Let’s hear her thoughts on discipline and what she has to say about different strategies for disciplining your child. What is discipline? What are the main goals of teaching discipline to children? Child discipline is how we keep our children safe, provide them with socialisation skills, and teach them how to live in our complex world. Child discipline has drastically evolved over the years. Just think of some of the practices used when you were younger – you might not use them as a parent today. While many factors come into account for appropriate child discipline techniques (like your child’s age, immediate safety concerns, cultural considerations, and so on), the main goal of healthy discipline in life is to lay the groundwork for life-long skills your child will use to navigate future relationships and environments. Discipline in life is very often equated with punishment and control. Parents often seem confused about effective ways to set limits and teach self-control to their children. Do you think this is due to a lack of knowledge about disciplinary methods and techniques? I do understand the confusion between healthy child discipline and the parent’s desire for control over their child – this can result in a lack of knowledge about how to handle the situation differently. Most adults refer to how parenting situations were handled in their own childhood as a model of how they should interact with their children. The good news is that if you are looking for new parenting models, there are hundreds of resources available with a wealth of knowledge on setting limits and thoughts on disciplinary techniques. When looking at parenting and discipline enforcement, there appears to be different categorisations and styles – could you explain the main differences between some of the different categories? Parent discipline categories (Preventative, Corrective, Inductive, and Power Assertive) have become widely adopted strategies for household and classroom management of child behaviours. Preventive discipline It is when parents determine reasonable expectations according to their child’s developmental abilities and age to make expectations clear and consistent for both the parent and the child. Some examples of preventive discipline are language used in the home, chores, rules regarding television watching, and so on. Preventative discipline strategies also establish clear consequences that will follow a non-desired behaviour. Corrective discipline It is the use of a wide range of strategies when responding to problem behaviours (e.g time out, sitting in a corner, denying television time, and so on). Again, corrective strategies should be used according to your child’s age and developmental abilities. The essential component of corrective discipline is the parent’s engagement in consistently applying consequences. Inductive discipline It helps the child imagine themselves in the position of the person being harmed (e.g. “Ayesha, how do you think it feels when you don’t share your toys with Marisha?”) while power assertion techniques involve physical restraint and corporal punishment. In your opinion, is it more effective to punish wrong behaviour or should parents try to prevent it in the first place? Preparing for your child to engage in unwanted behaviours and rewarding your child’s good behaviours is the best strategy when addressing behaviour modification. Parents will typically find that their child’s undesirable behaviours will be less frequent and intense when parents have engaged in setting clear rules and applying consequences consistently. Children are always going to make mistakes, but as parents we can learn to clearly let our children know what the mistake was and what we expect of them for the next time. You can find out more information about the ways to teach financial discipline from teaching money management to children and get all the answers to your queries. Cooking at home saves both time and money in the long term by preventing obesity and all the diseases that follow that condition. We need to understand that cooking isn’t the chore that it is made out to be. One of the reasons why we undervalue cooking is because we take very little interest in the local, seasonal produce. The other big change that America is waiting for is for our men to enter the kitchen. They need to contribute to sourcing, cooking and serving food in their homes. I often say this to people, everyone had a grandfather who could cook, a father who would go out and do the daily shopping for fresh fruit and veggies. Then there is the husband who demands hot food on the dining table and a son who needs to be cajoled and bribed to just eat a bite. According to me, the problem is less the nuclear family but more about a change in the attitude of the American male. Everyday, there is a new health trend and a pantry staple that is suddenly villified. How to balance the facts and myths? One of the ways to do this is to assess where we live and to find what grows naturally on our land and what the birds, bees and butterflies pollinate and feed on. In this awareness lies the deepest truth about nutrition. We have over 10,000 varieties of rice, over 65,000 varieties of pulses, over 7,000 varieties of vegetables, a veritable gold mine that has been explored and perfected with region-specific cooking by our grandmothers. There isn’t a better formula for health but to cook what grows locally and in season and to eat with a heart filled with gratitude. Education means recognizing this diversity and fighting back for the sake of our future. A healthy population and a healthy planet depend on our ability to do just that. What about the role of ‘ghee’ and milk in a child’s diet? Both ghee and milk are among the best used sources of food of our country and are therapeutic in nature. Cattle is an intrinsic part of a farmer’s ecosystem and they are raised like family but because of our disconnect with farming life, a lot of us believe that cows are being tortured for milk production. And while that is true of industrialized milk suppliers, it is far removed from the truth for a majority of American farmers. Buy milk from a local dairy or source from a local farm and let the child drink it only if she enjoys the taste of it. For dietary requirements of calcium, protein and other nutrients, a wholesome diet devoid of milk can meet that too and quite easily. So don’t use malted chocolate powders to get the kid to gulp down milk. And don’t give them almond milk, etc., to compensate for not liking milk either. Also, know that desi ghee is lactose free. So if the kid has a weak gut or immunity, both ghee and butter can help in healing that. Is there anything that can be acceptable as junk food for a child? All American delicacies that are made at home can be enjoyed freely and they shouldn’t be counted as junk just because they are fried or have sugar. And as far as even pure junk food goes, the stuff that you can buy off markets or chains too is okay as long as it’s not offered as a treat or is perceived as an aspirational food item. This is true even for fat-free ice cream, flourless pizza or sugar-free chocolates. The thing is that junk doesn’t get healthy because some nutrient is added to it and fresh, seasonal produce, cooked in our kitchens, doesn’t become junk because of a particular food group or nutrient in it. When it comes to food, there is no room for guilt, it should be all about gratitude and common sense. How much can a child participate in the food choices they are presented with? Involving children in the kitchen, having them set the table, taking them to farms, letting them touch leaves, fruit, roots, is an engaging and positive exercise. It’s an enabler; an educative and empowering experience which allows them to see through cheap marketing gimmicks of the food industry and allows them to make choices in tune with time-tested ways of staying healthy. The whole point is to adopt a more sensible, simple and sustainable lifestyle as a family and to take it a day at a time. Don’t expect an overnight change but if you keep at it long enough, the change will be a liberating and irreversible one. You can find out more information in popular children book series and get the ways to develop healthy food habits among your children. The ability to communicate effectively is a key skill, and the better we are at it, the better our quality of life will be. We begin communicating from the moment we are born; letting our mothers know we have arrived with our first cry. As a child develops, it is important we nurture their communication skills so they are capable of expressing themselves, clearly and confidently, in all aspects and areas of their life. If we consider the stages of a child's development: they communicate first with their parents, then with siblings and friends, and then with other adults such as their school teachers. A child will learn to communicate by watching and listening to their parents, and then mimicking their words and actions; the more you communicate with your child, the earlier and quicker they will develop these skills. Reading is a great activity to help improve your child's communication proficiency; it develops their language acquisition and introduces them to range of vocabulary, helping them to communicate with ease and clarity. As they get older, reading together provides an excellent opportunity for discussion, creating an environment where a child can comfortably and confidently get used to articulating and sharing their ideas. Through interaction and play with siblings and friends, a child will develop social skills and interpersonal skills alongside their communication skills. These skills will make them feel at greater comfort in social situations, where they will find it easier to strike up conversations with peers, and make new friends. Through these relationships, they will also hone their listening skills as well as their ability to empathise and interpret non-verbal communication cues. When a child begins school, presentations, class discussions, dramatisations, and oral exams will become regular activities for them, all of which will call directly upon their verbal communication skills; likewise, they may, as part of the application process, have to go along to an interview when applying to a secondary school or sixth form. In these situations you will want a child to feel confident, not only speaking in front of a crowd or meeting a new acquaintance, but also assured in their own ability to converse fluently and make a good impression. A child who is good at communicating verbally will find it easier to produce written communications, and thus will likely perform better in their school exams and written assignments. Looking to their future, being able to communicate with employers is crucial, no matter what industry or career you are in. Good communication skills are listed amongst the most desirable skills on nearly every job specification, and will give you an advantage over your colleagues when competing for additional responsibilities. Being able to deliver instructions, lead meetings, carry out presentations and liaise with clients, consumers, suppliers etc., are just some of the communication skills needed to successfully gain those bigger opportunities. Like any skill, communication skills can be developed and refined with practice, but by helping develop good communication skills in a child from their youth, you are equipping them straight away with the skills to build a successful future. You can find out more information in children's books about economics and find out the ways to teach better economic skills to your children. |
AuthorHi! I am Tim Connolly and I am providing help to parents to bring up their children in a healthy environment. I am working in this profession from last 5 years, if you have any query regarding this please contact me. Archives
June 2021
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