How expressive is your child?

An expressive child and a responsive parent is a prize-winning combination for toddlerhood. It’s a win-win situation and it enables the parent to shape behavior positively right at the outset. This sequence becomes quite easy to understand as below:

• The newborn expresses needs to his mother
• The responsiveness of the mothers builds trust
• The now infant learns to express needs appropriately
• Infants grow to become bigger toddlers with bigger needs
• These toddlers know the meaning of feelings and how to express
• The toddlers then get better equipped to express themselves to others

Do you encourage your kids?

Positives are always better appreciated than criticism and negatives (how obvious is that statement). When you want your children to be responsible human beings, you need to first treat them like human beings instead of puppets and machines who react to your commands. If you give them sufficient space and apposite opportunity to live their life for themselves, they will be able to build on their own abilities. Besides repeatedly telling them how they are not good enough, what they cannot do or are not allowed to do; let them know and identify where they ‘are’ virtuous and what they ‘can’ do and are ‘allowed’ to do’. Encouraging them to do their ‘own’ thing leads to optimistic outcomes in behavior.

Get charged to take charge!

Sometimes it becomes hard in grouchy situations to really figure who was whining, the child or the parent. And then both sides feel they don't know who started it. It happens in adult-adult interactions too. You know it but sometimes you fail to see it. You lose control of yourself when you are not in charge. Alternatively you are never in charge when you are out of control. So its essential to charge yourself with the right plugins to keep you energized!

Strike! (Not your child; the balance)

Disciplining is all about your knack at striking that balance between autocracy and permissiveness with your child. Children need to get the right message so that they learn the right behaviors. Everyone needs to have these limits set for themselves so they find direction towards the goals they need to accomplish. The younger your child, lesser the self-understanding of boundaries, and more defined should be the limits that you set for them. You love your children (everyone usually does) and the virtues you instill in them come with some level of control and authority; levels of which you have to determine as per your own preferences. Boundaries provide security for a child whose exploratory disposition leads her to explore, but her inexperience may lead her astray. You are the guiding light who knows it all and can direct her.

Set them right: (limits)

Your children need you more than you will ever be aware of. Inside that little monster who seems to ‘like’ troubling you and testing your patience after you’ve had a hard day at your workplace, is the angel who wants you to guide him, do things for him, teach him and help him because he cannot help himself enough.  Children need you to set things right for them all the time. Set their beds, their clothes, their schoolbags, homework, books as well as limits and goals and their life…

Attachment or detachment parenting?

being 'with' your children; not above or below them

It’s important to know your performance score on how you raise your children. Appraisals are required even at work so we know about our own performance and accordingly we can better ourselves. Sometimes you need to stop and ponder on your parenting style and how you behave with your kids. Parenting is little theory and lots of practice. Yet, theoretical awareness allows you to apply the right principles into making your practice better. It’s like any profession. Law or medicine or architecture; all need a strong knowledge base and practical experience. Unfortunately we have courses for all of those, just not for parenting. So you never know what’s going wrong. Trial and error is the only way, and one fine day your child has grown up. And you’re not sure what you did right or wrong to develop this temperament or that personality in him. If only you could be more aware when your kids are still young…

What's your parenting style?

There are many ideas about how to raise children. Sometimes as parents you adopt the ideas that your own parents may have used with you. You get advice from friends. You read books about parenting. You suf the internet. You take classes on parenting. Yet you never have all the answers because your kids raise all new questions everyday and well known theories of parenting fail. You feel that you create new theories each day in dealing with your little ones. However, research repeatedly emphasizes what parenting practices are effective and are likely to lead to positive outcomes for children.

Behavior modification for parents

It’s so normal for parents to consult therapists for their children’s behavior. You don't realize that your children wish that they could get some treatment for you at times. Just as you wish your kids would introspect and appreciate how much trouble you go through for them, likewise they too feel that you ought to look within and ask yourself how you really make your kids feel about your own behavior towards them. You blame them for making you the monster. You need to step back and ask yourself...

Have you ever grown a plant?

reap right sow right

A tiny little plant maybe as a science project in primary school? We all know basics about botany (no matter what level of education we accomplished or profession we may have chosen). A seed is sown and sprouts off a radical that grows downward and forms the root. It absorbs the best of what it can from the soil and offers nourishment to the steadily growing plant above. It’s this root that initiates the hard work, gathers the raw material that is pushed up through the stem and allows the leaves to use ‘photosynthesis’ and generate nourishment for the entire plant. If not for the root you would see withered leaves and no flowers and definitely no fruit.

Do you like upset kids?

Bet you don't! And your children don't like it when you're upset with them either. They just like you in the good old normal way. They love it when things are happy and peaceful. It feels good, even for you right? So if they're talking back and being defiant, you must know and understand that if they had a better way to deal with the situation, they'd grab it. Your children don't want to be on bad terms with you. They know it best that they get what they want from you when you are happy with them. They really try hard to please you but often you don’t even realize they do so…

Top discipline principles

Theory forms the base of good practice. Needless to say, you have the best intentions for your children’s behavioral development and you put in your finest effort to discipline them to the best of your abilities. But sometimes your path may be just too conventional; too orthodox, too conformist; and if it seems like your luck was bad; too ineffective. A little knowledge never harms. Maybe there are a few things we are not aware of or problems we occasionally overlook in our dealings with our own children. The ABCDEFG of disciplining…

What is discipline?

Discipline is no doubt something we want for our children and all our parenting efforts are incessantly put into what we call the 'disciplining process. 'Would you agree to the below or you have different ideas?

• Giving your child tools to succeed in their lifetime?
• Doing what it takes to ‘like’ living with your kids?
• Working on a respectful relationship with them?
• Using right techniques and good communication?
• Helping them build inner control on themselves?
• Virtuous behavior that will last them a lifetime?

When your child is ignoring you

hahahahha, i'm not listening!

Ignorance is the most intolerable emotion of all. All of us want to generate reaction in people around us. Imagine if your spouse ignored you when you were discussing something important. Or your employee discounted you when you were letting him know of the important work you needed from him. Or your dress designer snubbed you when you were explaining the new design. Or your child is ignoring you when you are talking to him about his homework...

When your child is lying to you

Fear: the driver

The main reason people lie (kids and adults included) is because they're afraid that if they tell the truth, something unpleasant will happen. Lying is a defense mechanism. It's an attempt to protect from perceived danger. People who lie tend to be scared in some way.  Your children maybe scared of you. They sense that autocratic authoritativeness and tremble. That must not make you proud. Parents often misconstrue fear for respect. Fear is enforced; respect is instinctive. 

When your child was whining

When you were faced with a child, who was crying, whining, tantrumming, shrieking, screaming or yelling, didn't you do everything possible to get the behavior to stop? It's a very normal response if you did. These are the common methodologies applied, have you used any of them?

• Yelling
• Hitting
• Ignoring
• Time out
• Spanking
• Screaming
• Distraction
• Punishment

But have you considered what it might feel like to be your little child and try to deal with those strong emotions that you expressed to them? If you could step in their shoes just to experience that feeling. So you know what your response does to them and their behavior?

Does your kid talk; or talk back?

Conversations can be such a pleasure if there is agreeableness and respect for what the other person is saying to you. The art of positive conversations is like mirroring. What you throw onward comes back at you with comparable tone and intensity. If you wear black, the mirror doesn't make it white for you. Likewise with children, they talk to you exactly the way you talk to them! They were not born with speech intonation abilities at birth. Everything they ever do is learnt from you. You have to accept all credit (as well as discredit) for who they are and how they behave…

Step into their shoes!

See the checklist below if any of these are your wants:

• My kids mustn’t scream
• Children should listen to us
• They should follow my directions
• Kids should respect their elders always
• I shouldn't have to repeat things to them
• They should understand and do the right thing

If you’ve ticked 3 or more of these (Most will tick all 6), you have some unrealistic expectations from your children. Just like you should not put on weight and your spouse should always understand that you are doing so much for them and your boss should know how hard you work and give you a raise, likewise your kids should do all that you want them to do. How easy is that to expect and how impossible is it to obtain?

Making your child obey you

The dictum in life is to be reasonable in expectations so that we are not let down. Maxims also state that when you put in your best you are welcome to expect the finest outcome. And then, laws of physics state that every action generates an equal and opposite reaction. Next, mirrors reflect back at us what we truly are, nothing more, naught less. So the key to happiness (backed by evidence base and science) is to sow the best seed so that you get supreme and flawless crop. That crop who ‘wants’ to listen to you. The crop who ‘waits’ for your command because he has the utmost desire to follow you as his role model. The crop that every parent wishes, dreams, prays, pines for. The crop of the obedient child.

Why toddlers are difficult creatures

To cope with toddler behavior is a mammoth task. You tend to lose your head and test your own patience and you frequently turn into a monster that surprises you more than anyone else around! You react unthinkingly, you say things thoughtlessly and sometimes you lash out with your actions foolishly. If you appreciate some basic principles of development you will understand your children and their behavior challenges gracefully. When you know what you are expecting and more so why it’s coming your way, you can deal with the calamity better…

Do kids really get depressed?

you should know best how your kids really feel

Childhood is a carefree, happy and blissful time. Infanthood as if was crafted only to be enjoyed by children (as well as their parents). But it’s not uncommon for our little ones to feel the pressures and strains of today’s life. They too can feel deep sadness and dejection inside their innocent hearts and innocuous minds. They really know how to feel pain. They sense deeper loneliness and neglect than we are capable of even imagining. Our kids ‘know’ depression because they know how to feel. More than ever before. With rising IQs kids today have greater emotional receptivity at early ages. They know how to feel ecstatic and likewise they know how to feel in the dumps too...

Teaching (or learning?) to apologize

Your children do things that upset you sometimes. Very often actually don't you think? And don’t these thoughts run through your head frequently?

• My child should obey me
• My child should respect me
• My child should be honest with me
• My child should be grateful for all I do
• My child should actually say sorry to me

Well there’s really a lot that we expect our kids to do. But is it always rightfully so? The ‘shoulds’ are all for the kids? Parents often miscue their child’s doings and likewise their own too. Parents are not impeccable. They can misunderstand too, they are frequently rude; they may act irrationally and even scold or spank their kids groundlessly. Is there not sufficient reason to offer an apology to kids then?

Why is my child so dramatic?

When kids get theatrical and drive you to the same reaction, it’s time for a spot self-check. Just because your child makes strange faces and bizarre bodily movements and outlandish sounds and quaint behavior that can drive you up the wall; you do not have to imitate her. You have to realize that it’s a trap and you need to keep your cool right then. Truly, children can be exasperating, draining, and a downright nuisance when they overreact to life's little setbacks. A little injury, loss of a toy, a friend taking away their book or their potato wafer too. Children just ARE like that. They seem to time their dramatic performances for the most inconvenient time for their audience. Nevertheless, these "small" events are always very important to them. You need to appreciate that and step into their shoes and understand your own children better…

Parenting anger step 3:Take charge

that's not pretty!

Once you see things in perspective and you have been the good detective, you are in better position to take charge of the situation. Your reactions and responses have to be smart and guarded. You cannot lose control, not even for a moment else the ‘Operation Child Modification’ that we had started with, will fail and your satellite will be back on the ground right where you started off.

Parenting anger step 2:Healthy choice

agent anger detective

Anger is an emotion, something you feel and something you express (well you definitely want to express it even though at times you curb it). Every emotion does aid some or the other purpose. Just like love, want, desire, happiness, pleasure and other positive emotions enable us to prompt others about what we feel for them; likewise, anger, contempt, dislike, disapproval, all are negative emotions that can be used to unravel some inner drive. The purpose itself has to sound and have some valid understanding. There’s some reason why you are dissatisfied with your child’s behavior. It’s wrong that's why! And there’s a reason why you should not be yelling at them or spanking them. Its wrong that's why!

Parenting anger step 1:Perspective

Parenting is one of the best things that can happen to you. It may seem trying and tiring but in many ways it can be therapeutic too! Your anger that is expressed outward is a reflection of what you have imbibed over the years within yourself. It can reveal where your own problems lie and motivate you to fix them. If you have some unresolved anger, you must heal yourself before you end up harming your child. This will benefit you as well as your child in the long run. Feeling angry is almost a normal emotion. What's abnormal at times is what we choose to do with the anger.