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Posts Tagged ‘school’
Friday, March 19th, 2010
Continuing yesterday’s discussion of where and when to have conversations with your kids:
My favorite time is driving in the car…home from school, on the way to a sports practice, going grocery shopping. It really doesn’t matter. This is a wonderful opportunity to talk with your children. You have a captive audience!
I know, it’s usually spent telling them to leave their sibling alone, or arguing over the radio station, etc. But, again, if you consider this an opportune time to get to know your kids better, it could be turned into a time of closeness. Singing, playing I Spy, 20 questions, the Alphabet Game, etc. can turn times of conflict into enjoyment.
And, if you happen to have only one child in the car, it’s golden! But again, not a time for criticism, etc. Some of the children I see dread time in the car with their parent, because it turns into interrogation and chastisement. Instead, make it something they enjoy and may even look forward to!
Give them a chance to choose their favorite radio station or CD—
- Have a conversation about why they like that music;
- Who their favorite singer is;
- What’s their favorite song?
- What do they think it would be like to be a famous singer?
- Have them teach you the words to a song you don’t know…teach them one of yours.
And here’s another one of my significant pet peeves… DVDs, Game Boys and ipods in the car. These are electronic avoidance devices that shut down social interaction. Going to the grocery store, home from school, etc. are not times to create barriers.
Please use the car time wisely. They are times to open lines of communication and opportunities to enjoy each other.
Enjoy your kids…one conversation at a time!
Tags: car time, conversation, driving, kids, parents, school
Posted in Child Development, Communication, Family, Parenting | Add a Comment »
Sunday, February 14th, 2010
Making time for each other
You plan everything else in your day—when to get up, take the kids to school, doctor’s appt, hair appt (what’s that?), grocery shopping, cooking, homework time, nap time, sports practices…. Are these all important? You bet!
You also plan family fun activities, like going to the zoo, the park, a movie, play dates, trips, etc. Are these all important? You bet!
But what’s missing??? Actually, two things…time for yourself and time for your mate. Taking care of yourself is extremely important, and will need to be the topic of another blog. For right now, I would like to make suggestions about what you can do with the kids in order to have couple time. “Easier said than done,” you might say. And, you are probably right! Easier to get divorced than remain in a loving relationship? Probably not.
What to do with the kids in order to have couple time:
- Take advantage of nap times.
- Come home for lunch when the kids are in school.
- Send the kids to a night at their grandparents, loving aunt and uncle or distant cousin.
- Swap sitter nights with your friend. You watch their kids one night, they yours another.
- Hire a babysitter to take the kids to the park on the weekend.
- Let your kids spend a night with their friends.
- Shower together.
- Go to bed when the kids do—yes, that might mean leaving the chores go until morning. Either way, you are going to be one of the dwarves in the morning: Happy or Grumpy. You choose…or, better yet, let your family choose.
- Pre-make several dinners on the weekend and freeze; or, when you make dinner, double or triple the recipe so you can have another dinner or two ready for another night. Not having to cook every night will be less tiring, and probably less frustrating.
- Go to bed ½ hour earlier—yes, before the news is over.
- Get up ½ hour earlier—yes, before the news comes on.
- Turn off the TV or better yet, take it out of your bedroom.
- Put on Saturday morning cartoons. Actually, kids will just do that themselves, if you don’t mind cereal on the rug. Have acceptable edibles put out for them.
- Have a video and popcorn night for the kids.
- Go out on a date on a regular basis. Don’t talk about the kids. Don’t let them call you.
- Schedule Sunday afternoon as quiet time, where everyone goes to their rooms for an hour to nap, read, play by themselves.
- Spend a night in a great hotel and order room service.
- Take a long weekend together one or two times a year to rediscover each other and leave the parenting responsibilities and intrusions at home.
- Take a family vacation that has sitter service—and use it!
- Put your kids in childcare at church, gym, etc. and then play hooky and run home for a little while. It’s drastic, I know. However, as long as the kids are looked after…
- Take advantage of mom’s/parent’s day/night out at some of the religious institutions.
- Get your kids out of your bed. Generally, if your kids are sleeping with you, they are serving a purpose…to be a buffer for you to avoid being intimate. How’s that working for your marriage? What message does that give your kids?
- Sleep alone if your spouse is away. Do NOT have the kids sleep in your bed when daddy or mommy has to travel. This sets up a terrible precedent, and can actually lead the kids to believe that it’s better to have their parent gone, because then they get to be with the other.
- Call each other by your first names, or rather some nickname or pet name. If you call each other Mommy and Daddy, there isn’t much room for other identities. Terms of endearment are special and actually give your kids that feeling of security and happiness.
- Show affection in front of your kids. Hugging, kissing, holding hands, arms around each other are all great examples for your kids of what a loving relationship is like.
- Sit next to each other. If you continually sit on opposite ends of the couch, or with the kids in between you, the message is clearly one of separation.
Enjoy your kids…but first enjoy each other!
Happy Valentine’s Day…all year long!
Tags: activities, affection, babysitter, bed, child, children, daddy, date, families, Family, grandparents, holding hands, hugging, intimacy, intimate, kid, kids, kissing, love, mommy, parent, Parenting, passion, passionate, privacy, school, sleep, vacation, valentine
Posted in Child Development, Communication, Family, Parenting | Add a Comment »
Monday, March 23rd, 2009
Dear Dr. Vicki,
“I’m having problems with my son’s behavior in the classroom. He doesn’t want to complete his work in class, and he misbehaves in the classroom. I have tried to taking things from him and spanking him for his defiance. It works for a couple of days, and he reverts back to his old ways. He is failing in school (2nd grade) and I’m quite concern for my son’s academic well being.”
Dr. Vicki’s response:
I am so glad you wrote. Obviously your son’s academic well-being is a top priority. Rest assured…you are not alone! I frequently have parents wanting advice for very similar experiences.
Before we can really decide how to deal with the behaviors, it is critical to determine why he is exhibiting these behaviors. There are a number of questions that need to be asked and answered to help determine this:
• Is this a new problem, or has his behavior been problematic all through school?
• Does he exhibit these behaviors at home? And if so, is it all the time or just during academic activities?
• Is his behavior a problem during all subjects, all times of the day, during all kinds of tasks….or are they specific to certain subjects, times and tasks?
• Does he understand the work or is he having difficulty? Does he understand the instructions?
• What is he doing when he is not doing his work?
• Is he distracted? Does his seat need to be changed?
• Has he been evaluated for learning disabilities? Attention deficits? Processing problems?
• Has his hearing and vision been checked?
• Is he inadvertently getting rewarded for his behaviors (i.e–the students are laughing, etc.)?
• Is he being defiant or simply not doing his work?
• Has something happened in his life to bring on these behaviors (i.e.–death, move, changes, stress in the family)?
• Have you noticed any other changes in behavior, mood or attitude?
• Does he have a regular bedtime? Is he getting enough sleep? Is he a restful/restless sleeper? Does he snore?
Once these questions are answered, then intervention can occur.
Obviously, if there is an identified reason for the behaviors (learning disabilities, attention deficits, trauma, etc.) then those issues will need to be addressed very differently than if he is simply acting up.
If, in fact, the answer to all those questions is ‘no,’ then some kind of reward/consequence system may need to be put into place. This should be coordinated between you and the school, so that everyone is on board to help eliminate these behaviors.
• Make sure that he is being given positive feedback for the things he is doing well. And be sure to find reasons to give him kudos. It sounds as though right now his life is full of negatives as a result of his acting out behaviors.
• However, there needs to be some balance in the kind of feedback he is given. For instance, if he has a good morning, but acts up after lunch, let him know that he did a good job in the morning. Catch him being good! Ask the teacher to let you know what went right in his day, along with how he misbehaved.
• Be sure that the consequence or reward is meaningful to him, so that he really wants to change his behavior.
• And, allow him to start fresh every day. So, if he really acted up on Monday and is given a consequence (i.e.–no TV, no going outside, etc.), let him start fresh on Tuesday; reward him if he has a good day.
• Perhaps you could keep track of the number of good days (with smiley faces on the calendar) and when he has accumulated a certain number (make it realistic, like 4 or 10–depending how many days he really can behave—and they don’t have to be consecutive)) then reward him for reaching the goal. This could be renting a video, ordering a pizza, money, staying up later on the weekend, etc. Be sure that he is rewarded as soon as possible once he has met his goal.
• Praise him for reaching even small goals. When he has a good day at school, make a big deal about it. If he doesn’t, then just let him have his consequence and encourage him to try again tomorrow.
• Love him, and make sure he knows it each and every day. Just because you are not happy with his behavior, doe not mean you are not happy with him. Separate out these two issues, and he will learn a lesson without feeling worthless and unloved.
• Keeping his self-esteem intact while disciplining essential for real teaching to occur.
I hope these suggestions are helpful to you and your son. Feel free to let me know how it goes!
© MMVI Vicki Panaccione, Ph.D.
Tags: academics, classroom, goals, learning disabilities, misbehaving, school, snore
Posted in Ask Dr. Vicki, Education | Add a Comment »
Saturday, July 19th, 2008
Dear Dr. Vicki,
My friends say they need to keep their kids doing worksheets over the summer so they start the new school year on a good foot. My son cries and yells through the whole thing. He could really use the review but is it worth the torment? We all have to do things in life we don’t want to do, but is this one of them? What is the best thing a parent can do to prepare their child for the upcoming school year? What should summer be about for our kids and ourselves??
Dr. Vicki’s response:
Great questions! The fact that you are asking them is absolutely wonderful.
I think that learning should be an on-going process all year long. I guess for me it’s a matter of what shape and form that learning takes. Many, many children equate worksheets with school, and believe that they are ‘off’ over the summer. For some children, this works. Particularly since the first few weeks of school tend to be review at the younger grades. Other children need to keep up their skills. If they love it; great. If they don’t, then what to do?
I totally agree that children need to learn to do things even if they don’t like to do them. I just want to be careful that teaching this point doesn’t become counter-productive to the (academic) skills you really want to teach. There needs to be a fine line between keeping up the math skills, and contributing to a severe hatred of school work.
I think that all children should have some time each day during the summer to spend on quiet activities, academics and reading. These things should go on all year long. Some children do much better with school work on the computer than on a worksheet. Others do well if they can crawl into their parent’s lap, much like reading, and work on other things.
Here are a few tips:
• Set aside some quiet time for your children, so that any ‘work’ you want them to do is not creating disruption to playing or TV time, etc. This time needs to be spent in a way that you feel is productive.
• Perhaps there can be a choice of what kind of activity/worksheet, etc. that they can pick from on any particular day.
• Any chance that your children can do worksheets together with a friend? That would probably cut down on the verbal protests, and would be an extension of their time together.
• Perhaps if you want to strengthen math skills, a quiz could be given on Mon. If all the problems are correct, then your child does not need to do any more math that week. The next week, the quiz could be on a more difficult operation, or harder problems. If there are mistakes, perhaps for each error, another worksheet needs to be done. (One a day, etc.) That would mean if only 2 mistakes were made, then only two sheets would need to be completed during the week.
• You might want to give the weekends off, since that is how it is with school and with most jobs. So, if the weekend is strictly for playing, then adding a bit of learning to the week might be more palatable. Just like their parents’ jobs.
• If your children have a particular interest, such as bugs, sharks, flowers, etc…there is no reason that math problems can’t be created to incorporate things that are more appealing to them.
• You might also give a treat for a job well-done (and that means honest effort, with little grumbling, not necessarily 100% correct.)
• Loving connections are always in season! And it doesn’t have to be an either/or; it can certainly be both.
© MMVI Vicki Panaccione, Ph.D.
Tags: academics, computer, learning, parent, reading, school, school work, summer, worksheets
Posted in Ask Dr. Vicki, Education | Add a Comment »
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Internationally recognized as a passionate and dedicated parent/child specialist, child psychologist "Dr. Vicki” Panaccione has spent the last 25 years helping thousands of families strengthen what she calls the "CaringConnection", the emotional bond between parents and children.
“Dr. Vicki is the author of Discovering Your Child: Parent Guide, and CaringConnections, her weekly online newsletter, helping parents find joy and fulfillment in their relationships
with their children. Read more... |
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