Little Praises That Go a Long Way

Little Praises That Go a Long Way

My son’s first Taekwondo sparring experience inspired me to write this entry. Last Thursday, we (myself, husband and daughter) accompanied our son to his taewkondo lesson as usual. You may be thinking, accompany the boy? Yes, we sit there watch him train for a good 1 hour and a half. This is a way of how we support him in his interest and  it encourages him to go for what he loves. 

Just after the warming up session, the instructor instructed several kids to put on all the required gear for sparring. Then suddenly, she pointed at my son asking him to get ready as well. I was shocked and worried, my son had just attended four lessons to date. But off course, I cannot show whatever I am feeling inside on my face, as it will only scare my son. So I stood there, acted cool and gave my thumbs up to show my son that I know he can do it. Thank god he was cool too and went up, did what he needed to do and made us proud. Right after the lesson, we took him out for a drink. We discussed about his sparring, giving specifics on how well he did at certain points. I told him “Given that you’ve only attended four lessons, you did very well just now, you even knocked your opponent down.”

He is happy with his achievement that night and it has certainly pushed his confidence further up.

The little praises we give to children matter a lot. Praises serve as an affirmation of children’s ability or strength in some given skills. It informs children that we adults know that they are good. Just as how we adults crave for acknowledgement at work or from our partners, the same goes for children. It is even more important for children to hear praises because they are in the crucial stage of development. Effective praise is associated to confidence, self-esteem and feeling secure. It is also a way of encouraging children to explore their surrounding and gain more skills. 

Spend some time and observe your children, find moments that you can effectively praise them for you do not want to praise too often that it falls on deaf ears. Stay tuned, I will update this blog with another entry on how parents can effectively praise their lil’ ones. 

Have fun with your lil’ ones and say those magical words! :)

The Wonders of Pretend Play

Just the other day, my 2 year old girl was playing with her doll when she said "Mama, my baby wants to walk." She took her doll and tucked it in the toy stroller, came to me, "Mama, open the door." and held my hand, signaling that I accompany her for a walk with her "baby". So, out we go for a walk. We walked a good twenty minutes around the neighborhood.

We often find ourselves being entertained by children who become spider man, doctor, cook, teacher or best of all become their own mom! Bear in mind how strong is the power of modeling!

Why  do they love being someone else? Pretend play is a natural way of how children learn many things around them as well as acquire lots of skills crucial in their development and finally to venture into the world. 

The benefits of pretend play includes:

1. Explore imaginations
2. Develop language skills
3. Develop social skills
4. Encourage development of good problem solving skills
5. Develop the ability to understand things from the view of others
6. Acquire essential life skills from adults 
7. Explore the world beyond 
8. Develop a sense of confidence.

With all these benefits, let’s not underestimate the power of play. Engage in play sessions with your child, build strong bonds with them and not to forget build lasting intelligence as well. Happy playing! :)

Turning the Environment into Your Child's Classroom

I truly believe in engaging the environment in teaching children. Learning becomes fun, informal and meaningful when you turn your surrounding into your child's classroom. It also provides opportunities for learning at any given times, even unexpectedly. Here's my experience of how I have used the environment to teach my son. My son loves cars and I took that interest and turned it into an exciting learning experience. I taught him the concept of colours by pointing out the colour of cars around us. I started with blue and pointed at every blue car and said "that's a blue car", and I did that every time I saw a blue car. The next day, I asked him to point at any blue car if he sees one. Then, i went to red cars and every time he mastered, i taught him a new colour. It was simply amazing. He could tell all the colours up to silver when he was 2 years old. I have also used the same technique to teach shapes and many other things.

I make it a point to talk to him just about anything around us. The environment is a wonderful classroom that provides you with abundance of opportunities to teach your child something new every time. With this, you do not need to allocate a specific time for learning. Learning becomes natural and takes place almost all the time. Just describing what you are doing already provides a lot of room for learning.

Here are some suggestions you can try:

1. Take your children to the supermarket, tell them the names of vegetables and other food items. This will surely be more interesting than just hanging a poster of fruits and vegetables in their room.

2. Make them read car registration numbers to you to help reinforce mastery of numbers and alphabet.

3. Teach the concept of numbers by making them count items whenever you encounter a situation that permits, such as counting slices of cake on a plate while having tea. Or during morning walks collect dried leaves and count them as you and your child pick them up.

There are many more things you can do with your children that without you realising it, they're actually learning new stuff. It is crucial that we make learning enjoyable and fun for children and when learning becomes natural where it takes place anywhere, anytime, children will develop curiosity to almost everything around them and it is this thirst for knowledge that you want to develop in children.