Gratitude is a happy emotion, a feeling, a compassionate gesture, an empathetic approach and more importantly a happy way of leading life. It means appreciating and being thankful for the people and things that we see and have in our life. In unprecedented times, such as the current pandemic of Covid 19, this gratitude is a saviour virtue that has kept us sailing through. Irrespective of whatever times we are in, practising gratitude should be our regular trait.
Getting engaged creatively in activities liberates imagination. This in turn pop up new ideas that has value and solution to the present problem or situation. This engagement requires Creative Thinking skill. Creative Thinking is the ability to think new and finding solutions from a fresh perspective. This ability helps to develop growth mindset - a mindset to finding solutions, identifying opportunities and developing abilities.
When can we go back to school? This has been a burning question for children lately. Embracing the new way of life has been tough for children.
As a parent, are you excited about the future? Or have you been busy in simply catching up with the pace at which present parenting is evolving?
A new decade brings new hopes and ambitions. Along with that, it requires different, rather contemporary ways of parenting for us. Now you may ask what this would imply. Recent studies have shown that Indian children spend a lot of ‘alone-together’ time with their parents, i.e. they spend time with parents who are busy using phones and other gadgets.
It's the season of results, and we are sure you are browsing through newspapers that are full of acknowledgement for children that have scored nothing but above 90%. What a well-deserved glory!
Teaching about life to the little one isn't always easy. As they grow, there are so many lessons to be taught—having better interaction with others, learning to manage time and be organised in whatever they do. Life skills are the simplest way in which kids can be introduced to these concepts at an early age. Children need life skills education for self-care and sufficiency. And in the process they feel empowered, confident, can easily socialize and develop a healthy self-esteem.
Self-awareness is the conscious knowledge of one's own behaviour. It's the ability to identify one's own personality, emotions, feelings and responses. Self-awareness helps one in also understanding others. And as we forge towards virtual reality driven age, one will need to be self-aware at every step of life. Let's know some simple parenting tips to help our children as well as us, become more aware of self.
Asserting self, especially refusal is often a resisting feeling. Children are vulnerable to their surroundings and as they grow, they must learn to assert their refusal to something they don’t like or agree with. Here are some parenting ways to build the understanding of refusal in our kids.
What is life, but a puzzle to be solved at every step, right? Our usual responses to situations decide the way we experience life. "I can't do it." Or "I am unable to look up." and even "Can I do it tomorrow, please?" are some ways in which we either procrastinate or avoid resolving a situation. So do our kids. Hence, we thought let's share some simple parenting tips that can help the kids and us to solve every situation in life.
Emotions are our natural responses to what happens around us. They are the very foundation of our existence. Our little ones experience various emotions through the day at school, home and play dates. While they are usually honest in expressing their feelings, sometimes, they find it difficult to cope with certain emotions. This is when life skills education plays a vital role. It provides guidance in understanding the emotions, and also the parenting ways that can help children to cope with them.
Parents! That time of the year is here! When the Sun will slurp every bit of your energy outside, and your little monsters will exasperate you back home. Yes, summer and vacation are here to completely drain you. But fear not, we’ve got your back. Here are some parenting tips to keep your kids occupied during summer vacations.
Do you remember the excitement we had during summer vacations? Playing for hours, helping mum at home, visiting dear ones or having play dates at home. There were so many ways to spend the vacation that when they ended, our faces would sadden. Today these memories make us nostalgic, don’t they? Sigh! But worry not, we can still create such memories with our children, only this time through parenting.
Did you know that apart from learning the academic subjects, Japanese highly focus on imbibing life skills education in their children? Hence, in Japanese schools cleaning, serving food, and organizing their classrooms is a part of education system. Perhaps this is one of the reasons Japan is one of the most disciplined countries in the world.
There are so many times, when a friend calls us to share their situations and we say, "I can imagine what you're going through" and lend our support to them in healing the situation. This is empathy - an emotion that forms the very foundation of early childhood development. Knowing its significance, let's know some parenting tips to teach empathy to our children:
Team work is a fabulous concept. It co-creates, co-manages and shares the load of execution. Even parenting equals teaming up to ensure that kids bloom and create a happy future. While our little ones are yet to learn about teaming up and responsibilities as concepts, we can surely sow the seeds of togetherness in them with these parenting tips:
Until now we have been sharing with you how to inculcate life skills education in your children's daily lives. However, this can't happen without your support isn't it? This is why, here are some parenting tips for parents (yes, be your own parent!) to apply life skills and pass them on to your little stars.
As the month of March approaches, parents and children alike dig into books to score those all important marks and ranks. We as parents are stressed about our little ones' performance, but have we been missing something here? Do our children have exam stress way before the actual D-day? Have you noticed behavioral changes in months leading to exam or ones leading to results?
Be honest with what you feel and convey it in a way that it reaches out clearly. This skill is often challenging for us as adults. We look up ways to better our communication every now and then. So naturally, its importance doubles up while we develop this skill in our children. What we define as communication for our kids becomes their life long pattern. And to make the learning as best as we can, let’s understand the process of communication with children and how it works for them.
Take away that phone, iPad, PS4 or TV from your kid and observe your child’s behaviour. Are they restless and complaining, wanting their games back? Why not? They have been deprived of their whole and sole form of entertainment – gadgets.
There are always choices to be made. Our life, at every stage, is designed by the numerous choices we make. This is why decision-making is one of the most important part of our upbringing. Considering its importance, inculcating this set of life skills in child behaviour is one responsible task. But with some simple and applicable ways, we can plant the seeds of decision making skills in our kids.
We all understand that change is imperative. Yet we find it challenging to inculcate it in our lives. Especially when it comes to parenting, we have a set schedule and ways of responding to our kids, changing which may or may not be welcomed. However, just like our devices need an upgrade, even parenting requires remodelling from time to time. And to help you ease into this process of moving from parenting to mindful parenting, here are some mindful parenting techniques and tips that will help you approach it in a simple manner.
Our children are used to receiving these instructions from us. But are they used to seeing us do that? Welcome to parentdom, where learning happens by doing more than reading or writing.
Life skills, as we know, equip kids to manage the day to day challenges of life optimistically. But we live in a gadget-centric life, where there’s less time, more machines and tons of options to distract kids from learning new things.
Life is not a poem competition, nor an upcoming exam. There's no "how to" manual to live it. And often as parents, our important challenge lies in how to prepare our kids for life and life skills education.
We are sure your 2019 planner is already on a roll and as parents, you may have set some goals to achieve this year. Taking inspiration from Mr Farber, here are some simple parenting tips that will add meaning and value to your parenting.
Positive Parenting is required in today's time more than ever when debates about screen time and life skills are doing the rounds. Apart from regulation of screen time for kids, our parenting have to include the responsibility of imparting life skills training to the child from the formative years of upbringing. Here is an example about how life skills education impacts a child's upbringing and a parenting tip to have regular interaction with the child on multiple topics including the household chores to become self-reliant.
Why not gift something different to my child this time, an innovative set of Life Skills Cards? Let me decorate it, or gift wrap it or creatively present it or decorate it with ribbon, flowers and leaves.
Kids are little adults that also go through all the upheavals that we experience on a daily basis. Except that they are far more vulnerable and adaptive to them. This makes it imperative for parents to focus on life skills.
The early growing years of a child moves fast, there is so much to experience, so much to learn, so much to train, so much to prepare, so much to laugh, so much to share, so much to feed, so much to talk-the most important part is to stay connected emotionally through it. Here is a version about positive parenting, a journey which can be made into creative parenting too.
It is so good to be around with children and contribute to their growing years. My journey as a paediatrician has been with cute little beings and taking care of their health. Health is a comprehensive term and entails overall health. It's not only the health of the body but also important is the emotional and social health. A child needs the love and care of the family. He also needs an education that will help him grow into a balanced human being. Basic skills of life such as problem-solving and managing emotions need to be imparted from early years. Hence there is a need for Life Skills education.