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March 2010 Newsletter
A Collection of Great Stuff
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| News from ProActive Parenting |
Happy almost spring everyone. Last Sunday was the beginning of daylight savings time, one of the big signals that the long winter is finally coming to a close. Speaking of change I wanted to remind all of you of a weekly opportunity you have to get some free tips and advice on any subject that involves your kids.
You can join me on Ask Me at momtv.com every Wednesday @ 1pm EST. This is a FREE online TV show I host. Parents tune it and either listen or join the chat room to ask me question, hence the name! You can also get a question answered by sending me an email before the show at sharon@proactiveparenting.net then tune in for the answer.
The radio show I host, Getting to the Heart of the Matter, is a different format all together. Here I wanted to interview women just like you and me to see how they make life work. In my life teachers and wisdom have been sent to me just when I need it and I wanted to be part of returning the favor. Each woman I interview on Getting to the Heart of the Matter is a mom and an entrepreneur. You don’t have to own a business to get something out of the show. You’ll learn about the women behind the product or service. You’ll hear the challenges they faced growing up or with their children now. They share the business tools they’ve found to really work for them so they are not consumed with business. And you’ll hear how they honor themselves as women. Join us for an informative hour each week.
In this newsletter
This month’s article from me is about bullying and what you can do to help your child.
Janet Gonzales-Mena’s article is about how children need to be interested in something before they can learn.
In Things I Think are Great this month I tell you about a series of books and so much more.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day and enjoy the beginning of spring.
| How to handle things when your child encounters a bully |
By Sharon Silver, ProActive Parenting
We’ve all experienced a bully at one time or another in our lives, either when we were little, now as a parent with our own child, or out in the adult world—we’ve all seen bullies in action.
When a child hears, “you’re not our friend” or is rejected or ignored while trying to join the fun there are 3 sets of kids involved in the situation, not just two.
The ringleader: This is the child who is sending the social clues to the rest of the group.
The child who’s being left out: This child feels hurt and helpless.
The group: These kids have accepted and are implementing whatever the ringleader says.
Ringleader: There may be some bullying going on in the bully’s house, which will probably cause the bully to take the stress of the situation and dump it on someone else. The parent of the bully may be saying diminishing things to his or her child or may be putting others down in front of their child, which unconsciously shows him “I feel good about myself by making others feel bad about themselves.”
Child who’s left out: Being left out causes a preschooler to cry, get sad or angry because they don’t understand why this is happening. Parents feel bad for their child and don’t understand why this is happening either so they tend to do one of three things to manage situation and all the feelings.
They downplay the situation hoping things will go away or magically resolve without any help.
They complain to the bully’s parents and get over involved as they handle things for their child.
They empower their child by addressing the feelings and help him or her find the best response.
The entire group: The “group” is too young to stand up to the bully and they’re afraid they’ll be next so they go along with what ever the bully says. If this is happening at school it’s best for the school to talk to all the children and explain the rules and how they can help if they see a bully in action.
Understanding a bully: One way to deal with a bully is to teach your child how to shift the power. A new website for girls k-8 (boys will benefit from this as well) is A Way Through dot com. A great book for older children is Cliques, by Giannetti and Sagarese. They suggest you tell a child “the person who is being mean to you is “hungry” for your reaction. When you cry or whine or cower the hungry person gets a snack, they get attention, negative attention, but attention nonetheless.”
Teaching what to do: Create a family policy announcing how your family handles a bully or mean friends. Make sure to scale information down to their level by using words and images to help young children remember what to do.
Try the example of turning on and off a lamp. Make sure to remind them they are not allowed to turn lamps on or off, this is just a story. Tell them when someone is looking for attention by being mean you turn off the meanness by walking away. If you look sad or cry you’re allowing them to turn on the meanness again. Tell them the place for feelings is at home with mom and dad, not in front of the bully.
Then teach your child how to walk away without showing their feelings to the bully. Practice by role-playing the situation a bunch of times showing them how to walk away without reacting and how to come right to mom and dad to share what happened.
So the next time you see a bully remember they’re most likely modeling behavior they’ve seen some where else and teach your child how to turn off the meanness by walking away.
| Children Need To Be Interested Before They Can Learn |
By: Janet Gonzales-Mena
Sometimes I'm a terrible teacher of my own children. Here's an example.
“This is a strawlegged mosquito,” my daughter told me. “Hmmmm,” I said, “Very interesting...” I added. I took a brief look at the flattened creature in her hand then wrapped it in a scrap of paper, packed her and it in the car, and took off for the library. Science lesson time.
“We're going to learn more about insects,” I announced, nudging her through the doors of the library. I found the section of books on insects. She sat looking through fairy tale picture books. While I looked up mosquitoes she escaped outside to play on the grass.
I searched and searched but could find no mosquitoes with the name “strawlegged.” Finally I found the correct name of the creature she had shown me. Calling her back in, I showed her. I gave her the correct name.
“Hmmmm,” she said. “Very interesting...” She wandered off to look at the display cases. I checked out three books hoping she'd look at them at home when there weren't so many other distractions. She never touched the books.
Finally, when the book were due, I brought up the subject again, suggesting she could learn more about mosquitoes and other insects, including their proper names.
“Oh,” she answered, “I don't care what they are really named—I like to make up my own names. I named that one the strawlegged mosquito because of the stripes on his legs. Remember how it looked?” I didn't. I hadn't paid attention to either the legs or the name she had invented once I found out it was “incorrect.” I found the specimen still wrapped in the scrap of paper stuck in the pages of one of the books. Indeed it did have stripes on its legs, just like the old fashioned drinking straws. “Oh, now I see,” I said. “You're a good observer,” I added, a little late.
My heart was in the right place but my attention was elsewhere when it had counted. Instead of being sensitive to what my daughter was trying to tell me in the first place, I made a lesson that she wasn't interested in, She didn't care about someone else's classification and labeling scheme of insects—she was more interested in inventing her own. She was being scientific in her observation skills. I should have picked up on that fact. But I didn't pay attention because I had my own agenda.
I'm not the only parent who gives lessons children aren't interested in. I remember a toddler once in the Laundromat who asked a simple question about the change-making machine. The mother took the ball and ran with it giving a 15-minute lesson on math, economics and how things worked. “See four quarters come out, four quarters make a dollar, and how many nickels make a quarter? Five.” She answered all her own questions. The child fiddled with a shoelace. Ten minutes later she was still at it. “Here’s where we put the quarters. Do you know why we need quarters? Yak, yak, yak.” The child played with a pile if spilled soap on the floor.
My message is: pay attention. What is your child really saying? What is an appropriate response—one that will keep her on her own interest track than always trying to jump her over to yours? Sensitivity is the name of the game. I wish I had more of it.
1. I interviewed this woman on my radio show and wanted to pass along her books to all of you. In fact they are for sale on my website too. The books goal is to help children express their emotions. They’re simple and have more pictures than words. They also have sections built in to the books for drawing and autographs and other ways for children to express themselves. Here’s the author’s description.
The “I’ve Got” Interactive Book series for children ages 5-12 helps develop strong communication and decision-making skills, embrace compassion and empathy, survive bullying behavior, avoid revenge mentality, and learn to flourish in any social situation—all of this while having fun!
Book one: “I’ve Got Friends” helps kids understand friendship comes in many different ways and emphasizes the importance of being a good friend, It also includes a section for collecting autographs of special friends.
Book Two: “I’ve Got a New Home” helps children who are moving sort out their feelings and encourages them to look at the experience as a positive adventure.
Book three: “I’ve Got Plans” reminds children of their limitless potential and provides them with a way to begin creating their future through fun-filled activities and goal setting.
Book four: “I’ve Got A Choice” guides children through the process of good decision-making and empowers them to be confident about doing the right thing.
I hope you’ll check these books out as well as the other two product lines we now carry.
We also carry Coyote Cruz’s set of cards. The sets are based on the game Old Maid. They help children learn positive ways to express feelings, how to handle angry feelings, and how to address the problems of bullying.
We also carry a dynamite book called Getting Ready for Kindergarten. I just sent a copy to my nephew and it worked like a charm. Did you know there are several things children need to know before they get to Kindergarten? Parents say all the time, “my child can count to 100 and say his letters.” That’s great but did you know that teachers test that knowledge to make sure your child really knows their letters and how to count to 100 making sure they haven’t just memorized it. This book is designed for a child to ”read” all on his/her own. The child thinks it’s a game and wants to play with it over and over again, thus teaching him what he needs to know in a brilliant and effective manner.
Check these amazing products out. I wish I had come up with them!
2. Looking for toys or furniture that is planet friendly and parent friendly? If so check out Ecotota.com.
3. I love this one. How many times have you stepped on a Legos as you were cleaning up the mess? Those little suckers hurt! Well someone came up with a way that makes cleaning these things up really, really easy for kids and sorts them into sizes at the same time! Check out box4blox.com
4. Speaking of cleaning up toys check out this site. It has every imaginable size and price point for storing toys, from bags that go on the back of a door to the traditional toy box. Check out toyboxes.com
Do you have an older child that hates studying but needs to improve his reading, language and math?
Try playing these games with him.
- Remember hangman? It teaches the alphabet and increases spelling skills.
- Dominoes exercises number recognition and problem solving.
- Play Narrator with your child in the car. Give her a non-working microphone and have her narrate the trip or activities during the day. This enhances language skills. Older kids can type this up and you can make a family book of your travels to give as gifts to grandparents. They love anything the kids do, LOL!
- Remember tongue twisters? They help with articulation.
- Mad-libs are a wonderful way to increase language knowledge.
- What’s the total? Ask you child to guess how much money was spent at a store or when you go out for dinner. * Make it fun and you are increasing his/her ability to add in their head.
See you next month!
Sharon
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