Exploring Our Children’s Potentials

Recently I posted some tips and thoughts on how to raise respectful children.

And one of the reasons why I put it up is because I too am faced with challenging attitudes from my 4.5yo girl, Anya.

Just like any other preschoolers, Anya’s going through a phase where her attitudes are often beyond what anyone will regard as respectful.

She’d yell, scream, talk back rudely, roll her eyes and look away, refuse to respond. You name them.

Thank goodness it doesn’t happen ‘all the time’, but on a particularly bad day, it can happen rather frequently, despite my consistently firm response.

[Yes, when such incidents happen, my mind does get very numb, and my brain feels like coming to a complete stop]

Really, although I’ve implemented almost all the tips mentioned in the article ever since she’s young, the reality is, it doesn’t stop Anya from being rude and disrespectful towards the closest people in her life.

And I learn a valuable lesson here.

That when parents give and do their best in teaching their children – regardless of who they are – it doesn’t mean the kids will automatically become ‘good’ kids, ie. kids who are always respectful, obedient, helpful, appreciative and kind.

Reasons being, children are sinners too. And they’re not robots that can be programmed.

Sigh.

But I know one thing is for sure though. If we parents sincerely bring our children up in the right way – or in our family’s case, in accordance to God’s way – our efforts will not totally be in vain.

And someday, perhaps in ten or twenty or even thirty years down the road – we’ll see the fruits of our efforts.

For our case, we pray for our children daily. For them to have a personal relationship with God; for them to grow and be the kinds of people God wants them to be; and for them to be a blessing to countless others as they grow up.

Because really, when it comes to being parents to our children, we know we are never capable of doing such a task without the grace, strength and wisdom from above.

When babies are born, we find them all cute and adorable, don’t we? Their little coos and gurgles. Their tiny hands holding onto our fingers. Their eyes looking oh so intently into ours. Treasured and sweet moments indeed.

And, all babies grow up. They gradually become more independent. They learn to communicate their wants. And the reality is, from toddlerhood on, when these little ones wish to exert their demands, opinions and quest for independence, things (unfortunately) tend to end up looking and sounding rather far from cute and adorable.

They are (very much) capable of screaming, kicking a fuss, throwing toys around in their moments of ‘unhappiness’ and talking back in an unkind manner. To name a few.

Yes. Little children, in essence, are small versions of us adults.  And they’re sinners just like us.

Fortunately there are useful tips and thoughts out there that we can consider, explore and implement, that will at least help us a little bit in raising our children to be respectful beings (and most often than not, it’ll need us parents to actively review our existing parenting values and our own daily words and actions too)

Anyway, here I’ve extracted parts of a write-up that I believe will be useful.

Have a good read, everyone!

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Source : Parents Talk

Step #1
Teach through actions
“Do as I say, not as I do” sounds like a fun idea, but as a parenting tool it rarely (if ever) works. You are your child’s first and most important teacher. Just as children learn to talk by listening to us talk, they learn how to treat others by following our lead. Watch how you treat, not only your kids, but other people you come in contact with during your day. What are you teaching your kids? Teach more than just manners.

When we teach our children manners we must also discuss the not-so-obvious details. Such as looking someone in the eye, using a polite tone of voice, and using real words (such as “yes” instead of “uh huh!”) These are not things our kids are born knowing. We need to teach these important facets of good manners.

Step #2
Be firm but fair
Letting kids get away with bad behavior only breeds more of the same. Make sure your kids know the rules of the family and that you discipline appropriately when rules are broken.

Firm and fair discipline is not haphazard and does not change depending on your mood. It requires a consistency that your kids can count on. (They may not like it, but they can count on it!) I’ve heard it said that it’s not the severity of a consequence that makes it effective, but the certainty of it. When your kids know exactly what your expectations are, and that there will be a penalty for failing to meet those expectations, they will more likely behave in an appropriate manner.

Step #3
Praise good behavior
Your praise and encouragement have a tremendous impact on your child. “Praise” messages are not all verbal, either. An OK hand signal, a wink, a smile, a hug. All these speak volumes to a child who has just done something right. These positive messages reinforce a child’s goodness, and encourage more of the same positive behavior.

Click HERE to see more captured moments, under ‘photography category’.

We’re off for a bit of a holiday break today!!

And we’ll be back towards the end of the month (yes, the kids and I will be away from home for quite some time this time round).

As for my blog, I do have some pre-written posts ready to be published which (thanks to WordPress!) will magically ‘appear’ from time to time. So do come by my site though we’re away ya!

[Please do write and share your thoughts as usual too. I do have access to the internet and will definitely check my emails and read your comments!]

And of course you’re most welcome to browse our past archives too.

Check out our arts and crafts ideas, activity ideas for kids, parenting write-ups, or read up on some previously written posts on ‘principles and values’ topics. All categories are a click away on the right sidebar.

Ok folks, till then!

Vai hasn’t been feeling too well these past few days.

Phlegmy cough,  runny nose, loss of appetite, a couple of vomiting incidents, occasional diarrhea and and bouts of high fever during the night.

[Apparently he got the virus from his sister, who went through exactly the same thing last week! Her phlegmy cough still lingers till today!]

And errr, his face sort of shows it all.

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He is however much better today! No more vomiting and fever! And he’s back to his silly self – jumping around, flicking crayons around our home, whining (yes, he’s somehow into whining lately!), drawing on places OTHER than paper, and REFUSING to nap!

Sigh.

Being much healthier seems to bring a ‘happy problem’ to mom.

When we have a good one hour or so to spend, we sometimes go for a session of watercolour fun.

And here are just a few tips I’d like to share when it comes to our watercolour time:

– Cover the table with layers of newspaper for easier clean-up afterwards, and tape a few corners of it to the table too (so it doesn’t move much)

– To protect the kids’ clothes, consider letting them wear an arts and crafts apron or your old (small) t-shirt to wear over their own clothes.

[During this particular session, Anya strongly insisted on wearing the orange apron, and so Vai wore his sister’s checkered arts and craft apron instead! For our next sessions, I let Vai wear a small old tee shirt of mine instead]

– It’d be nice if each kid has his own drawing book. Anya and Vai usually will draw on their own books, but at times they’ll draw and scribble on any scrap paper and our old newspaper too.

– Other than the paint brush, do let them try and use other things to ‘paint’ and ‘stamp’.

Just to name a few:
> toothbrushes
> toilet rolls
> sponges (ie. your old dish-washing sponge can be useful here)
> potatoes (slice, carve, make patterns and let the kids use it to stamp coloured patterns onto the paper)
> their own hands and feet!

– For smaller kids, watercolour sessions allow them to learn names of colours too.  For preschoolers, they can learn what secondary colours are at the same time! From this session, Anya learned – and still remembers it today – how to create the colour purple by mixing the colour blue and red!

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Anyway.

Enjoy your watercolour fun session with your little ones, everyone!

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If you have other tips on watercolour sessions with kids, please do share in the comments section ya.

It’s fun making paper ladybugs, but it’s really more fun to have cute ladybugs ready to go on my feet!

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The kids and I had our little ‘photography session’ the other day. This is one of them. I’ll be posting a few others every now and then too. To see more of our photography, you can always click the ‘photography category’ on the sidebar.

We made this recently. Two paper ladybugs!

AND, it’s actually very simple to make!
(check out the ‘modified and simplified version’ towards the end)

What you need:

– Paper plates (two plates needed to make one bug)

– Watercolour : Red and black
(The black will be the body, the red will be its wings)

– Black-coloured paper carton (for the six legs, two antennas and the black dots on its wings)

– Scissors, glue, paint brush (we used a toothbrush too)

What you do:

– Let kids colour the ‘back’ of the paper plate (one in red, the other in black)

– Let them all dry

– Cut out the red plate (see below)

– Stick the ‘wings’ on the black plate

– Cut out long strips from the black-coloured carton (circles for the dots on the wings, and long strips for the six legs and two antennas), and stick them on

– Using the unused red paper plate (the top bits), cut out two circles. These are the bugs’ eyes! Stick them on, with the white-colour part on top.

And THAT’S IT!

Modified and simplified version:

– Use red and black coloured paper carton (so, no watercolouring needed)
Or
– Use white paper cartons and let the kids colour them out with crayons / coloured pencils