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Managing Angry Play
When dealing with an angry child, the goal should always be to protect and reach the child and not to punish them. |
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Teens and Creativity
We need to nurture and encourage creativity in ourselves and others everyday. |
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Children and Screen Time
The American Academy of Paediatrics (AAP) recommends that children under 2 years old do not watch any TV at all and by the time they are teenagers, they should be spending no more than two hours a day in front of the TV watching quality programmes. |
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Perfectionist Children
Perfectionist children are simply not satisfied with doing well or doing better than their peers, they are only satisfied if they feel they have done a job perfectly. |
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Positive School Discipline Strategies
Discipline means teaching a more appropriate behaviour in order to change an existing undesirable behaviour. |
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Using Consequences when disciplining
Children and teenagers need direction and discipline to turn into conscientious, thoughtful adults. However, many people are unsure as to how to go about disciplining their children in an effective and appropriate manner. |
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Parenting Styles
Parenting is a complex activity that involves a number of different behaviours and actions that work alone and with one another to influence your child’s behaviour and actions. |
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The Family Meeting©
The family meeting is a scheduled, regular meeting typically involving all of the family members. It is used for the purpose of making plans, expressing concerns, having discussions and negotiating boundaries with growing children. |
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Auditory and visual processing disorders©
Our brain receives sensory information from our bodies and interprets these messages in order to organise purposeful responses from our body. We have seven main sources of sensory information – vision, smell, taste, hearing, touch, vestibular (information provided by the inner ear about balance, movement, gravity and space as well as the position of our body in space) and proprioceptive. |
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Emigrating with children©
Unfortunately we are living in a time where many people are leaving their countries to settle in other parts of the world. The thing is, certain events in a person’s life are considered to be stressful and, the more stressed a person is, the more susceptible they are to illnesses, amongst other things. |
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Learning styles and exam techniques
Three of our five senses are used primarily when learning, storing, recalling and retrieving information. Just as we are predominantly left or right brained, so we tend to use one modality more than the others, thus we are either visual, auditory or kinaesthetic learners; thus we may have elements of every category but are likely to prefer or be stronger with one method. |
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School Readiness
In South Africa, a child can either enter school when they are 5 years old, providing they turn 6 by the end of June otherwise they have to enter school the year they turn 7. If you are unsure whether your child is ready or not then it is advisable to have a comprehensive school readiness test done. However, the following article should provide you with further insight. |
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Childhood Friendships
Friendships are important to us all but never more so than when we are children as they form an essential part of growing up and are vital to your child’s development and growth. Recent research has indicated that just one good friend is enough to help a child avoid loneliness and depression. |
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How can I help my dyslexic child?
Remember, your worst day as a teacher or parent with a child with learning disabilities is still better than the average day a child with learning disabilities will have in school. |
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Games to play to assist with reading development©
There are two key things to remember when helping your child with schoolwork. Firstly, for your child to be successful at school, they need to have good reading skills, which means they require as much exposure to printed words as possible and the second thing to remember is that you are the parent and not the teacher and if you cross this line your child will start to resent you. |
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Children and Divorce
Divorce is an ongoing process not a single event and there are a number of basic guidelines that can be followed in order to make the process as easy as possible and the key points to remember are... |
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Talking about sex with your children!
Being a parent, I’m sure you've noticed just how curious young children are about almost everything. Something we try to avoid is acknowledging the fact that one of these topics they have so much interested in is sex! |
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Children dealing with grief and loss
It is a sad reality that our children are constantly exposed to situations that result in grief and loss. In fact, today's children face situations and issues that we never even dreamed of as they are exposed to not only what could be considered as “normal” deaths such as the death of parents, friends and family members but also deaths as a result of murder, violent crimes and suicide. |
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Superheroes and children
What we need to remember here is that the media is providing standard for what is becoming normal and acceptable behaviour, therefore children are choosing superheroes as their role models when there are often more appropriate and real-life role models that they could be choosing but these are then ignored. |
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Dealing with Separation Anxiety
It is very difficult for a parent to leave their child crying at school – yet so many people have to do this on a regular basis. |
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Travelling with children
How to keep your children happy, occupied and comfortable when you go away for your holidays. |
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Why do children lie?
I don’t think any parent can say that their children have never told a lie; the fact is that lying is a skill that all children learn and there is a generally a reason as to why they lie, rather than lying for the sake of lying. |
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Reading Assistance at Home
This article addresses the issues that you should consider before starting to read with your children at home. |
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Establishing dominance and crossing the midline©
This article looks at the establishment of dominance, which links to bilateral integration as well as considering issues around crossing the midline. |
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Self-Esteem
This article covers an explanation of self esteem, describes the 3 main aspects of self esteem and advises what you do in order to boost your child’s self-esteem? |
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Teaching Left-handed Children
This article deals with left-handed children in a right-handed world, and how to teach them to write. |
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Homework Assistance
In this article, the introduction of homework is discussed, as well as steps on how to make the homework process become as painless as possible for you and your children. |
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Bullying
This article looks at the two types of bullying, how to identify if your child is being bullied, and how to address the problem of bullying. |
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Fine Motor Play and Development
This article contains a list of games and activities that you can try to strengthen fine-motor coordination in a fun way, for you and your children! |
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Play and Development
This article deals with the development of children through playing, and the impact that modern technology has on this development. |
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Playing With Your Children
This article aims to provide some guidelines that will enhance the play and hopefully allow you to achieve that all important ‘quality time’ with your children. |
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Sensory Integration (SI) and Sensory Integration Dysfunction (DSI)
This article deals with the integration of the senses to the brain, and how some children are affected by a disfunction in this integration. |
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The options when dealing with AD/HD
This article deals with the inaccuracy and misrepresentation of information on ADD. |
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Does my child have a learning disability?
This article highlights the points to look out for in order to distinguish whether your child may have a learning disorder or not. |
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Emotional Intelligence
What is Emotional Intelligence? How important is it? And more significantly, what can we, as parents, do at home to promote emotional intelligence in our children and ourselves? |
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Temper Tantrums
While it is true that no two children are the same and they all develop at different rates and in different ways, it is (unfortunately) very unlikely that you will get through the toddler years without a tantrum or two!! |
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Aggression in Children
While it is common for many children to test their boundaries by hitting, biting and kicking, etc., they generally don’t learn to tame their aggressive instincts naturally. Therefore this is something you have to teach them and here are some suggestions for you. |
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Dealing with Trauma
This has been written to assist parents when their child has experienced a trauma. |
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Choosing the right school for your child
Not so long ago (and yes, I am aware that this still happens now), your child’s school was determined by either where you lived, as your child was zoned for certain schools, or by where you as parents went to school, making use of that old-boy / girl network. However, it is really important that you think about a couple of factors before enrolling your child at your old school or simply placing them at the school down the road because it’s convenient. |
