Flu Season

It’s that time of year again: flu season. The holidays are hectic enough, no need for more stress. Here are some tips for protecting your family from influenza:

1. Wash your hands! An oldie but a goodie. Washing your hands is as effective as it was when we were kids.

2. Nutrition. Make sure your child is getting everything they need in the way of diet. A healthy defense (immune system) is the best offense against colds.

3. Bless you! There are two ways to sneeze properly: 1) Into your hands or a tissue and then IMMEDIATELY washing your hands or 2) Sneezing into your sleeve. A you tube tutorial is provided here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpPA73SZJYE

4. I’m sorry… It’s not rude to keep your children away from sick people, it’s in their best interest. By the same token, do not send your fever-ridden child to school or other public places!

More tips? Only because you asked nicely:

http://www.cdc.gov/flu/protect/preventing.htm

Kid Files #1

Earlier this week I was working with an extremely hyperactive child. Getting through his homework was a struggle: he threw himself on the floor, disrupted other children and made inappropriate noises. After an hour I was ready to quit, but we persevered and finished. After homework the kids at my work are supposed to read for 30 minutes and write based off of that day’s prompt. My student and I hopped right into the writing as I didn’t think I had the patience to deal with reading. The prompt was for Dia de los Muertos; the student was to write about a person in their life who died. If not a person, then a pet. My student, luckily, had experienced neither. So we brainstormed and we thought of something else that he had lost: a quarter. By the end of the session he had written a funny, creative story that wished his quarter a farewell as it lived for eternity in “quarter heaven.” A little patience went a long way and I realized that there was more to the student than I thought.

It’s always a surprise.

How can I correct my child's behavior?

The above question implies that there is something wrong with a child’s behavior. When assessing behavior we must remain objective and realize that behavior is only worth correcting when disruptive. Once the child has created a disruption, it is important to pinpont the source of the behavioral problem: is the child aware or unaware that what he/she is doing is bad behavior. If the child is unaware or aware, the first thing to do is to explain to them why that behavior is inappropriate. If the child was previously unaware, there is a good chance they will at least try to stop the behavior. If not further steps may have to be taken. Let’s take a look at some useful tips for curtailing bad behavior.

1. Decide that the behavior is normal for a child of that age.

As we all know children go through phases, some worse than others. As a child I recited whole commercials, verbatim, to anyone that would listen. While certainly an annoying habit, it’s one that I eventually grew out of with support, love and patience from my family. Children are bound to do some things that are purely juvenile. As they should.

2. Punish the behavior.

This is especially important if the behavior is physical or extreme in any fashion. A behavior that is directly hurting someone should not be tolerated and a proportional and swift punishment should be instituted whenever the behavior is repeated.

3. Ignore the behavior.

Another form of punishment and one that I believe works the best. Most bad behavior is a cry for attention. When a child realizes that they are not going to get attention for that behavior, they fall back into line. As a counselor and coach this works effectively because the disruptive child quickly sees that his peers are not mimicking his actions. One on one this tactic is more difficult to accomplish and it actually begins to resemble tip #1 which is to essentially give into the behavior.

4. Redirect

There are only slight differences between a disruptive child and a star pupil: both are outspoken, confident and hungry for attention. Reminding a child of what behavior you like and what will make you pay attention can be very effective. Most disruptive children know exactly what they are doing. Having an aside with them and talking to them as a peer validates the child and let’s he/she know that you see something in them. If you can take the energy they are wasting on being defiant and redirect to a positive behavior, then you’ve not only stopped a problem, you’ve created a future solution.

Ultimately changing behavior is never easy. Setting a good example is always important but when that doesn’t work, we must rely on patience to get us through the difficult task of correcting a child’s actions. Trying to change what someone, let alone a child, does is never easy or instantaneous. It is a slow process, one requiring perseverance and love.

Further reading:

http://familydoctor.org/online/famdocen/home/children/parents/behavior/201.html

Why do children need to play?

“Today’s another day, time to play.” -Sally Wade

Our modern world dictates that we ask ourselves questions that were fundamentally understood truths for years and years. Had you asked fifty years ago why do children need to play, the answer would have been something along the lines of, “Because that’s what children do.” However, with advances in child development and behavioral sciences we now have a better idea of what it is children gain from the act of playing. According to Deborah J. Leong, Ph.D., professor of psychology at Metropolitan State College in Denver, play has a potential for fostering many areas of young children's development, including social and cognitive development. These types of activities have the following characteristics: 1) Children create a pretend scenario by negotiating and talking to peers and use props in a symbolic way; and 2) Children create specific roles-and rules-for pretend behavior and adopt multiple themes and multiple roles. When play has these characteristics, it can teach children how to communicate effectively, how to respect another’s wishes and how to express an opinion without anger or physicality. Having established why children need to play, a second question arises: How do we get our children to play?

Television, internet, video games, music videos, ipods, cell phones, etc. The list of distractions are endless. In a world where most adults cannot curtail their use of electronic devices, it’s easy to understand the difficulty in making a child put down a device and play with his peers. Leong argues that even when we succeed in getting our kids to participate, these events are usually adult oriented or consist of the same age group of kids. Before the age of the internet and television, a neighborhood full of kids might gather spontaneously to play a sport or another game and be forced to govern themselves. Unsupervised activity, such as this, is hands on social learning that can’t be taught in school. As a replacement Leong is in support of early childhood classrooms, where these situations can be simulated and where there are still adults present to encourage play.

While play has other practical purposes (letting children run around so that they actually go to sleep on time for instance), the true importance is that the children are developing social skills. Any good school‘s aim, from a local elementary school to Harvard, is to instill within a child, teenager or young adult a social education. Anyone can gain knowledge from books, but interaction with one’s peers provides an education that can’t be taught or measured academically. With more distractions than ever, our job is to make sure that our children are learning how to talk to one another, how to understand one another and how, through that, to understand themselves.

Further Reading:

http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=10595

http://www.allianceforchildhood.org/sites/allianceforchildhood.org/files/file/pdf/pdf_files/BAECF_Play_in_the_Early_Years_May07.pdf

http://illinoisearlylearning.org/tipsheets/unstructured.htm