Tips to Successful Child Discipline

Consistency is Key to Successful Discipline


Consistency is key to successfully teaching your child right from wrong when disciplining them. It keeps small misdeeds and bad behaviors from later becoming bigger misdeeds and worse behaviors. You have to stand firm and mean it when you say, "Turn off the television now"or "no dessert after dinner because you didn't touch your dinner."


Consistency teaches your child there are defined consequences for misdeeds and inappropriate or unacceptable actions or behaviors. Inconsistency when disciplining makes you directly responsible for your children's misbehavior and doesn't teach them how to be responsible for their actions.


It's also that each partner is consistent with the discipline. If one parent is too strict and the other is too lenient, the child will key into that and try to manipulate the situation to his or her advantage.


Parents must agree on disciplinary action in advance and make a commitment to one another to be consistent in implementing and following through with the consequences. This can be especially difficult if the child's parents are separated or divorced. Though you may not be together anymore, it's imperative that you parent on common ground.


Openly and honestly discuss these parameters with your former spouse and your child in advance, so that if discipline is needed, the consequences of such misbehavior are well understood in advance. Any disagreements between parents should be discussed out of the child's earshot.


Consistency is about being strong and standing firm, even when doing so is extremely difficult or exhausting. It can sometimes be hard to come home after a hard day at work only to find a hard night of parenting in front of you.


Your child will consistently test the boundaries and 'push the envelope' with you to see if there's any play in those consequences. By standing firm you are showing there is not and that you expect them to do nothing less than take responsibility for their actions.

Children from an early age will play one parent against the other. You must show solidarity in front of your children and discuss
your differences privately...

Remember to have your Family Hugs!

Your Child's Uniqueness

Celebrate your Child's Uniqueness


Just like a snowflake or a fingerprint, every child is
unique in their own special way.

Every child has a unique way of feeling, thinking, and
interacting with others. Some children are shy, while
others are outgoing; some are active, while others are
calm; some are fretful, while others are easy-going. As a
loving and nurturing parent, it's your job to encourage
them to embrace their uniqueness and celebrate their
individual qualities.

Allow your child to express themselves through their
interests. They may find a creative outlet in theatre,
dancing or art, or they may be exceptionally talented in
the sciences. Encourage them to embrace what they
like to do, what interests them, and what makes them
happy. Help them realize that they don't need to worry
about being 'like everyone else.'

Teach your child to make positive choices, and praise
them for good deeds, behaviors and positive traits they
possess. Encourage them to become actively involved
in their community, and introduce them to activities that
promote a sense of cooperation and accomplishment.

Be firm yet fair when handing down discipline for
misdeeds or misbehaviors, and make certain the rules
and consequences for breaking the rules are clearly
defined. Show a cooperative, loving and united front
with your spouse when it comes to discipline.

Accept and celebrate your child's uniqueness.

Remember that your child is an individual. Allow your
child to have his or her own personal preferences and
feelings, which may be different from your own.

And finally, encourage your child to be true to
themselves by doing the same. Show your child how to
make positive choices with the choices you make, and
that nobody is perfect and you too make mistakes.

Show your child that mistakes can be a great learning
experience, and that they should not be ashamed or
embarrassed about making them.

Parenting has and always be the hardest Job you
will ever have in life. That is why you can feel such
pride and joy when you manage to do it the best
that you can.

Read & learn from others all you can about the
journey of raising children. You will make mistakes and
you will have your bad & good days. In the end your
role as a parent will be judged simply by the healthy and
unique child-teenager-adult that one day stands
tall before you.

Accept your child with unconditional love and
remember that we are all different and there is no
perfect parent or child - just doing the best we can
with the tools & knowledge we have.

Hug your child as many times during the growing
up time that you have together as you gently say
you love them and are proud of them.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This Blog is Dedicated to my Son
- Billy who as a
young adult - struggles with his "ARVD" heart
condition while raising 3-wonderful young boys
along with the support of his wife {Stacy} and
her parents... I thank all who have been there
for my son during these tough times!


Kindest Regards,

William Blake

www.blakepublishing.com

Child Visualization Activities

Visualization - How to Develop it?

Why is visualization important?

Visualization is an important skill for your child's intelligence. A person needs it for imagination, creativity, problem solving, understanding of written material, and it has many other uses. Visualization is a skill for life, and can be developed at any time. Just like imagination, it is a skill that is related to the right brain hemisphere, and is easily developed early in life. If you take some time to develop it in your child and practice, you can achieve fantastic results.

Fantastic Examples

The famous chess grandmaster, George Koltanowski, set the record in blindfold chess, by playing 34 opponents simultaneously. I have watched Koltanowski, at the age of 90, give a very impressive demonstration of his visualization skill, when he let people in the audience assign an object to each square on the chess board. He looked at the chess board for several minutes, and then turned around and proceeded to name the objects one by one, using knight "jumps".

One of my son's young friends, at the young age of 8, managed to play a blindfold game of chess with the master, and win! (the master was not blindfolded!)

Activities and Games

Here are a few activities and games you can play with your child, to develop and strengthen this wonderful skill. These activities and games are fun, and can be adopted to a group, if you'd like.

1. Draw a red triangle. Cover the triangle, and have your child see the triangle in his mind's eye. Then draw a blue triangle, let your child see the triangle in his mind's eye. Keep doing this activity using different colors and shapes.

2. Tell your child to draw a red triangle in his mind's eye, without actually drawing one for him. keep doing this using various shapes and colors.

3. Have your child imagine 2 squares, the left one is blue, the right one is red. Then change the colors, the left one is red and the right one is blue. Make the left one yellow...

4. Have your child see in his mind's eye a flower (or any other object you'd like). Ask him to describe the flower, in as much detail as possible. After he is done describing the flower, you can ask questions. Like: how thick is the stem? Is it in a planter or a vase? Ask about details your child hasn't described. This will get your child into the habit of adding details to his imaginary creations.

5. Can your child play tic tac toe? Great! Then play tic tac toe using an imaginary board. You might have to write the moves down, to be able to go on with the game if one of you gets "stuck". Start at a 3x3 board, and advance to more and more elaborate dimensions.

6. After your child has mastered all the previous activities you can advance to shapes like the US map, have your child study the map, and then answer questions from memory. From here you can advance to the globe, and other 3 dimensional shapes.

As your child (and you, helping your child) gets better and better you can go on to more sophisticated games, like "blindfold" chess.

Have fun and invent additional games that develop visualization skills. Let your child invent games too, and don't forget to praise lavishly for great achievements.

A child’s mind develops a lot faster than we may think, so it is important to be creative with activities you do at home with your child, even at the youngest ages.

Enjoy being a "Creative Parent" with your children!

Children & Our World News

How to Help Your Child Cope with World News


When were informed of the savage terrorist bombings in London and daily hear of other natural or man-made disasters worldwide, everyone is shocked, and many of us discuss the day's events with family and friends. What we often don't realize is - our young ones also listen and hear our discussions.

We all want to protect our children, and shield them from anxiety. As a result, our natural tendency is to avoid discussing the events with our children. Since our children live amongst us, hear our conversations, the television reports and the radio with us, they are aware of what is happening, but might not have the background information, the judgment and experience to know how to cope with the world news. They might be affected in ways we don't know about or don't expect. The news might frighten them, depress them, or cause a feelings of sadness and grief.

We need to keep our children informed with what is happening in the world. If we want to have exceptionally intelligent children, it is not enough to teach them reading, sciences and history. We need to educate them, so that they are connected and informed with what is happening all around us, what is happening in the world.

Since you are the parent, and you know your child best, you have to judge what amount of information is appropriate for your child, and in what detail. The amount of information you share with your child will differ by age and may vary from one child to another.

Here are some pointers of how to help our child cope with the situation, understand the news, and even take the opportunity to teach them some history, values and general knowledge.

- Inform yourself about the situation first. Make sure you have the knowledge needed . For example, in the case of London, get a hold of as much information about London. Geography, history, political situation. Get the information that you need, and adapt it to the level appropriate for your child. If it's a conflict between two groups of people or two nations, inform yourself very well about the history of the conflict, the history of all nations involved. In the case of a bombing, for example, prepare a map that will provide for your child an understanding of how far London is from where you live. After you have the background information and the facts, provide the information that is appropriate to your child in an organize and easy to understand way.

- Be honest, don't conceal facts, tell the truth. Our children are very smart, and they know when they are lied to. This might increase their anxiety, or shake their confidence in you.

- Think ahead of time, what values and moral principles you would like to instill in your child, as a result of this event. You can teach ideas of war and peace, value of life, tolerance, freedom. Discuss the event with your child, and use this to explain your values.

- In order to stimulate a good discussion, ask your child what they have heard and what they know about the news. This will give you the opportunity to correct any misconceptions or provide additional information that is needed in order to understand the situation. Ask open ended question, like "what do you think about..." or "what do you think should be done about it...". Let your child express their opinions, feelings and let them think of possible solutions.

- If a conflict is involved, present your child with all sides of conflict. Give your child a good and fair understanding of the conflict and the issues involved.

- Inform your child about any actions that are being taken to remedy the situation. What safety measures are being taken here to prevent similar attacks to occur here, in our environment? What is being done to protect us? Any information that will make our kids feel more secure.

- Have some control over media exposure. We all value the freedom of speech, but we don't find it necessary to expose our children to all of it. Make sure your child is not exposed to very detailed and frightening images that might cause unnecessary anxiety.

- Take a good look at yourself. Do you have anxieties that might come through in this discussion? As mentioned before, children are very smart, and they pick up on our anxieties and feelings. Make sure you communicate with your child sincerely and logically.

If you do all these, your child will be informed, gain knowledge from world events, feel assured that he gets all the information needed. Your child will have the opportunity to voice his opinions and express his fears and concerns, and the bond between you and your child will be stronger than ever.

May we all have more good and happy events to share with our children than stressful and sad news...

Teach Tolerance, Kindness and Respect at an early age!