Parenting Your Child to Face the First School Days

This comic strip of Patterson Family by Lynn Johnson (I’m a big fan of her comic) describes the trouble that may occur in your family life every time your children have to face their first day in school. The fear of facing change and all new things, the lack of self confidence may cause this trouble.

Michael (boy) : I hate that dumb kindergarten,an' I'm never going back EVER !

Elly (mom) : You don't have to go back, Michael. It's over for the summer and in September you start Grade 1!

Elly (mom) : You'll never go back to kindergarten again

Michael (boy) : WAAAAH

Here are simple steps for you to prepare your child facing his/her big day:

Step 1Make her or him enjoy to study and to learn something new first. This is your important job as parents to build your child’s fondness for study. Your child should have a strong foundation of study fondness. An expert said that you can start teaching your child since she or he is still in mom’s uterus.

You should know what learning style is of your child. Is he or she an auditory learner, a visual learner or a kinesthetic learner? Give a playfull and pleasure atmosphere every time you teach something to them. Use attractive tools that suit with your child’s learning style in describing things, have a walk together around the neighborhood while introducing things that you’ve seen during the walk, or have a fun learning in internet by using specific browser for kids.

Step 2Prepare your child as soon as possible (at least a month) before the big day; especially if it is his or her first time to go to school or a new school. Start to wake up your child a little earlier each morning and move bedtime upward to make a new sleeping habit.

Step 3Plan a "ready-to-school" shopping day with your child and make it a special event. No need to buy all things. You can reuse things that it’s still in good condition, but buy something special to your child (example: a hot cartoon pencil case, drinking bottle, etc).

Step 4For a new year in a new school, introduce the school environment to your child before so that she or he doesn’t feel entering a strange place. Make an earlier visit to the school a week or at least one day before the first day. Ask your child together to walk around the school and make your child known the location of his or her classrooms, bathrooms and lunchroom.

Step 5
Telling your child how to go to school everyday. Introduce the route to school. If your child will take the school bus, find out the route and try it first together a few times there and back until your child understands it.

Step 6
Celebrate the big day. There are some options: ask your child out to his or her favorite eating place, have a special meal at home in the night before, or give a small gift.

rewrite source : www.ehow.com

Do you have another tips that you applied in your own family? Please share your ideas and don’t hesitant to add it on the comment section.

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Four Communication Styles of a Married Couple

Do you have an open communication and warm relationship with your couple? Can you communicate well with her or him? If all answers are ‘no’, it seems that there’s something wrong with the way you communicate. A married couple shouldn’t let this condition happen off-hand because it can lead to a bigger problem.

Before fixing this problem, you have to know first what your present communication style is. Here are these four communication styles:

Controlling style. A married couple who use this style usually doesn’t want to hear other’s talk and tends to eliminate different opinion. Example: if a wife begins to talk, a husband doesn’t want to listen and will cut the talk with more long explanation or it turns out to be an arguing with yelling each other.

In this situation, actually the wife needs advice or solution not just a do and don’t instructions. An expert says that they who apply this style don’t want to appreciate their couple’s idea and feeling and tend to force their own desires. For them, it’s more important to be a ‘never wrong’ person than maintaining a good relationship.

Conventional style. There is no open discussion or conversation on important matters between a husband and a wife. He or she tend to avoid a discussion by distracting attention to other unrelated matter.

Example : if a wife want to discuss about child’s problem, a husband will avoid this by changing the topic to another simple topic such as weather or daily activities. An expert says that this married couple actually apply an artificial communication which there is lack of respect to couple’s feeling.

Speculative style. They generally have open mind to receive and appreciate their couple’s ideas and opinion, but this style users usually finish off their times to ask many undirected questions more than to just express their true feelings.

For example: a husband wants to ask her wife to accompany him on a business trip. Instead of inviting her directly, a husband asks many questions and guesses her wife’s feeling and want. The conversation turns out to be an asking each other and it usually ends with no fair solution.

In this situation, the married couple not only doesn’t express his or her true feeling but also ‘running’ around the talked topic. It will cause a misunderstanding between them.

Full contact style. This style applied by a married couple who wants to listen and appreciate her or his couple’s opinion. They don’t hesitant to discuss every important problem and to express their own desires. This husband and wife always try to maintain their good relationship by building an open and respectful communication.

From all those communication styles, the full contact style is the most appropriate style that should be applied by each married couple to keep their marriage life in intimate and harmonic relationship.

Well readers, what communication style is yours? If you realize now that there’s a problem in your marriage, this article may not give you yet a comprehensive information that you need. You should search more information in wikipedia or google.

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Super Dad

A super dad is really needed in a family! Hi dad, would you like to be a super dad by actively increasing your role at home?

Well, this article is still related with a previous post about after giving birth syndrome. In this case a role of a husband is very important to make a wife feel more comfortable. A dad should involve more actively in baby caring. The opinion that baby caring is a job for a mom only begins to change nowadays. It’s a team work of both parents. Don’t you agree with this also?

An expert in children psychology said that the active role of a dad in new born baby caring have a positive impact. Direct touches of a dad gives physically and psychic effect to a baby; it will build strong inner bond between you and your baby. There are many simple things that a dad can do to care a baby such as holding, touching, putting a baby to bed, changing a diaper, accompanying a baby, etc.

The expert suggests that a dad should participate in caring a baby as often as he can. These are the golden times as a dad; you should enjoy this experience, it may not repeat again!

Want to be a super dad already? Here are practical tips for you:

• If the baby hasn’t been born yet, learn seriously how to take care a baby first. It’s better if you and your wife take a short course on caring a new born baby at a local hospital. On this course you’ll learn various activities in caring a baby such as how to bathe, to message, to hold, to lift up from a baby box, to clean a baby until to prepare a nutritious food for your breast feeding wife.


• If you don’t have enough time to take a course, search more information about this by reading a lot and asking your mother or sister or aunt or anyone else that you trust to give you a lesson.


• Your new born baby is at home! Let your wife take a rest to recover her energy and emotional condition so that she will be stayed away from baby caring fatigue. Your role is very important to overcome the baby syndrome that can affect your wife.


• Be there each time your wife needs your help.


• Help your wife without being asked before.


• Do home tasks that your wife don’t have sufficient time to do it.


• Directly involve in caring your baby. Practice that you’ve learned!

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After Giving Birth the Baby

Congratulations on your new born baby! Some new mothers are very happy; but some others are not. After delivering the baby, there are quite a lot of new mothers get depressed, passionless, confused, sad, disappointed, anxious and other mix-upped negative feelings without a clear reason. An expert said that these depressed feeling is often occurred to new moms.

There are two kinds of after giving birth syndrome: baby blue syndrome and postpartum depression syndrome. Baby blue syndrome is less severe and usually happened less in a week. Postpartum syndrome is more severe and can happen in more than 2 weeks or even continuing until few months. This syndrome has no time limit when it affects new moms and it also can happen on every baby birth.

Every woman can have this syndrome, even though you’re a doctor, psychiatrist, professor etc. There is no relation with the rationality of a woman. The syndrome is more dominantly caused by the hormonal change of the woman bodies. The physical change, the fatigue after delivering the baby and the doubts in facing new things are worsened the new mom’s condition. You may still remember that a famous US actress Brooke Shield has ever had the postpartum syndrome; she felt very depressed, sick and unable to fulfill her baby needs.

This syndrome can make a new mom to feel uninterested or on the contrary very interested to her baby; too worry or too pay attention; too afraid to hurt herself and her baby and unable to sleep or even lots of sleep.

To overcome your syndrome, here are the tips that can be applied after giving birth your baby :

• Don’t get too intense, you should take times to relax


• Have enough rest first. Share home tasks and your baby care with other family member


• Limit your guests if you feel uncomfortable with too many persons in your house


• Do more relaxing activities such as listening to music, reading books, watching movies


• Build an open communication with other family member, especially with your husband. Don’t be hesitant to explain your feelings to others. A husband and other family member should know the information about the syndrome before so that they can give the best support to a new mom


• Consult to the expert if your condition is getting worst

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