A guide for selecting anti-bias children's books recommends checking illustrations, story lines and the relationships between characters as some of the ways to find books without gender bias.
"Michael Grose explains how children and adults in resilient families tune into each other's needs, choosing situation-specific language, rather than simply regurgitating generalised 'feel good' or 'get on with it' platitudes."
Punishment guarantees a "push-back" response in all of the following situations:
(A "push-back" response is simply the natural human resistance to change. Any time that one attempts to change a child's behavior the child will resist. Add punishment and you will insure more resistance to change.)
Some good guidance and some technical steps you can take. But the biggest takeaway is to be involved with your child, talk to them about your expectations, and spend time unplugged.
Health problems caused by children and teens using screens: Obesity, joint pain, cardiovascular damage, depression, lack of concentration, back and neck pain, and hearing loss. Solutions and explanations are provided
What should be common sense is now being officially prescribed by the American Academy of Pediatrics: Limit screen time to two hours a day, and keep cell phones and Internet connections out of bedrooms.
It is too late to establish distance. To end cyberbullying, we must use the closeness we’ve allowed to breed to our advantage. We must teach them that if one is a cowardly, bullying, rage-baiter online – no matter how many laughs had or page views generated or ad space sold – then one is a bully off-screen, too.
Both the older set of digital natives and the generation above us assume that the Internet is a bubble – a space with limits
Rage-baiting is commonplace and infuriatingly successful, so the most prevalent language of the Internet is at its best cynicism and its worst outright meanness
there is no wariness, no understanding, no concept of an Internet identity. There is no such thing for them, for example, as “Internet famous.” There is only fame, and the allure of instant gratification.
"In the Scholastic-Gates survey of teachers, teachers were asked what they wanted most. The greatest number said they wanted families to be more involved. (What mattered least: longer school days and hours, merit pay).
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Children are influenced by everything around them, the way their parents act, what their parents say and do, and increasingly as they spend more time ‘with’ celebrity figures how these role models act.
A study by the Royal Economic Society, to be presented this week, finds that parental effect on test results is five times that of teachers' influence. This comes in the wake of warnings by Sir Michael Wilshaw last week that teachers were unable to properly do their own jobs because parents were expecting them to cover their own parenting skill shortfalls and to become surrogate family for the students.
It all happens well before school comes into the equation. If a child grows up in a literature rich, engaging environment with adults that spend quality time giving opportunities for great learning experiences in the world, the worst teachers still can't decoy that child's enthusiasm for learning. He can always learn at home. But if the child grows up neglected, not nurtured with rich learning experiences ( and I'm not talking about helicopter parents spending every waking moment ramming study down their throats - just quality conversation and hands on experiences )l doesn't get read to or taken out to shop, teachers are fighting an uphill battle with a disengaged individual. Parents, don't wait for school teachers to teach your kids. Start straight away..
Thought-provoking article on possible harms of praise if motive is simply to get child to repeat behavior. Should focus more on how child's actions made others feel.
praising children for doing something right isn’t a meaningful alternative to pulling back or punishing when they do something wrong. Both are examples of conditional parenting, and both are counterproductive.
In practice,
unconditional acceptance by parents as well as teachers should be accompanied by “autonomy support”: explaining reasons for requests, maximizing opportunities for the child to participate in making decisions, being encouraging without manipulating, and actively imagining how things look from the child’s point of view.