This has probably been discussed in countless situations and from personal experience, it is very true. Around the time when my youngest was about the age of two, I was more or less working 65-70 hours a week and had little time for anything else. Not having the energy to deal with a over active toddler, I found myself raising my voice on quite a number of occasions and when pressures built to the point where Jayne and I were arguing regularly, we began to notice the change in our youngest. He had become to almost copy the behavior of his father and mother; particularly we noticed how easy it was for him to become confrontational. It dawned on us, that during this crucial stage of his development where he was more a less soaking everything up from his environment, we needed to be mindful and regulate the way we behaved around him. A lot is made today about work-life balance and this was a good example of how, if you get it wrong, you can end up with one angry child.

Discovering the cause of Children Rage

Not all children’s anger is down to the behavior of grownups, but children do not become angry for no reason. Your own part as a father or mother is to support your son or daughter helping them discover the source of this anger and help them resolve those feelings. I am sure that on some occasions, there may well be no obvious cause, in which case you will be left to simply manage the situation or more accurately, help them cope with feelings that may be unsettling.

Teaching a child to be aware of his or her inner thoughts is a vital part of kid’s anger management. Allow your child convey their feelings, especially the difficult feelings that most people including adults, have a tendency to bury away. It can be healthy to experience these feelings and they are all part of your child’s emotional development.

Become Mindful for your Children’s Feelings

Discovering how you can find why a child can be getting upset can take significant practice for parents to develop. Teaching your son or daughter to acknowledge the feeling that may be growing inside of them, getting them to accept it, showing them how they may communicate that feeling to you and how together you can solve the issue is a skill which you will develop with practice.
When your child is upset, he or she wants you as a parent to recognise that fact. They want you to make these ‘nasty’ feelings go away. With time you’ll be able to diffuse the most volatile of situations and prevent your child’s rage from transforming into a full blown tantrum.

They say that no-one is born as a parent, it’s all about practice. From personal experience, anger is one of the key challenges to be faced and the best way of tackling it is to take a deep breath, count to ten and keep calm. How many times of you heard that one? An old cliché, but a true one.

We hope you have enjoyed this little article and from both of us, remember you were a child once.

Technorati Tags: Chld Development

Some of you may be thinking why I use the term ‘he/she’ ?  Well, as a couple Jayne and I decided we wanted the baby’s sex to be a surprise.  So at 5:05 a.m. master Luke made his long awaited appearance, much to his mother’s relief.  Weighing in at 8lbs and 10 ounces and announcing his arrival with a hearty cry, something which he was going to practice on a regular basis.

Joining his elder sister, by 4 years, we looked forward to the future.  That future will prove to have its ups and downs, successes and set backs, we here we are some 12 years on, having survived through them all.  Here is a little picture of him, deep in thought during a soccer tournament.

Being a determined parent, I had great thoughts on how my little bundle of noise was going to grow up and how I would help him along the way.  But the question is ‘Where do I start ?’.  From a personal view, this took quite a lot of thought.  Then I suppose I had that Eureka moment, corny as it may sound.  I would look back over my own childhood, as much as I could remember, and then look at what I would do differently.  As I sat and thought about it, I try to think about all the things that I thought my own parents didn’t do well and then try not to make the same mistakes.  Don’t get me wrong here, that is not meant to be a criticism, as such, as they were probably doing the best they could given their circumstances.  I simply mean that we can all improve on our own experiences.

So this blog is intended to share some of my experiences and hopefully you will find it of some use, even if it is just to say ‘I wouldn’t have done it that way’. Which is good, as it means that it has given you something to think about.  I will over time discuss some of the material we found along the way and give you some pointers.  We don’t profess to be experts in this field, just regular parents with a few years under our belts, still learning along the way and our efforts to have our Child Development Made Simple.

Technorati Tags: child development made simple, child development play, child development stages, child development theories, child development toys

Technorati Tags: child development made simple

• Physical
• Motor
• Psychological
• Cognitive
• Social
• Language

Children progress through the child development stages through their experience of the world around them.  They move, touch, smell, see, hear and taste their world and so early development is very much sensory led.  During the early development, often the child’s actions are driven by needs and communication of those needs to us, for example a baby’s cry to get attention.  As the child develops, this may be expressed vocally or gestures.  Every child is unique in his or her own way that they develop, yet they may share similarities with other children.  So as a parent we must be adaptive in our approach to child development, after all what worked for one child may not work for another of their siblings.

The following will give some guidance as to the types of topics that can be used during the early child development stages.  As each stage progresses, it s important to keep re-enforcing lessons taught at an earlier stage.

• At 2-weeks, and yes child development does begin at this age.  Hold, cuddle, talk to, sing to and rock your baby as much as you can. A lot of your infant’s development depends on their interaction with you. Every touch provides the necessary stimulation.

• At 2-months you should encourage your baby to “speak” by talking to him or her during dressing, bathing, feeding, playing, walking and driving. You should also begin to use age-appropriate toys in your child development play

• At 4-months it is the time to think about getting your baby a playpen and some suitable toys to keep him or her entertained

• At 6-months start to set some limits for future discipline by using distraction, reducing stimulation and establishing routines.

• At 9-months your child will have probably started to crawl to provide opportunities for safe exploration. You must continue to re-enforce setting limits by using verbal “No’s,” distraction or if applicable removing the object from the child’s view.
  

• At 12-months you should be actively encouraging your child to play, alone with supervision or with other toddlers.

• At 15-months it is time for positive reinforcement of what is and isn’t acceptable behavior. Praise the child for good behavior and build up the child’s self-esteem and self-confidence.

• At 18-months you should encourage your toddler to make choices whenever possible.  The key here is to limit the choices to those you find acceptable.  Don’t ask an open question, for example “Do you want….” unless you are prepared to accept the child’s reply

• At 2-years you should use picture books to enrich your child’s vocabulary which will help with language development.

Obviously child development doesn’t stop at the age of two, but as this is such a extensive topic, we have only scratched the surface of the first two years.

Technorati Tags: child development made simple, child development play, child development stages, child development theories, child development toys