How to Be Your Child's Closest Friend and Confidante

"Why do I need to be my child's friend? You may ask. What he needs is discipline, not friendship".

Here are five reasons why you need to be your child's friend. 

1.  Communication will become better between the two of you. Many cases of drug abuse,  rape,  teenage pregnancy or abortion etc have occurred because the child believed no one cared. As parents we need to  learn when to put on the garb of parenting and when to replace it with that of friendship. Sometimes, all your child needs is not another sermon but a listening ear and someone to be there for him like a true friend would. 

2.  Discipline will become easier. 

      Ironically,  being your child's friend actually makes it easier to instil discipline. A child who has a close relationship with his parents is less likely to be rebellious and more likely to trust their judgement in matters of discipline even when not convenient for him. 

3.  You will earn your child's respect

      Your child will respect you and see you as positive role model and a mentor  which when you think about it is what parenting is really all about after all.

4.  You will boost year child's confidence

      Your child will develop the confidence he needs to face the world and make an impact.  He not likely to be a victim of low self esteem or fall into the trap of negative peer pressure. 

5.  He will becomea responsible and caring teenager and adult

      Building and maintaining a good relationship with your child will help him develop the virtues of tolerance and kindness. Such a child will grow up with fewer adolescent and teenage problems than most of his peers and as such become a blessing to not only his parents but the society as a whole. 

Be in control of your discipline

Almost all parents agree on the need to discipline their children.  However,  discipline that is given wrongly may end up not achieving the desired results. One important tip I usually give parents is to avoid meting out discipline to their children in anger. Yes I know how trying they can be at times. But believe me, in the end,  angry discipline doesn't do either of you any good. Be calm when giving discipline to your child even if he's throwing tantrums or acting up. This sends a signal to the child that you are in control and not him and ultimately gains you respect. It also helps the child to recognise you as the authority in the home. This works well for little children as well as older children. 

The traauma of separation and divorce

The trauma experienced by couples affected by separation or divorce can best be imagined. No one should ever have to go through it. Not only is it damaging to the victim it is also embarassing, diminishes the self esteem and certainly makes one to lose trust in love and relationship.

But bad as all these may be, believe me, the worst hit are the children.

The children inevitably lose the security of a loving and stable home that they so desperately need to form their identity and values.

That is why Children from broken  homes usually have self esteem problems.

These are some of the effects of a broken home on a child:
-low self esteem
-fear of everything (the dark, failure, success, love or emotion, and many more. )
-inability to pursue projects to its logical conclusion
-timidity
-rebellion
-aggression
-bullying (either as an aggressor or a victim)
-lack of initiative and creativity
-inability to reach their full potential due to fear of failure
-tendency to procastinate
-tendency to fall into wrong relationship and marriage
-irrational anger etc

Depending on the circumstances, a child will exhibit some or all of these symptoms.

For me this has made me to review marriage and childbearing not only as a culmination of love but as a call to service and responsibility.

The Last Born Syndrome

Recently I was reading an article that talked about the second child syndrome. The article talked about how the second born is usually given less attention than the first born. We tend to ooh! and aah! over the first born, naturally, but all the excitement dies down considerably with the birth of the second child.

However, in my own case, I'm experiencing what I like to call 'the last born syndrome' with my last child.

First of all, her older ones who are already in high school are boys, which of course means they are far older than her. She is seven while the closest in age to her is 12. 

Because of this, she tends to get left out of so many things. You can see her struggling to join them in playing football, or online games or any of the other things adolescents love to do. 

Even watching television is a struggle, because she wants to watch the girlish or little children cartoons but the boys want to watch adult cartoons like Ben ten, Batman or watch teenage comedies.

This morning she kept asking her brothers to allow her play the online Fifa Football game with them but they refused. She wondered from room to room looking for who to play with (sometimes she just gets tired of her toys) but their was no one.

The brothers were not willing to allow her into their game since they see her as to liitle to quickly grasp the concept of the game, and mummy was too busy trying to send this blog article.

I fear that she gets left out of things a lot and that kinda worries me. 

Is there anyone having similar experience?

Checklist for Raising an Emotionally Healthy Child

1. Listen to your child
2. Show him love, by words and deeds
3. Teach him morals by example
4. Encourage him always, even when he makes mistakes
5. Spend time with him
6. Allow him to express his opinions
7. Allow him to express anger
8. Teach him responsibility
9. Teach him to be courteous
10. Do not backbite or gossip about others in front of him
11. Allow him to be creative.
12. Teach him to be appreciative
13. Set boundaries and give discipline when needed
14. Show interest in him, his school,  his friends, and all that concerns him
15. Be supportive in all his endeavours
16. Do not harass, scold or disgrace him in public, especially not in front of his friends or mates
17. Apologise to him when at fault
18. Teach him to pray
19. Teach him respect by showing respect to him
20. Be his parent as well as his mentor and friend.

Is bullying a crime?

I've tried to work it out on my own but all my efforts seem not to be working.

Why does my son of twelve years bully his six year old sister. Sure, he may have been jealous of her for a while.  After all he was the last born for over five years before I gave birth to his sister. But I thought that he should have got over his jealousy by now.

My husband and I tried to be good parents to our three children, giving all our love and doing our best to be role models. But sometimes I wonder if there is something we missed. 

Why does my son bully his sister? Is it normal? Should I be worried?

My Modelling Career

When my children were young, I had no idea what to do or say to them as a good parent. But I was sure of one thing, I wanted them to turn out to be kind, generous, tolerant, courteous, loving and with all the best characters that would make them outstanding. Of course. I didn't want them to be mean, liars, thieves, bullies or grow up with negative characters that would make them grow up to be undesirable human beings.

As I stumbled over my parenting trial and error tactics, I sometimes felt that I was not doing it right. Many times I did what I thought was right for them not really sure whether they will work or not.

But as they began to grow up into teenagers, I have found out that many of those things that I did actually worked.

And more amazing was the fact that in trying to make my children turn out right I became a better person.

I became more patient, kinder, less judgmental, and more courteous. After all it's hard to teach your kids to be courteous to others when you yourself are not.

So thanks to my kids, I have a modelling career. I'm trying to be a role model to my children!.

Great summer camp for your kids

Hi,

I just found out about this great summer camp for teens. It's tagged: 'Mobile Games & Electronic Circuit Design Summer Camp
for Teens'.

They teach teens how to design games for apps and some other electronic stuff.

Check out their website at www.center4tech.com.

By the way, I'm not affiliated to them in any way, neither am I given commission.  I just thought it a good information that might interest parents looking for how to engage their teens this holiday.

fatou
fatoung2010@yahoo.com

Sexual Child Abuse

The real statistics of children that are sexually abused can never be known. This is because so many children that are involved never come out to say.

But an estimated guess is that 8 out of 10 female children are victims or have been near victims of child rape.
This is an alarming rate by any standard but who is going to make sure it stops.
The onus to protect our children therefore lies on us as parents and legal guardians of our children.

Although there is no foolproof method of completely stopping child abuse since most times, the person the child already has a closeness to ends up being the culprit, we can however put some precautions in place to make sure that our children's vulnerability to this menace is reduced to the barest minimum.

These are a few tips that will put you on the right path.

1. Educate your child:   Don't tell your child that there are bad people who can try to do bad things to her.Tell her that there are good behaviours and bad behaviours and no matter how close a person is to her or no matter how much she loves him, if the person crosses the line into those bad behaviours, he should be stopped immediately. Of course you also have to let her know what those bad behaviours are. For example, touching her on the thigh or caressing her arm or arranging to have a secret meeting are all unacceptable behaviours.

2. Give Room For Easy Communication:  Your child must be given room to easily communicate with you her parents. Build a relationship that makes it easy for your child to talk to you. Most times children are afraid to talk to their parents about these types of things because they think their parents might blame them.
Many times, child rape doesn't just happen. The accused would usually have been building up to it by maybe buying things for the child, caressing the child or trying to get close to the child in other ways. But these children, because they don't have who to tell, would keep it to themselves until the day when they would finally be raped.
If the communication lines between you and your child is open, he or she will tend to tell you things from which you can pick out tell tale signs of trouble. Sometimes the child him or herself might not even know that it means anything, but you as an adult will be able to smell trouble and nip it in the bud.

3. Make your Child Feel Valuable: In many cases, as earlier said, children are raped by someone they are familiar with. The aggressor uses a systematic and calculated psychological method to get the child to believe that they have something special together, which eventually makes it easier to attack. This is done verbally by making the child feel she is special, buying gifts, and getting the child to do or get away with things the parents would normally not allow the child to do like skipping school or eating sweets.
Children that have low self esteem are very much prone to this type of systematic cajoling.
Parents should therefore try to bring up their children in a loving environment while making sure that their child grows up with a good self esteem.

Of course this by no means covers this topic, and I for one would welcome more tips and comments that can help to protect our children from this menace of Child Abuse.

Fatou

Child Abuse

For those who are not too clear about the meaning of this topic, child abuse means any thing done to a child, physically, sexually, or mentally that could cause emotional or psychological damage to that child, temporarily or permanently. 

This could be in the form of beatings, rape, sexual assault, child trafficking, forced child labor or other forms.

In years past, child abuse was a real menace in many homes. This was because many families that needed extra help around the house got housemaids. Unfortunately, most times, these maids were seen more like slaves than helps and treated as such.

But in recent years, child abuse has received a lot of attention from the media, societal organisations, non governmental organisations and even the government. This has made many countries to ban child abuse in any form.

Unfortunately, despite laws in place, you still find people that abuse children on a daily basis even in their homes.

There is this neighbour of mine who has a girl of about twelve years old living with her as a house help.

This girl is constantly beaten by the woman who is supposed to be her guardian.

I have tried to ignore these beatings but I found that I could not. Sometimes the girl's cries as she is being beaten is heard throughout the day. I have taken to including the girl in my prayers. I just hope the woman does not kill her one of these days.

My husband said he would confront her, but I have a dilemma:

First, is the fact that not only is this woman our neighbor, but she has become a good friend of the family. Won't telling her about her actions mar the relationship between us?

Secondly, and more importantly, if we tell her, won't we worsen things for the girl? After all, it is the girl and not we that are living with the woman.

There are many ways to deal with a child that can cause even more emotional and psychological damage than beating. She could even accuse the girl of  having reported to us or something. And of course, make life more miserable for her.

My husband is still planning to confront her and I have no choice but to agree with him since I don't know what else we can do. But still...

Any suggestions would be welcome.

Fatou.

I'm back!

Hi everybody. After over a year of not hearing from me, I'm sure you must be wondering what happened.

There were some technical issues with the off line magazine that I used to write children articles for which needed to be sorted out.

But I'm glad to say that it has all been sorted out and now I'm back.

Today, we're going to be talking about 'Humiliating Children'.

I got the title for this week's blog from a scene I personally witnessed in my sons' high school.

I had gone for the end of term report of my two sons and while I sat in front of the class teacher of my younger son, discussing his result, we suddenly noticed a woman a few tables from ours scolding  her daughter.

Apparently, the daughter hadn't done well in this term's report and the mother wasn't too pleased especially as the class teacher told her that the girl had suddenly acquired new friends in another class and these group of  friends had influenced her negatively.

Of course, no parent is pleased to hear this type of news. But what really set me off was when the woman suddenly started beating her daughter of thirteen years in the public glare of the principal, vice principal, all the teachers, and the students.

I watched as she continued beating her daughter, screaming at her at the top of her voice, berating her for not facing what she was sent to school for which of course was to get good grades, and generally disgracing not only her daughter but herself as well.

At the end, she told her to go to the top of the podium in front of the hall and kneel down there till she came to meet her to decide what next to do to her.

The first feeling I had was shame. I was ashamed of a parent that felt that this was the only way to handle failure in her child. And then I felt anger. Anger for the way the woman had treated her daughter or better still bullied her daughter.

No one, as far as I'm concerned should ever be humiliated this way. No one! Especially not a child.

Unfortunately, many parents don't know how to handle their children when they're not living up to their expectations. Rather, they make things worse.

In my next blog, I'll tell you why you should never humiliate your kids and how to replace humiliation with the right tools that will yield positive results in your children.

fatou.

Parenting and Children is Going Interactive

No two people on earth are ever the same. It is therefore no surprise that every child is different. Even children that are born to the same parents are different. For example, one child might be an extrovert while the other child is a complete introvert.

Our survey shows that parents have different issues they need answers to concerning their children. And one parent’s issues at any point in time may not necessarily be another’s.

This is why Parenting and Children has decided to go interactive. By this, parents will be allowed to write, or call in to ask any questions or express any concerns they have about their children’s well being.

Whether your concerns for your child/ren are medical, psychological, behavioural or social in nature, we encourage parents to get across to the Parenting and Children column for solutions and answers to these problems. We on our part promise to always try to give you the best answer possible to the best of our ability.

Below are replies to questions posed by two parents last week:

“I’m on exclusive breastfeeding. I’m surprised that just after 4 months I got pregnant again. I was told that exclusive breastfeeding of a baby is a contraceptive on its own and the mother will not get pregnant. It actually worked for my sister who has two children. Why didn’t it work for me? (Yetunde, Lagos)

This is an issue which many mothers need to know about. First time mothers are especially prone to this mistake. It is true that exclusive breastfeeding is a kind of contraceptive for a nursing mother, but as in most things that has to do with the body, it depends on the type of body.

There are some women who are very fertile and such women might have to use some other form of family planning in other not to get pregnant. Even when a woman is just normally fertile, she can still be at risk of getting pregnant during exclusive breastfeeding.

There are nursing mothers who have been reported to get pregnant again as early as two months after the birth of a baby. My advise therefore is that any woman that is nursing a baby whether exclusive or not should get herself on family planning as soon as possible after birth to avoid any unforeseen circumstances. “

Dear columnist, I need advise on an issue. One of my children seems not to have interest in his studies. He hates reading, has a short attention span and can’t concentrate on reading or writing for long. His grades are always low and his position in class is average to low.

What makes it worse is that his sister is the exact opposite. She has very excellent grades in school and has always come out tops in her class. She is one of the stars in the school. This issue bothers me because my son is the first child. What can I do since he’ll be enrolling for WAEC and JAMB next year and I don’t want him to fail. (Mrs Igwe, Lagos)

I sympathise with you Mrs Igwe and understand your concerns for your child. Even though you did not tell me the age of the boy, I can guess he should be in his teens (probably between 15 – 17 years) since you said he’ll be writing WAEC next year.

At this age if you have not noticed any specific talents in him, you would have noticed that there are some things he particularly likes. For example is he very good with computer or music, or does he like to repair things in the house or do some engineering things?

Perhaps if you could make him see how his grades can help him to pursue his dream, then you may get better results from him. For example if he likes to repair electrical things in the house. Make him understand that for him to learn how to do this better he has to get into the university or polytechnic. And for him to achieve this, he needs to put more effort into his math and physics. Because without passing those two subjects and at least 3 others he will not be admitted.

However, I would like to implore you not to abuse, insult or underrate him. And above all never compare him to his sister. This is because, it has been proven over and over again, not only in Nigeria but all over the world that it is not always high grades in school that makes a child succeed as an adult. Just look at Bill Gates.

Your child may not have high grades but may be talented in other ways. Your job as a parent is to look for those talents, and encourage your child to harness it in other to locate his glorious destiny. Good Luck!

Please make comments or ask your questions below or call 08052037371.  Happy parenting.

My Family Planning Ordeal

Hi,
It's been quite a while I wrote in this blog. For those of you who follow my blog, I am truly sorry.  I had a good reason though.

I went to my family planning clinic early December, 2011 to make a complaint about the IUD  they had inserted a year before.

For those of you who don't know what an IUD is, it is an acronym for Inserted Uterine Device.

The Inserted Uterine Device is a family planning method whereby a copper device is inserted into a woman to prevent her from getting pregnant. This method is said to have a 99% success rate.

I hadn't had any problems with it before. But for the past two months, I noticed that my menstrual flow had gotten heavier than usual.

I decided to go back to my family planning clinic to know whether it might be the IUD I had inserted that was causing it. If so, I wanted it removed.

But I was surprised to hear the nurse say she couldn't remove it. In fact she said that she couldn't even see it, which probably meant that it must have shifted from where it was supposed to be and moved farther into the uterus, (which also probably accounted for the heavy menstrual bleeding).

This singular statement resulted into a lot of activities throughout the month of December which led to my going from one hospital to another and from laboratory to laboratory looking for a solution to my problem. If not for God's divine intervention, I wouldn't have spent Christmas and New Year with my family. I would have been in hospital undergoing a major operation.

This story is a true testimony to the power of God and an eye opener for many like me who have little information about the pros and cons of family planning.

I now know that despite what they tell you at the clinic, family planning could actually cause a tragedy if you are not well informed.

I have written a free article concerning my ordeal. If you would like to read all about it, just send a text message with your name and email address to 234-0805-2037371.

In less than 24 hours, you will receive the article. If you are a woman reading this, send your text to me now! This article is especially for you.

I'm happy to say that I am hale and hearty now, but at what cost? All the same, I thank God. It was a real miracle.

I'll be back soon, but before then, I'll be expecting your text message.

Fati.

Battling with my son's obesity.

I checked my nine year old son's weight recently on a scale and it read 58.

Put in mind that when I was pregnant for my first son, my weight throughout the pregnancy did not exceed 65. Before pregnancy, I weighed 58.  And here is my son weighing 58 at nine years old.

Soon, my husband and I discovered that he was breathing heavily even when doing a simple activity like eating or walking within the house.

We went to a doctor who told us to make him do exercises.

But we felt that making him do exercises alone would be like a punishment for the boy. So we decided to involve the whole family. Now the whole family gets up early even on school days to do some exercises (mostly jogging) for about thirty minutes. After this we ask him to take deep breaths and exhale (about 30 times).

We only started the exercises a week ago, but already, we’ve seen remarkable progress. For one, the heavy breathing has stopped.  Also he doesn’t look as flabby as he used to.

I’m hoping we can continue with the exercises and all.

One thing we do to make all this interesting to him is that we try to vary our exercise routines. Some days we do jogging and later, skipping on a rope. Some days we watch and follow the aerobics exercises that I bought on a cd. Last Saturday we walked.

Also, instead of full cream milk, I give him skimmed milk or milk low on fat and in any other way I can cut out sugar , milk and other fattening agents , I try to do so.

However, I still allow him to take ice-cream, chocolates, sweets, etc  on occasion so that he doesn’t feel as if he’s being starved of them.

These are just a few of the methods I’ve applied.

If you have any other good methods that can be used to help obese children please I’d like to hear them. It will help my son and I’m sure it will help so many other children in the same situation.

Thanks,

Demi F.O

How To Get Your Child Into A Good Secondary School

Hi there, 

It's been a while since I updated my blog and i'm so sorry for that.

I had a good reason though.

You see, my son is due to enter secondary school this year and there has been

a lot of activity going on at our home because of that.

Since he's my first child, my husband and I had no prior experience as to what it

entails getting a child admitted into a secondary school especially a good one.

We've had to do research upon research, not only on how to get a good school for

the child but on how to obtain forms, fill them, and submit along with the many other

documents they asked for.

In addition we've had to find out how to prepare the boy for exams, the best books

and materials to buy and so on. In the course of all these preparations, we've stumbled

upon some discoveries that would have saved us a lot of headache if we had known

them earlier.

For example, we discovered that we were supposed to have started getting

our son ready for his exams earlier than we did.

But one thing I learned from all this is that getting your child into a good 

secondary school is not a piece of cake. At least not to us since we were

completely uninformed.

In case you are a parent whose child is billed to enter secondary school this

year or next or even in a few years time, then you'd better read my free article

titled 'Two Most Important Things You MUST Avoid If You Want Your Child To

Be Admitted Into A Good Secondary School'

One of these things affected my child. Don't wait until it affects yours.

To get this FREE article, Text your name and email address to 08052037371.

Till then.

Fati

Help For Children With Autism

Today, we shall be dealing with symptoms of autism in a child.

You might have been wondering why your child behaves strangely.

Before you go to the doctor why not do a personal check on your child first to be sure he is not autistic.

Below are a few sure signs that your child may be autistic:

1. Partiality - the inability to deal with the "in between" situation in anything.   The inability to properly process the "partial" and separate the partial from the whole!    The autistic child needs to understand the "parts" before he can understand "the whole"... in almost everything.  This is what I believe to be at the root of almost all problems we see in autistic children. For example, he doesn't want the door partially open. It's either it's totally shut or totally open.

2. Arching of back when someone tries to pick them up.

3. Aggression -  autistic children appear more aggressive than normal.

4. Attachment to persons and/or "normal" childhood things (i.e., stuffed animal, blanket) is not there.   Child is more attached to specific, favorite, often unusual items and can play with them for hours. 

5. Attention/Focus (this one goes both ways... child has amazing focus for specific things, yet none at all for others). 

6. Biting/Gnawing (more objects than other people... although many bite themselves also). 

7. Chronic ear aches- many many children with autism had chronic ear infections under the age of 2. 

8. Constant running back and forth or jumping (to get sensory stimulation via feet).

9. Dark circles under the eyes  - sign of a food intolerance - seems to occur a lot with eating of phenols (in all fruits and vegetables - apples, bananas, red grapes, tomatoes and nuts are the highest phenol foods). 

10. Diarrhea -  sign of a food intolerance and an unhealthy digestive tract.   

11. Does not respond to his/her name... even if called dozens of times - yet, hearing loss has been ruled out and parents know their child can hear "other things". 

12. Echolalia - repetition of words.   I call this "ordering language"... again, read my first book on my website and you'll see why! 

13. Epilepsy:  Signs of epilepsy are quite varied and include blank stares, changes in emotion (fear, aggression, anger, etc). 

14. Extreme or unusual sensitivity to light and/or sound (i.e., child squints a lot or puts hands on ears a lot). 

15. Fascination with captions/credits at the end of a movie (more so than with the movie itself).  Gets very upset when VCR is rewinding a movie and you see the images go "backwards" on the tv screen. 

16. Hand flapping.  May be an attempt to release B6 from muscles… so critical in so much of what we see in autism.   See Book 3 posted in full at http://www.autismhelpforyou.com for more on this issue. 

17. Hyperactivity - Autistic children are often much more hyperactive than their counterparts.   Often, they are seen as candidates for medication, however, as many many parents are finding, a diet change with appropriate supplements (i.e., calcium and magnesium) can make a huge huge difference. 

18. Inappropriate play (i.e., flips toys over to spin wheels rather than pushing a toy car/truck). 

19. Inappropriate use of stairs... don't use "alternate foot, alternate stair" but rather go down one step at a time, with both feet. 

20. Lack of eye contact  (some kids have ok eye contact, but for most kids with autism, there is an inability to make or maintain eye contact... yet, a normal infant is able to do this quite well and is indeed fascinated by the human face).  Autistic children often seem to be "looking
through you" rather than at you! 

21. Lack of fever.  Many parents are finding their children show no fever (with an ear ache for example).   This may be due to the fact that the autistic child's immune system is not working properly in the first place and therefore, it is not exhibiting the "fever" that should show itself when the body is fighting off an infection.   In this case, the sign is not only missed or dismissed... it is altogether absent and so nothing is seen as "wrong" with the child... when in actuality, lack of a fever when a child has an earache, for example, could be a sign in and of itself that something is wrong! 

22. Lack of flexibility in everything (i.e., difficulty with changes in direction, can't allow for the "in between" situation... for example, all lights must be on or off, not some on, some off, doors must be completely opened, then closed, no "in betweens", tasks must be completely finished before child can move on to the next thing... can't leave something "unfinished" no matter how small the task. 

23. Lack of pointing with finger. 

24. Lack of sensitivity to pain - "the nothing hurts" syndrome... the child can have a busted eardrum and "not feel it"... not show any pain.   Burns, falling, needles... none of these things seem to "hurt" the autistic child... a normal child has a much lower pain threshold and would have cried under "normal" circumstances. 

25. Lack of social skills (totally ignores new person, no "hello", "goodbye"... nothing). 

26. Leg banging , body shaking - to get sensory stimulation (i.e., while on a bed).   For these children, it provides a "calming" effect. 

27. No fear of danger - the autistic child has no concept of "what is dangerous" and, unfortunately, for too many parents, this has resulted in the death of their child.  :o(    The autistic child does not perceive vehicular traffic in the street as a danger, nor is water seen as a danger to them... the autistic child will run into traffic or go deep into water without thinking twice about it!  Because they have no fear of danger, these children also do not know HOW to "call for help" when in a dangerous situation!

 
 

28. Order - for many autistic kids, theirs is A World Of Order©... things need to be in their place... placed exactly so, tasks need to be completed (not partially done), etc.! 

29. Potty training is just not coming along... no desire whatsoever to be potty trained.   Some children go to age 9 and are still not fully potty trained.  

30. Pretend play is not there.  In my opinion, pretend play in the autistic can be very dangerous. 

31. Screaming/Screeching... up to several hundred times a day.  

32. Self injurious behavior (SIB) in the form of head banging, self mutilation (biting). 

33. Sense of touch is heightened.   This can take on many forms in the autistic child.   For example, s/he may not like to have clothes on, or s/he may want specific clothes only.     Some children can't stand being hugged/touched by another person (although some are ok with this particular "sensation"),  some don't like specific textures on their hands or skin.   Sensitivity to textures is also seen with foods. 

34. Tantrums/Violent outbursts that seem to come from nowhere... child is easily provoked or upset. 

35.The "loner syndrome" (child likes to play alone... for hours on end... no interest in socializing with other children).

 
 

 

 

Colour Blindness

This is my first post this year and I'd like to say a very happy new year to you all.

Today, I want to talk about colour blindness in children.

I noticed that my last child did not recognise colours as easily as her brothers. Actually my first child had shown the same symptoms in his first 3 to 4 years. But as time went on he adjusted. The same problem has resurfaced with my last child. And this time, it appears to be more severe.

I noticed that she does not recognise certain colours no matter how many times she is taught. The colours that she has the most problems with are red, green and yellow.

I got so worried that I started doing research on this problem. These were my findings and they are revealed below. They might be of help to you if you have a similar problem with your child:

1. I found out that if your child of 4 years and above can still not recognise certain colours then he or she probably has colour blindess deficiency.

2. The deficiency is usually inherited. In other words some one in your family probably already has this deficiency.

3. The deficiency affects boys more than girls. Infact 1 to 2 out of 20 boys are affected. But this is not to say that girls are not affected too though at a lesser rate.

4. The colours that the child will most likely find difficult to recognise are red, green, yellow and orange.

5. Some situations might be so bad that the child might even find it difficult to group the same colours together.

6. Unfortunately there is no known cure for this deficiency.

7. The good news however is that many children will eventually overcome this deficiency.

 My advise therefore is to help your child to overcome this deficiency using these few tips:

1. Recognise that your child has a deficiency. It's really not his fault that he still cannot recognise the colour red even after 6 months of being taught. And take note: it does not affect his intelligence in any way.

2. Teach him or her colours at any available opportunity.

3. Buy colouring books and crayons for your child to colour and buy educational toys and/or interesting story books that teach your child colours so as to expose him or her as much as possible to colours.

4. Don't forget to tell the teacher if they haven't already noticed it that your child is colour blind so that they can pay more attention to him or her in that area.

5. Through all this, please remember that you need a lot of patience if you are going to get your child to overcome this deficiency. Show lots of love and encourage him at all times. A child that is not properly encouraged in this way will begin to see himself as dull and this might even transfer to other aspects of his education.

Hopefully with these few tips, your child's colour blindness deficiency will in a few years time be a thing of the past.

See ya.

 Fati.

Training Children With Double Standards

This is a delicate subject to talk about and yet it's so important that it could affect positively or negatively the very lives of our children.

What does it mean to train children with double standards? It means that one parent in a family has his own set of rules for training the children while the other parent has another set of rules for training the same children.

That in itself might not be so bad. What will give concern is when a parent openly (by openly, I  mean in front of the children), disagrees with the other parent about his method of training.

This occurs more often than not in many homes. And in most cases, it is usually the wife that feels that their child is being overpunished over some matter which could have been resolved by mere scolding or even a milder punishment.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

Though as a mother, it is hard to stand by while your child is being given what you think is an unfair treatment even if it is by his own dad. I know because i've had cause to believe my husband was being unfair to the children in dishing out punishment.

However, the worst thing you can ever do is to make your child know that are not pleased with your husband or  your wife's handling of the discipline of a child.

No matter how displeased you are with the method of discipline your spouse chooses, never allow your child to be aware of your displeasure.

Whatever you have to say in your child's defence must wait until your child is no more there. Better still, wait till you get into your bedroom before you discuss it.

Ironically, this is actually for the child's sake.

Immediately a child senses, that his parents are not in agreement over how to discipline or train him, he begins to try to pitch one parent against the other to favour himself.

Such a child will lose respect for the two parents, and since he doesn't know who is right among the two parents, he would not obey anyone and he would eventually end up getting no discipline at all.

A child whose parents always appear to put up a united front on how to discipline their child would have sent a message to their child on what is accepted and not accepted from him in the home on issues of discipline.

Such a child is likely to accept and obey the rules that his parents have laid down without any problems.

Certainly, there are many other issues related to discipline.

But if we are able to address this issue of parental unity, it is guaranteed that we would have eliminated one of the major problems that parents encounter in trying to deal with the issue of discipline in their children.

 

What Would You Do If You Suddenly Became a Widow?

That was a question that a friend of mine asked me years ago, when I was barely three years into my marriage.

If you are a stay-at-home mum like I am, then you probably know what I'm talking about. 

Even though my husband and I had agreed to this stay-at-home idea, at least until the kids are grown up and even though I know it has had a very positive impact on them which is why I agreed to it in the first place, still I secretly worried.

What if, God forbid, something were to happen to my husband today? Where would I start from? I didn't have a job or a business. How would I take care of the kids, pay their school fees and do the numerous other things that is required of a parent?


I know that a lot of us don't like to think of such a thing but it is the reality. It has happened to other people, some that we might even know of, and so what makes us think it can never happen to us?

I knew that it was only right for me to get something doing that could fetch me some income. At the same time I shouldn't involve in anything that would take so much of my time because of the kids.

Going out to look for work was therefore out of it.

Eventually, I decided to venture into the internet business for three reasons:

One, I have always loved anything to do with computers and the internet. Even though I didn't start with too much know-how, my doggedness and preserverance paid off in the end.

Two, I have a passion for family and children. I believe strongly that these are the two most important aspects of any human life no matter what destiny. Get the family and children right, and you automatically have a great nation. 

Three, I believed that a website or blog could combine these two passions into a means of income for me on the net and I was right. I eventually chose to use a blog because it enables me to air my views and think aloud on matters that are important to me. Luckily for me, many of my thoughts and views are also matters of great interest to my readers.

My advice to a stay-at-home mom is this: Look for something you can do on your own to earn money without encroaching too much on the time for your children. But whatever you do, try to make it something that you enjoy, or else you will soon get bored with it and give up as soon as a little challenge comes up.

Oh, and never regret your decision to be a stay-at-home mom. I have testimonies of stay-at-home moms who made this decision without knowing whether they had done the right thing or not. Today they have cause to thank God for how their lives and that of their children who they had sacrificed for  eventually turned out. That is a story for another day.

For now, take care.
Fati

How To Help Your Child To Be Smart

People tell me that i'm doing great with my children. I'm told that I put in so much effort to make sure they are doing well in school. But I don't know about that really.

To me, children of parents that are not even putting in as much effort seem to be doing equally well, and sometimes, even better than mine.

Don't get me wrong. My children are very intelligent. And they get excellent grades at school. But sometimes, I wonder. Wouldn't they do just as well if I left them alone and didn't pressure them too much.

Have you ever wondered whether you might not be overdoing the parenting thing just a little bit? Well I do.

My only consolation is that at least the children are doing fine, both morally, and education wise. Also, their teachers as well as other people - parents and even those that are not yet parents seem to have noticed how well brought up the kids are.

But still sometimes, I wonder...

Fati