By Laurie Hollman, Ph.D. 

When children reach their teen years, they’d like to believe that they no longer need any instruction or advice from their parents. Yet they continue to need the same loving care, but in new ways that respect their growing autonomy. 

Central to teenagers’ needs is the ability of their parents to listen to them and to respect their ideas, points of view, feelings and intentions. This requires that parents learn to listen nonjudgmentally without interrupting, correcting or blaming. When a teen feels heard, she feels respected and forms a good relationship with her parents.

How do parents effectively listen to their teens? 

It’s important that parents take the time needed to have both casual and serious discussions with their teens. Beginning with casual discussions opens the door to conversations about more serious issues. Hanging out with your teen, talking together in the car, doing chores together and setting rules and boundaries together all allow teens to feel confident that their parents care and respect them. Respect is key to having your adolescent want to talk with you often and openly.  [Read more…]

Your child is growing and learning. This growth involves more than just their bodily size. Their brain function, their understanding and their physical traits are growing too. Everything in their lives can impact how they grow.

Your child learns through interaction He or she knows hot from cold through experience, and develops an understanding of good and bad from your guidance. They are constantly picking off and absorbing information from all sides and learning. Psychologists say that this period, particularly below five years old, is where they are at their most impressionable. [Read more…]

Over the decade’s talents in children have come into focus, but new parents may have a hard time going about finding it and encouraging the same. Before dismissing your child as void of talent because they don’t do anything you deem special, some talents include critical thinking and listening. Don’t assume that being an athlete or a musician is all there is when talking about talent. Educate yourself on the types of talents that there are to be able to spot them.

Parents and those around the child, including teachers, should have the ability to nurture talents. Even if you’re unsure, there are specific skills children have that make them stand out. Once you notice those, place them in contexts where they can sharpen those skills. Doing so at an early age makes them equipped to carry forward those abilities into their future careers. It also makes the selection process of their career path more natural as they will likely gravitate to those jobs where they can utilize their strong suits. It opens their minds their minds to aspire to be SABS Ontario professions or working to be in a state university school board. [Read more…]

Emotional intelligence has been and will be around for years. The importance of the same is increasingly coming into public awareness. The narrative insists on how crucial it is to teach a child the same at a young age if they are to become emotionally healthy. Babies in their early stages of life learn through observation, but there are things that, when they are much older, parents can do to further their children’s emotional vocabulary. While these ideas are not exhaustive, it sets the foundation for further reading.

Reading emotions

Our faces tend to react in the same way across the ranges of human emotions. The way then is to show children various facial expressions and ask them to guess the feeling. There are materials, and yourself too, that display the range. You can also use different shows on television. It does not have to be cartoons, even a men’s barber shop Toronto show will work. When done enough times, they will be able to read other people’s emotions better. [Read more…]