Most children are stressed by the advent of going back to school after summer pleasures. But stress is not the same as back to school anxiety which is identified by avoidance of school preparation, avoidance of talking about school and irritability about the topic. Children who are naturally anxious or have anxiety disorders are the most fragile when it comes to anticipatory anxiety about school.
Author • Psychoanalyst • Artist
Critical Thinking and the Importance of Plau
Play is often structured in games, sports, video games, and classes that teach something like karate or painting. But there are great advantages to unstructured play which is left to the imagination of the child. Without specific rules or an adult present.kids are left to use their own creativity to create narratives about whatever is on their minds. This may take the form of climbing a tree, building a fort out of couch pillows, or playing with superhero figures in a story. What ever form it takes, the child is the creator.
Critical Thinking
Down with Negative Self-Thought
How do you suppress negative self=thought? Some of us our chronic thinkers. It’s important to parent ourselves well. Our minds are so busy we forget to listen to the quiet around us. If you are someone with negative self-talk, that’s the first thing to do: Just listen to the sounds or quiet around you and you will realize how much constant chatter is going on inside your head. Then as if you were an observer of your own mind, listen to the chronic debates you have about your self that you are surrounding yourself with. Take a deep breath and start again. Think this time with reason not emotion. You will find that your talk changes to a more rational decision making process about whatever you are plagued with.
How Parents Help an Angry, Willful, Anxious Child
A Willful Child Needs to be a Skillful Child
Willful children are a misnomer. They actually are belligerent because they can’t articulate their needs and express their anger and anxieties. Typically when parents face a child with a temper tantrum or oppositional behavior, they try to use rewards and punishments to teach the lessons they want to share. However, the punishments are usually resented and the negative behavior increases. The rewards may work temporarily but the lessons learned aren’t internalized only the wish for the reward.
The problem with this typical scenario is that the child is delayed in his or her critical thinking skills. What are they?
The Joy of Unstructured Summertime Play
Play is the joy of summer time when all those structured, sometimes overscheduled activities during the school year are over. Now is the time to give your kids free rein to explore and discover what interests them. It’s a time for imagination to bloom as kids find new outlets for their infinite creativity.
The Benefits of Empathy at Work and at Home
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The benefits of empathy at work and at home has a huge impact on understanding others and leads to more satisfying relationships.
Empathy is a learned skill that begins around ages three and four and grows if it is noticed and applauded. It’s the ability to understand the thoughts, beliefs, opinions, intentions, and feelings of others. At home it improves family members relationships, encourages understanding each other, and leads to a home where honesty, trust, and care are paramount. At work, it also improves relationships, leads to increased productivity, and encourages the values of mutual problem solving.
Parenting Without Punishment
Parenting without punishment is an unlikely concept to most parents. However, many tasks or rules we want followed feel like punishments to kids like chores, going to sleep on time, curfews, saying “No” to requests for material goods, and having limits on screen time of all types (phones, videos, T.V., computer youtubes, facebook, Instagram, twitter). If, however, these reasonable limits are perceived as helpful to happy lives and explained at the time, it’s so easy not to think of them as restrictions or punishments.
The Essential Parent
Happy Families Read Together
The Essential Parent is one who is involved in the lives of those she lives with and has respect for herself. In an ideal world, parent and infant exist in an atmosphere of joy. But the world is real, and parent-child relationships are complex. An infant may grow up in one of any number of primary relationships. Traditionally, the mother tends to the baby while the father tends to the mother, but these days, the father may be the one to provide primary care while the mother tends to him. There are many different parenting scenarios such as: adoptive parents, step-parents, single parents, grandparents, and day care workers.
Listening to Your Children and Teens
Listen to your children and teens is the core of the Parental Intelligence Way. When you are puzzled by their behavior or shaken by their emotions like anxiety or anger, the key is to understand what is on their minds by listening nonjudgementally, attentively, and lovingly. Here are some tips to help them talk:
- Ask “What’s the matter?”
- Let the child or teen talk until they are finished without interruption
- Ask them to tell you even more
- Then ask if they see other perspectives
- Volunteer your perspectives
- Discuss the alternative ways of looking at the problem
How Corporate Working Parents Reduce Anxiety on the Job
If you work in a corporate environment where competition is high, promotions are coming up, firings occur sporadically, and due dates are always around the corner, it’s hard to keep your anxiety at bay. If you are a working parent, the anxiety may become exponential at times when you have a troubled child that you are worried about. The problem is of course that the anxiety in itself reduces your concentration, focus, and productivity. This begins to spiral as your work productivity declines your anxiety increases and it’s even harder to go home and really be there for your child.