Positive Reinforcement Vs. Bribery

According to Leah Ibañez-Yumul, an educator and child specialist, that some parents mistakenly associate positive reinforcement with bringing or giving material rewards. What is the difference between positive reinforcement vs. bribery? In bribery, you promise something bigger than the behavior you are expecting. You tend to negotiate or beg, or even trying to increase the value of the prize just to make it sure that the behavior you wish is being performed. In positive reinforcement, there are still rewards but in the form of verbal encouragement, small tokens or a reward given is commensurate to the positive behavior exhibited by the child. Material rewards need not be expensive; it can be their favorite cartoon character stickers, erasers and many other small things. Rewards can be also non-material, and it is highly recommended such as a hug, a wink, a kiss and a compliment for a job well done.

What is Your Parenting Discipline Style?

How do you discipline your child? What is your discipline style? Most parents admitted that they spank their child at least once for uncontrolled behavior. In behavioral studies, there are three approaches to bring out a desired behavior which can be found in parents’ discipline styles. These are the positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, and punishment.
Positive reinforcement entails by providing an evident like reward or praise which increases the possibility of the desired behavior being repeated. For negative reinforcement a desired behavior is drawn out through elimination of an adverse event. For example, the child learns to wake up early for school because getting caught from traffic makes him queasy. While for punishment, which often confused with negative reinforcement, involves an adverse event to decrease or stop a negative behavior. According to child experts, among the three discipline styles, positive reinforcement is the best way to draw out positive behavior in children and even keep negative behavior in check.

Happy Women's Day!

Each year around the world, International Women’s Day is celebrated every 8^th day of March. A lot of events are prepared throughout the whole month  to mark the economic, political and social achievements of women. This year is the 100^th year anniversary with the theme: “Equal Access to Education, Training, and Science and Technology: Pathway to Decent Work for Women”. 

Happy Women's  Day To All Women!

How To Motivate Your Baby to Read

Most parents wanted only the best for their children. They make it sure that they can provide all their needs. But there are few gifts you can give to your child than the love for reading. The love for reading is the best and most treasured gifts a parent could offer to their child at an early age. But how can we ignite their passion for reading.

1.      Talk and read to your baby from birth. It is believe that even if the child is still inside the womb of the mother he/she can already hear voices from outside. That is why it is important that during pregnancy a mother should talk or read books for her baby. When children hear words or sounds as often, they become familiar and are prepared for reading.

2.      Hold your baby on your lap. When babies feel happy and cared while you read, he/she will associate reading with good feeling.

3.      Let you baby hold the book. Let your baby explore what’s inside the book. Choose books that have textured such as pop-up books so they can feel.

4.      Choose rhyming books. It helps reinforce structure and rhythm of language and will aid in learning vocabulary. It is found that rhyming sounds are easy to remember that is why children can easily memorize and familiarize it.

5.      Reinforce and expand. When you child begins to speak few words, try to expound it by adding a descriptive words to it. This is to expand their vocabularies.

6.      Be a role model. Enjoyment is reading is contagious, when babies see their parents engaged in reading, they are also motivated to read. And it becomes their favorite hobby instead of playing computer or playing their toys.

7.      Keep books within reach. Keep your child’s reading materials within their reach so that they can have an easy access whenever they want to browse it.

8.      Make it fun. Don’t force or obliged your child to read which will make them think reading as a chore; rather enjoy your time reading by adding silly songs or playing word games.

How To Prevent Parental Burnout

Sometimes when things go beyond its limitations, it looses your patience towards the person especially in dealing with children, or shall we call parental burnout. The best way to deal with parental burnout is to try and avoid it at the same time. At first it maybe difficult but once you establish some healthy habits and parental limits, burnout is no longer a problem. Try to apply these simple tips to prevent parental burnout.

1. Take care of your body. Eat, sleep and exercise. These are the very important activity that you should follow. If your body is fatigued, you cannot be able to avoid from burning out and piling on stress no matter what you try.
2. Build a support system. Count on the people around you either your spouse, parents, helpers whom you can call and talk with. Give your trust to them that they will be there to help your need.
3. Learn to communicate with your teen. It is a good stress releasing if you have an open communications with your teen or anybody in the family. It lessens the burden that you feel at the moment.
4. Take some me-time on a regular basis. Set a schedule even though you don’t feel stressed as preventing it is your mean goal.
5. Mange your parental expectations and guilt. Nobody is perfect in this world, so do not expect that you can be everything to your kids and don’t expect him to be the same this might result to frustrations and failure. Then you’ll have to deal with guilt feeling.

These tips will take some period of time and need a lot of practice before it can be truly applied but the effort will pay off with calmer and happier days in the family. It will help build a healthy and loving relationship for each member of the family.

How to Handle Stress Without Affecting Your Kids

If we are stressed out after a long day work from the office, sometimes we can affect some of the family members especially the children. According to some study, more than 2,000 children and adults, 90% of kids say that they know when their parents are stressed because they see them arguing and complaining or their parents won’t mind them which resulted them to felt sad, worried and frustrated. The survey reported that 70% of parents say their own anxiety affects their children. Given those economic pressures along the way, how can parents address the effects of their stress on their children? Below are some of the tips to minimize the effects of stress.

1.      Acknowledge it. Don’t underestimate how tension influences the children because children will knew if you are stressed out.

2.      Watch yourself. You have to check how you react during anxiety. The children will get the negative vibes from you and it puts pressure on them. Anxiety can make them nervous which could harm their health and behavior.

3.      Teach your kids. Children will look up on what you do, so manage your stress by using healthy activities, such as listening to music or exercising just to calm your nerves.

4.      Play. According to research that play is an important way to take away stressed. It promotes bonding between parents and children.

Tips on How to Keep Your Child Healthy

Every parent wants their kids to be of good health always. While it’s not possible to shield them completely from catching cold and flu especially if they are already schooling, the best that parents should do is to teach them healthy health habits to boost their immune systems and decrease the chance of getting infected. There are few tips to follow which somehow prevent kids from getting sick.

1.      Get them into the hand washing habit. Hand washing is one of the most effective ways of preventing the spread of common school kid illnesses like cold, flu, and more. It is very important that you teach your kids to wash his hands before eating, after blowing his nose and after using the bathroom. Make it a daily habit for them.

2.      Teach them how to wash their hands properly. It is important also to teach them how to properly wash their hands. The correct way of washing is she should wash it with soap and water for at least 30 seconds. It is not advisable to use antibacterial products to cleanse the hands because according to research it will just give rise to antibiotic-resistant bacteria. It is more effective to use soap for hand washing in order to kill the germs.

3.      Demonstrate them how to cough and sneeze properly. Cold and flu viruses develop from airborne on droplets of saliva when someone sneezes or coughs. Teach your child the proper way of sneezing or coughing by covering his mouth with a handkerchief or tissue or use her elbow if the like is not available.

4.      Tell them to avoid touching their eyes. If your child touches something that someone with cold has touched and then touches his eyes or mouth, then the cold viruses can penetrate his body through those points. Infections like conjunctivitis can be transmitted through touching eyes after touching an object that has been handled by someone with that infection. Be sure to remind your child for that matter.

5.      Encourage them not to share utensils and cups with friends. It is the nature of the kids to share to their friends whatever they have, but it’s not a good idea to share eating utensils with friends especially during cold and flu season. Viruses and bacteria can be transmitted through saliva, therefore tell them to avoid sharing utensils.