Create an indelible bond with your child

Every parent aims to bring up a child that is loving, giving, confident, happy, and a part of a closely knit family. Parenting is a natural process and more often than not it is not books, counselors, or doctors that will guide you but it is your in born instinct and bonds with the child. When a child is born it trusts its mother without questions and looks towards her for sustenance and protection. A mother in turn instinctively holds the child close to her bosom and knows without words when the child is well and when it is ill. This connection must be maintained as the child grows. Never allow a distance to creep in. If you want to be close to the child and always be there for him or her it is crucial to maintain a close and trusting relationship. A few essentials of parenting are: 1. Understand the child’s emotional needs. Find out what the child’s likes and dislikes are. 2. Accept the child for who he or she is. Never try to mold a child to what your vision of a child is. Love the child dearly. 3. Motivate the child to do their best but do not set unrealistic goals. Every child has a comfort level and it is hard for every child to be an achiever. 4. Studies show that each child has a talent in some field or the other. It is impractical for parents to want their child to be a soft ware professional, a doctor, or engineer if the child has a talent for growing plants or nursing. Allow the child to realize his or her own dreams. Don’t foist your unfulfilled ambitions on the child. 5. Ensure that you don’t fight or shout in front of the children. It only upsets them and often creates deep rooted emotional trauma in them. All differences must be settled behind closed doors or in the privacy of your room. Ugly fights upset kids. 6. Help the child find its path. Expose them to different options and nurture their interests. 7. The slim difference between a happy cooperative child and a sulk difficult one is love and understanding. Throughout the child’s growing years you must emphasize that you love the child dearly and will always be there for him or her. 8. Listen to your child, often fears or doubts emerge when you are having a conversation. Make time to chat with the child about your day, the child’s day, and things happening around the world and so on. Keeping communications open will introduce as sense of security and openness into your relationship. The essence to a deep relationship is knowing your child inside out. Show the child how to embrace life and to manage disappointments and anger. Be honest with the child in the long run being honest goes a long way. In case you are facing problems on a personal level be it your job or relationships never hide facts from a child and pretend that everything is fine. Allow the child to hold your hand and face problems big and small together. Teach the child to be curious and to satisfy the healthy curiosity by reading. Foster a love for learning, music, plants, and life. Encourage the child to explore and not to be afraid to ask questions or to disagree with you. Parenting is a crucial responsibility that cannot be handed down to others. The key to good parenting is never be afraid to love your child, show them the difference between right and wrong, and instill in them a sense of self and trust in you. Emphasize that you will always be there for him or her. Let them place their trust in you.

Hand eye coordination and visual discrimination key to literacy

Sometimes the best thing you can do for your child's early literacy development is simply to let them play. Turn off the TV and anything battery operated then let your child pick up their toys, build blocks or duplos, or manipulate puzzles or game pieces. Not only are you giving your child the gift of childhood, something we so often fail to do in today's hectice, achievement-oriented world, but you are actually helping them build skills that are key to learning to read and write. Hand-eye coordination is a necessary skill for written language and the best way to help your child develop this skill is to let them play with toys and activities that involve looking at, using, and discriminating a number of elements. Puzzles are obviously a great activity for this but so are manipulative toys such as blocks, duplos, and magnetix. My son just spent over an hour this evening playing dominos with his father -- OK they weren't so much playing as setting up complex pattterns and then knocking them down -- but I didn't tell them they were engaged in a preliteracy activity. They were just having fun together. Studies have shown that spending time on hand-eye coordination activities improves children's ability to learn to read and lessens the difficulty they face during the process. In fact engaging in a variety of craft activities, which most kids love, can be very beneficial so add play dough, stickers, and glue sticks to your list of educational supplies. Research shows that early practice of hand-eye coordination activities reduces the risk for reading difficulties. ACTIVITIES TO ENCOURAGE Puzzles help develop hand-eye coordination because learning to control hands and fingers according to information received from sight is a coordination skill that aids children in early attempts at reading and writing. Determining out which piece goes where, working to fit pieces into place by making adjustments, and seeing a sequence develop in an organized pattern can be a great learning experience as well as very satisfying for children. Puzzles, matching games, and the like are also important to help children learn visual discrimination. Visual discrimination is the ability of the brain to quickly tell the difference among visually similar letters, like "p," "b," and "q" or between words such as "was" and "saw." Students with difficulty making these distinctions often struggle with learning to read, write, and spell. Playing games, engaging in activities, or with toys that help children discriminate among similar objects can be fun for the child and help them master an important preliteracy skill. My son loves to help his father sort change before rolling it to be deposited at the bank. Sure we could use an electronic sorter but our son loves to engage in the activity and it is a valuable learning experience for him. Visual discrimination can often be learned with your child's existing toys. Matchbox cars, dolls, and action figures all offer the opportunity for your child to learn visual discrimination. Encourage children to work their wrist and finger muscles as well as work on their coordination and small-motor skills to help prepare them for the handwriting practice in their future. Activities to help with these goals include legos and other building sets, playdough, puzzles, pegboards, beads and other table toys. These fun, natural activities help children improve their cognitive and fine motor skills without frustration or boredom. My son engages in many activities every day that encourage hand-eye coordination and visual discrimination. I don't suggest the activities to him. I make the toys and manipulatives available to him and he chooses them on his own. The activities vary he may go an entire week building and rebuilding his wooden train set every day and then the next week his magnetix set dominates his play time. Some days he plays with both together and pulls in his duplos and wooden blocks for added fun. It doesn't matter to me which activity he chooses because I know he is having fun, challenging his imagination, and learning.