Fostering Friendships

Talk to your child about what they can do if they have a friend who is the one freaking out because they made a bad throw in the baseball game or have forgotten the words to a project they were suppose to recite in front of the class. At times, kids huddle around the kid who is upset and that makes it even worse. Instead, let them know that it is fine and just act normally. Though they could also think of a small gesture that might make their friend happy. They might say something like, “I will save you a seat at lunch.” or “See you on the bus later today.” If a child knows that their friend does not see a mistake as a big deal, they are more likely to give themselves a break too. Have you seen this one on taking the fear out of failure? Leave us your comments. Your feedback is greatly appreciated. Let us know what other topics you would like to have discussed. Share this post with your family and friends. Remember to always praise your child.

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Taking The Fear Out Of Failure

Your child may be fearful that you will not love them as much or be as proud of them if they mess up. Resist telling them the game or school play does not matter, which will invalidate their passions. Instead, you want to emphasize the message that you do not expect perfection, and while it does feel lousy to make a mistake, it is part of life and it will not affect how you feel about them. If they say that they do not want to be in that activity anymore because of a goof up, remind them of how much fun they had doing it and that they should hold on to those memories, rather than to dwell on one bad moment. Check out another post about learning from making mistakes. Leave us your comments. Your feedback is greatly appreciated. Let us know what other topics you would like to have discussed. Share this post with your family and friends. Remember to always praise your child.

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Learn From Experience Of Making Mistakes

Once your child’s initial hurt has subsided a bit, talk about how he got through it so he can cope with it a little better next time. You can ask, “Remember when you felt like this before? What did you do then?” You can also brainstorm together about different ways to avoid repeating the same mistake. This is what I did with my daughter, Jenna. She was in a school play and had forgotten a line. There was an uncomfortable silence and when Jenna had got backstage at the end of the show, she was so upset. Later, we came up with an idea that the audience probably would not even notice a missing line, so it is best to just keep going. She had put this strategy to the test a couple of months later. Jenna was performing in a different show and had some problems with her microphone, but instead of getting flustered, she covered it up beautifully. Making mistakes is part of growing up and how we handle them will help us grow. Leave us your comments. Your feedback is greatly appreciated. Let us know what other topics you would like to have discussed. Share this post with your family and friends. Remember to always praise your child.

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Rethink Giving Compliments

If you are constantly praising your child’s performance (“You really crushed that ball!”) rather than his effort (“I am impressed by how much you have practiced for your baseball games.”), mistakes will become harder for him to swallow. In a study at Stanford University a landmark research was conducted on kids’ resilience and persistence. One study was a test given to fifth graders that was designed for eighth graders. One of the groups was praised for their effort, while the other group was told how intelligent they are. The kids who got praised for their intelligence were upset about how hard the test was while the group given kudos for their efforts coped and performed better. They had realized how hard they worked mattered and not just focused on the end result. See our other posts on Making Mistakes. Leave us your comments. Your feedback is greatly appreciated. Let us know what other topics you would like to have discussed. Share this post with your family and friends. Remember to always praise your child.

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Big Kids Making Mistakes

You can not protect your child from messing up, but you can help it to hurt a little less.

The bases were loaded with 2 outs in the 7th inning (last inning) of a Babe Ruth Little League championship game when Chris came up to bat for his team, which by the way was down by 2 runs. Chris hit a fly ball that was caught and that ended the game. He was trying to hold back the tears, he thought he had let everyone down. My heart ached for him. Seven- to 10year-olds are less able to shrug off mistakes than they were when they were younger. Learn how to help your child realize that a missed shot or a forgotten line is not the end of the world.

Try to put off the pep talk

Resist the urge to swoop in with, “You gave it your best shot.” Let your child do the talking. Nothing that you say in that moment is going to make it OK. Allow him to get his feelings out. It will help him to learn from the situation. If he is not talking at all, you can give him a hug and a nudge by asking him to tell you what he is thinking. After he has calmed down, you can tell him about a similar mistake you or one of his role models has made.

Leave us your comments. Your feedback is greatly appreciated. Let us know what other topics you would like to have discussed. Share this post with your family and friends. Remember to always praise your child.

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Talk to your Kids about where your Family is From

You do not need to travel the world to teach your children about their ancestry. Tell them stories that perhaps you heard from your mother. Don’t have any, that’s OK. Google some recipes and create a new memory yourself. Or teach the kids a few words from the old language. My children walk a little taller knowing they can count to ten in Serbian. When we forget our roots, we forget what it means to be an American in the first place. My kids are a bit more resilient now that they better understand what our ancestors went through to get here. To see more about family visit Snuggle In.

Getting Reconnected as a Family

Everyone wants their kids to be sort of busy. If you do not keep watch, they end up running around like crazy. That will just cause you to get into a giant gasoline bill and one exhausted family. Quiet time is definitely under rated. This can not be more true than it is in today’s world. Limit the kids to only picking one after school activity. Even then it can seem overwhelming at times. Also, keep play dates limited too. They see their friends all day at school. That is about 30 hours per week of socializing. Now throw in parties, playing with the neighbor kids and kids in your own family. There is tons of time for them to be socializing. Once they see that they can survive without a steady stream of play dates, you will not have to do as many. This will increase the quiet time that you have together. This children’s book shows the many differences in each family, The Family Book. Leave us your comments. Your feedback is greatly appreciated. Let us know what other topics you would like to have discussed. Share this post with your friends. Remember to always praise your child.

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