Showing Your Child’s Teacher you Care

The new school year is about to get back into full swing. With this time of year comes getting to know a new teacher and also offering help and assistance where possible. Before you know it, the time will be upon you to gather with other parents to think of a gift for your child’s teacher. It may be a holiday, birthday or other special occasion, but the issue is the same: just what do you get someone whom you may not know very well?

Not to fret. With a little advanced planning, it is fairly simple to come up with gifts that will bring a smile to your teacher’s face and make your child proud a proud giver. Obviously, when you can learn more about your child’s teacher, you can be more prepared to find the perfect gift. So ask questions here and there and you can discover small tidbits that will lead you in the right direction.

Most teachers today carry ID badges. An ID badge doesn’t have to be a necessary evil. By looking for teacher lanyards that are stylish, you can give the gift of a badge lanyard to great delight. Teacher lanyards can be purchased in the teacher’s favorite color, or you can purchase a badge lanyard that features a specific theme. For instance, if your child is in lower elementary and their teacher seems to enjoy themes, you could gift a badge lanyard featuring ABC’s or smiling faces. Great teacher lanyards can be easily found online.

Most teachers love books. This could be for their classroom or for their own personal use. If you hear of a particular book your child’s teacher may want to add to the classroom library, you could purchase it up for them. If you know there is a need or desire for books but aren’t sure which to buy, a gift card to your local bookstore is a great alternative.

Teachers write a lot of notes throughout any given school year. To make a personalized gift for your child’s teacher, you could design and create stationary that the teacher could use for the many notes he or she writes. Stationary is easy to personalize. All you need are a few packs of blank cards and envelops and some items from the craft store. No need to worry if you’re not the artsy type. A few die cutters in fun shapes and some colorful paper is all it takes to create some one-of-a-kind notes.

Flowers go a long way with pretty much anyone. In a pinch, there is no need to walk in empty-handed. A quick stop at the florist or grocery store and you can give a fragrant bouquet in a nice vase. Flowers aren’t the only option though; potted plants bring life to the classroom and last much longer than a bouquet!

Teachers spend so much time giving of themselves to our children. When the opportunity comes to offer up some thanks, it will most certainly be appreciated.

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Teaching Children to Be Proactive

We've all heard the adage "If life gives you lemons, make lemonade." Sounds like good advice, but not everybody takes it. Some people quietly resign themselves to a life of lemons. Why is this? One reason may be "learned helplessness", a term coined by researcher Martin Seligman of the University of Pennsylvania . In his research, Seligman discovered that people who are repeatedly put into a situation where their efforts to remedy a problem are ineffective, will become passive and behave as if they are helpless if exposed to that situation again. This is true, even if in later trials, the person has the power to alter the situation. It is believed that learned helplessness developed in childhood can become an enduring coping style into adulthood. Adults with a passive coping style have higher rates of depression, lower job satisfaction and weakened immune systems (poorer health). If we could prevent learned helplessness in children, it would be well worth the effort. One way to guard against learned helplessness and help the anxious child may be to foster proactive behavior. Here are five strategies to foster proactive behavior in children:

1. Address Negative Statements about the Self.

Seligman found that persons with a passive coping style often attribute negative events or failures to some internal quality about themselves. For instance, a boy might attribute a poor grade on a test to his being "stupid" rather than to the test's difficulty or lack of preparation. If the boy believes he is simply stupid, why should he try to do better in the future? When your child meets with failure, it is an opportunity to understand how he interprets failure. If he attributes it to some flaw in himself, challenge him to think of alternative explanations. Provide evidence that his global statement about himself is false.

2. Encourage Proactive Behaviors during times of Adversity

Help children adapt to adversity with proactive behavior. First ask the child to identify a problem. Maybe he isn't making friends in his new school. Maybe he failed to make the basketball team. Ask the child to make a list of things he could do to improve the situation. Ask him to list everything he can think of from the outlandish to the conservative. If he has trouble generating ideas at first, feel free to help him. Make it playful. Once you have a considerable list, ask the child to pick a few things from the list which he is willing to do to help his situation. Give the child credit for performing the behavior (not the outcome). Some of his initiatives will be successful, others won't. He will learn two things from this: he can do things to impact his world for the better and if his initiatives don't bring the desired result, he can try something else. He will also discover that it feels good to take action. Help children adapt to adversity with proactive behavior.

3. Set Personal Goals

One way for a child to learn that he can positively impact his life is to set goals and then work to attain those goals. Have the child identify a few goals. On a note card, help him identify steps he can take towards achievement of his goal. When the child accomplishes a step, check it off the list. This way the child can visualize the progress he is making toward his goal. When the child faces an unanticipated obstacle, use another note card devote it to overcoming the obstacle.

4. Practice Helping Others

Get your child involved in a volunteer activity in which he helps others. Helping others is proactive; it is doing something to improve world. Not only are altruistic acts empowering, but they also bolster self esteem and give one a sense of connectedness to the larger world.

5. Challenge Negative Thinking

Negative thinking undermines motivation and initiative, and promotes a sense of hopelessness, and in effect, helplessness. When your child is confronted with a new situation, does he look forward to new experiences or does he believe it will disappointing? Look for the absolutes in your child's speech, words like "always" "never" "everyone" and "no one". For example, a child going to a new school might say "I'll never make friends. Everyone already has friends." When you hear statements like this, be sure to challenge them. A counterargument to the above statement might go something like this:

"It is true it will take time to make friends at a new school. But even if most kids have friends, it doesn't mean they are not open to making new friends. Also, it is unlikely that everyone has friends as you say. There are probably some kids who don't have many friends and would love to make a new friend. Furthermore, you have always had at least one friend since you were little. Based on your history, I think it is highly unlikely that you will never make another friend."

As children get older, encourage them to come up with their own counterarguments for negative thinking.

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Teaching Kids to Be persistent

Research has shown persistence to be as important as talent or intelligence to eventual success. The old adage "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again" is profoundly sage advice. So how do we help our children adapt to circumstances , and retain the desire to persevere through difficulties to achieve what they want? Some children seem to be born with single mindedness and focus in pursuit of a goal, while others will seemingly drop an interest or a pursuit at the drop of a hat. Below are some strategies that can help develop persistence in any child.

1.  Often children will give up on something because the goal seems vast and unreachable. For instance, if a child is taking piano lessons and wishes to play the piano fluently, it is possible that after a few years, it is still taking the child weeks to learn a single piece. Measured against the original goal to play the piano fluently, the child may feel that the goal is unattainable. Teach the anxious child how to break overarching goals into smaller attainable goals. Maybe the child can set the goal of learning increasingly difficult pieces, or of learning to sight read simple pieces.

2. Goals should be thought of beacons which guide learning, but shouldn't become overly important in and of themselves. Help your child to value and get reward in the process of learning rather than a goal.  For the young pianist, focus on how it feels to play the piano, to perform for others, to enjoy music and to improve one's skills.

3. Explicitly teach kids the value of persistence. Virtually any endeavor will have its obstacles, and will require persistence to negotiate setbacks and move ahead. If they stick through something after a setback, acknowledge their effort and tell them how proud you are of them for persevering. You can also mine the past for examples of how persistence has paid off for them.

4. Teach kids to negotiate setbacks and problem solve. This entails identifying a problem area and then coming up with a strategy for a solution. Often the obstacle will need to be broken into a group of smaller issues to be worked on independently. You can help your child improve her problem solving skills, by brainstorming with her when she faces an obstacle, and creating a plan from her ideas. Once this is modeled for her a few times, she will be able to do it on her own.

5. Praise children for their efforts, not just for their achievements. Effort is something they have control over, achievement isn't. If they stick through something after a setback, acknowledge their effort and tell them how proud you are of them for persevering. You can also mine the past for examples of how persistence paid off.

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What Influences Your Adolescent?

Every parent knows that when their children go through adolescence things change around the house. Adolescence is a period of rapid change in the life of a child and of the family that the child lives in. Many families experience huge amounts of turmoil as their children pass through the teenage years. Parents could, and reasonably so, describe adolescence as a period of temporary insanity. What influences adolescents at this time in their lives and how can you as a parent understand their world?

Hormonal changes in the adolescent body bring about sudden, dramatic changes in their physical bodies and in their ability to reason. Hormones cause rapid growth spurts in teens that not only bring about larger physical features but also the mature development of their sexual and reproductive organs. Along with all of those changes, adolescents find themselves with new physical strengths and abilities. Sexual development brings with it a new interest in the opposite sex. This can occupy much of a young person's thought life as they discover new ways to interact with and catch the attention of the opposite sex that a few months earlier were of no interest to them.

During the teen years, peers become much more important than ever before. Adolescents want to fit in, they want to be part of the crowd and they want to feel popular. You will notice that they often adjust their dress, speech, and taste in music and more just to become more acceptable to others of their own age group. In addition to this, your teen will probably want to spend more time hanging out with their friends. Friends can suddenly have a huge influence over your child during adolescence. If you want to keep some level of control over the influence other teens have over your child, don't stop your child from being with their friends. Instead, get to know your children's friends, allow them to visit and feel welcome in your home. The more you see of them, the more it helps you monitor their activities.

Music, media and television are each factors that have a strong influence over teens, as with the rest of the population. Media programming and music that are directly aimed at influencing youth can affect the way your children dress, speak and even the things that they buy. In fact, the music on your child's iPod will most likely have a heavily influence on the way they think. This does not however have to lead to paranoia on your part, try to balance out your child's collection by buying them milder forms of music to listen to as well. They will listen to them when they need a change.

Although adolescence is often a time of extremes, whether that be mood swings, behavior or dress sense, parents do not necessarily need to panic when they see big changes in their children. It is important to learn as much as you can about the adolescent stage of life and coping with it as a parent. Although your children may flirt with things that seem scary and extreme to you, they will most likely naturally come back to center. It will not be very long before they have successfully passed through the teenage years and have turned back into the wonderful human being that you love and remember. Continue to hug them throughout the teen years, even when they screw up their faces and act as though they don't like it. They still need those hugs no matter how big they have got.

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Teaching Your Kids to Use An Alarm Clock

Mornings can be a crazy time in a household with kids, especially if both parents work full time and the kids need to go to school. Getting everyone out of bed, fed and ready to go can often feel like a difficult chore. This is especially true if you have kids that have a hard time getting out of bed in the mornings. Once the kids are old enough one thing that can help is to have the kids take on the responsibility of getting themselves out of bed. Teaching them how to use an alarm clock can be a big help during the busy morning hours.

Teach The Importance Of Time

You can start teaching kids the importance of time when they are old enough to get their first kids watch. Choose a watch that they will have fun using, for most kids this means choosing one that has fun characters, themes or colors that they like. Once they learn the basics of how to tell time have them help you watch time. Have them tell you when it is time to leave for a fun activity or an appointment. This responsibility is often fun for them, and it can help you keep track of the time when you have a lot going on at one time.

Choose The Right Clock

Once you decide it is time for a kids alarm clock start shopping for one that you know they will like. Look for one that is easy to use, also one that has a look and feel that they will like and have fun using. Also look for features that will make waking up easier. Some kids will wake up happier or easier to music instead of a typical alarm sound; the music can be either the radio or a song from their favorite cd. Some kids might like to use a kids watch with an alarm instead of an alarm clock. As long as the alarm is loud enough it is important to choose whatever they will actually use.

Create A Habit

To help create a positive habit, once you have found the perfect alarm clock make sure they know how to use it and have them use it regularly. For some kids having a new gadget will make getting up in the morning fun, for others it may take a little while for them to get used to it, but in time they will learn. Using the alarm clock regularly is an important part of making this a regular routine.

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Enjoying Far better Air Circulation by way of Outdoor Ceiling Fans

Summer time is quickly approaching, and before you know it, you might be already faced with the warm summer breeze of this season. People are fond of staying outside their houses, especially within the patio, in the course of the summer season and invest quality time together with pals and family. But most of the time, troubles such as the temperature and heat of the sun make staying outside uncomfortable. Instead, people stay inside to stay away from the scorching heat of the sun along with the unsettling warm breeze. At these moments, you can make good use of an outdoor ceiling fan.

Outdoor ceiling fans are perfect in the course of the summer season to offer good air circulation around the exterior parts of your house. You’ll take pleasure in far more the summer season in case you install an outdoor ceiling fan simply because it can drive off the warm summer breeze, and bring gentle and cool breeze. You are able to go on together with your list of plans for the summer such as reading your favorite book, or hang out with buddies in your house’s patio or veranda. Aside from these, outdoor ceiling fans have designs that will complement the exterior designs of your home. Outdoor ceiling fans are also created differently from the indoor ceiling fans. They’re far sturdier than the indoor ceiling fans and can withstand the harsh conditions outside for example temperature modifications and moisture.

Outdoor ceiling fans help you enjoy a far better circulation of the air. The fans can effectively circulate the air outside your home and give off a more gentle breeze. The fans can also keep the temperature in your patio down. Outdoor ceiling fans are also much better air conditioners than the air conditioning units we use inside our houses. When using the outdoor ceiling fan, open your windows near it so you can let the cool breeze in. It is possible to then turn off the indoor ceiling fan or air conditioning units to save an excellent deal of money from your utility bills.

Various outdoor ceiling fans are offered within the market nowadays. These ceiling fans have distinct designs and are made from numerous supplies. Wood is 1 common material of outdoor ceiling fans, and also the stronger materials incorporate resin and plastic. No matter what their material is, outdoor ceiling fans are positive to present much better air circulation outside your homes.

Some individuals think outdoor ceiling fans are designed to supply cool breeze only, but in actuality, outdoor ceiling fans can be multi-purpose. In the event you install an outdoor ceiling fan with a heater, you might be certain to get warmer breeze which will suit your preference. It is possible to even install an outdoor ceiling fan inside a room that has no ventilation at all, for example the basement or garage. Given that the outdoor ceiling fans are significantly much better than indoor ceiling fans in style and durability measure, you might be positive to save far more cash from your utility bills.

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