Getting children to sleep in their own beds, and to fall asleep on their own is one of the most frequent topics that comes up between parents.  And although each family has their own theory about this, there are general things you can do to support the implementation of YOUR choice. The most strategic and intelligent way to resolve this is to find ways to give your child what they are needing, but on your terms, and according to your timeline. So a win-win scenario. This lesson looks at examples of how you can implement some of these ideas.

The value of getting a child to do extra homework is not about force feeding them with irrelevant information and time consuming content, but in supporting them in the skills of self discipline, planning, organisational development and perseverance.  But regardless of the REASON as to why your child has extra homework to do, the skills needed to get them to do so can be the same.  We have found that what works best is to focus on the values that underpin the extra work, and not on the actual content of the work.  So if your child has extra MATH to catch up, what we aim to develop (and celebrate), is increasing her self discipline to stay focused, and to persevere, in spite of her being bored and wanting to give up.  These internal values (characteristics) are what support her in being successful in whatever she takes on in life.…

After having attended the session on Supporting Independence,  I realised that I was very nervous about my daughter Mishqa choosing her own clothes. How would she know what colours to fit together and what style to wear? The next day I laid out two tops for her to choose. She went off to school quite proud and happy about herself. Soon after I gave her a greater choice and on one occasion she chose something that I didn’t think would go well with the pants she would wear. So I asked her why she chose the other top and she replied that the previous one would not go well with her shoes. I realised she was right and from then on I decided she knew what she was doing. Now I am the proud one as I see she has really good taste of what clothes to wear.

In my pre-school class I constantly get children coming to ask me to do things for them. I have found the skill of respecting their struggle really helpful and it seems to give them courage to continue finding an alternate way. Take for example…. Megan: “Robin, I can’t make this heart.”Robin: “Mmm, it can be quite tricky cutting out along those lines. It looks like those lines are really small. Maybe we can make a plan. What can we do to make those lines easier to see?” Megan: “Maybe we can draw them again, with a big crayon.” After having completed the heart and having regained self-confidence and pride, Ryan comes to complain about the same problem. Robin: “It looks like these hearts are difficult to cut out. Megan came up with a good plan. Perhaps you can ask her to show you her plan.” With that Ryan asks Megan…

The social skill of taking turns is one that takes time, patience and many long faces to develop. On this day, we had our play-dough table nestled up against the wall and only two seats for the children to sit at. After about ½ an hour, some children came up to me complaining that they wanted a turn at the table. I asked them if they had spoken to the other two at the table and they said that they had. I thought that it was that time again to start developing sharing skills. “Okay guys, we have two children playing dough and another two who would like to play. What shall we do?” Both parties voiced that they each wanted to play. We were heading towards a system of time allocation when another child (5yrs old) who was standing nearby piped up and said. “I have a good idea.…

During one of our workshops on Supporting Independence, we were brainstorming the qualities we would like to instill in our children. After going through all obvious ones of independence, tolerance, respect, caring etc, a father put in as an after thought, “I would like my children to feel sexy in the sense of them feeling good about themselves.” We all chuckled at this and wondered how we could develop this sense in our children. A week later a mother came in with this story: “My child was diagnosed with global developmental delay. At four she had the mentality of a two year old and at eight years old I still treat her like a four year old. I resent the fact that my daughter “expects” me to dress her. Just recently I decided to get up earlier. I put out 2 sets of clothes and told Tasneem to choose one…