Useful Tips on Raising a Happy Child

Try to grasp the actual meaning of happiness from the child’s perceptive and act accordingly to make him/her feel happy.

On the other hand, few of us might still be on our way to understand the actual concept of raising a happy child. However, there are few common ways that one can follow to raise a happy child.

Respecting your child’s interests and feelings is most important aspect of raising a happy child.

If you constantly try to keep your kid down knowingly or unknowingly, it can certainly hurt the self esteem of your child and chances are there for your child to develop disrespectfulness towards others. So, always show respect to your child and his feelings.

Ensure that you are your child’s biggest favorite. Know their limitations and never compare them with other children. Celebrate your child’s small successes and express your pride. Keep encouraging them. Make your child believe that you have full confidence in your child’s success.

Realize that a happy child is most loved child. Shower your child with love and utmost affection. Spend quality time with your child and discuss about various things in your life as well as your child’s life. This will improve intimacy with your child and help in your goal of raising a happy child.

Positivity obviously brings lot of happiness to life. So, teach your child how to act positively and how to develop positive attitude in life to be happy.

Don’t just limit your praising to simply saying “good work”, rather think creatively and explore different ways to express your praise to your child. When you feel that your child has done extremely wonderful job, arrange a surprising party for your child to make him/her feel happy.

When your child comes to you with a problem, try to listen carefully about the problems. Though it may seem like a small problem to you, it can be a tough task for your child. So, listen to him/her carefully and try to help him/her in solving the problem.

5 Reasons to Have the ‘Puberty Chat’ With Your Daughter Sooner than Later

It is something that most parents are not going to relish – having that puberty chat with their daughter – however this is something that needs doing earlier rather than later, for a number of very important reasons.

1. Due to better nutrition and many other factors girls are attaining puberty earlier than ever before, so if puberty arrives for a girl before she is prepared for it, this can be very traumatic for her.

2. Most of the information that children get about sex and puberty is either from the media or from friends and peers. Very often this is significantly incorrect or misleading for the child. It is better that she learns the facts from you – accurately and correctly.

3. This all-important chat can enhance connectedness between the mother (or father) and the daughter. This bond or connectedness is so important a factor in a child’s life that it is shown to decrease various harmful behaviors like substance abuse and early or risky sex.

4. If you are apprehensive that speaking about puberty and sex will spur on your daughter to have sex earlier, don’t be, since this is not the case. Talking to your daughter about the birds and bees doesn’t mean that she will have sex earlier but not doing so will increase chances of misinformation and even perhaps a teen pregnancy.

Studies have demonstrated how speaking about sex to a child can help prevent incidence of unsafe sex.

5. Your daughter probably has a whole lot of questions. Even if she isn’t asking you directly, you can bet that she is curious about so many things. Isn’t it better that she get the information from you rather than elsewhere?

It may not be just one chat, but perhaps a series of chats that you need to have with your daughter, sooner rather than later.

Tips to Improve Positive Discipline In Children

While discipline is a positive virtue in any person’s life, when it comes to using the word for children it has prerogative connotations of punishment, withholding of privileges, physical chastisement and so on.

However using positive discipline, which identifies boundaries and helps children control and modify their own behavior, can be valuable for parents as well as children.

Some facets of positive discipline that parents can incorporate into their parenting style can be:

Respect is a two way street, so if you expect respect from your child, you have to offer respect to the child in terms of their wants and needs and also their feelings.

This also helps a child learn to respect their own self, which is a very valuable lesson in life.

Make sure that the child’s abilities and efforts are always appropriately appreciated and praised. This is a way of reinforcing good behavior so that a child is encouraged to repeat it. If a child has a negative self image, this will hinder the parent-child relationship which is another reason to foster self esteem.

A parent who is unfailingly kind and courteous, well mannered, who doesn’t show negative behavior like smoking or excessive drinking, road rage and poorly controlled anger, will be a positive role model for a child.

It is a form of positive discipline to be able to tell your child – look at your mother/father and be like him or her.

Let the children feel that they can always come to their parent with any kind of problem; that the parent has the time for it, as well as the ability to sort it out. This creates trust and confidence.

Being consistent is one of the cardinal rules of parenting. Inconsistency can confuse and anger a child, making the parent seem unreasonable and unpredictable.