Five Ways in Which a Child Learns Social Skills. Most parents agree that they want their children to reach their full potential – whatever that may be. They won’t enjoy and celebrate a child any less if it turns out that his or her fullest potential doesn’t involve straight A’s and being hugely successful in […]
Making Choices. Gone are the days where children were seen and not heard. In today’s world, it is very popular – expected in fact – to give children choices. One theory is that if a child is given a choice, say between the green and the red t-shirt, then he’d most likely follow through and […]
Today’s inspiring quotation is about fighting – but in the good sense. Fighting for what you believe in, standing up after being knocked down and instilling in your child the will to persevere through thick and thin as they learn to trust, from watching you and living with you from day to day, that you are […]
It’s murphy’s law that as soon as you come across another mother of four amazing, well-behaved children in the isles of Woolies, floating along on an aura of complete calm and composure… your (*ahem*… quiet and reserved) toddler will have a complete temper tantrum over the fact that you will not let them have the entire sweet […]
Let’s face it, as parents we spend most of our time directing our children’s behaviour and sometimes it can feel as though all we ever say is ‘no’, ‘don’t’ and ‘stop’. While it is important to guide our children, there is a way to do it that is more positive for both you and […]
Just in case you needed some inspiration to keep you motivated to discover how you could fill your child’s learning experiences with as much emotion and fun as possible – here is a quote on the importance of the ‘learning environment’. And from who else than the most famous genius of them all… Enjoy! “I never teach […]
How To Improve Your Child’s Memory Do you remember a time when that complicated maths problem in 8th grade suddenly made sense? It was as if the clouds parted and the understanding ‘dawned on you’, changing the way you viewed maths from then on? Or is there another moment when a sudden realisation left you […]
Concentration – your child’s mental workout! Downloadables: Practica Programme Hand-out Concentration Span Parents often phone into the Practica Programme Advisory Service asking why concentration is not listed as a ‘skill’ in the Parent’s Guide. This is because most parents want to help grow their children’s ability to concentrate. We agree that it is very important […]
Life, and its meaning and enjoyment, is based purely on your perception of it. If you tell yourself a horrible story, it will be so. If you tell yourself a beautiful story, it will be so. One of the surest paths to happiness is to love what you do, and inspired by this notion, we bring […]
A 2010 study conducted in the USA has finally found a link between eating unhealthy ‘cafeteria-type’ food and drug addictive behaviour. The study, which was conducted on rats, found that obesity goes hand-in-hand with a breakdown in the circuits of the brain that control pleasure responses – the very same changes that are seen when rats are given […]
What makes educational games really valuable? When little Johnny’s mother points to a picture and states that the elephant is ‘big’ and the mouse is ‘small’ it doesn’t mean much to the little guy. Later, as the two of them are packing toys away, he tries to fit his big inflatable beach ball into the […]
3 Tips On How To Calm An Angry Child In a previous post called “The Two Kinds of Tantrums” we described how certain tantrums require that parents move towards their children to help them to deal with their overwhelming emotions, while the second kind of tantrum requires that parents move away from their child. With […]
Firstly, we would like to thank each and every parent for their loyalty to this blog – the response we have received since it’s inception in August last year has been phenomenal. We have however come to understand from parents that we are perhaps going a bit OTT (Over The Top) with the amount of information […]
We all know what it’s like to ask our little one to do something, and they carry on as if they’ve never heard us or can’t understand what we’re saying. However, it’s important for children to be able to follow instructions – whether its a request or a warning for their safety – by the time they […]