Children Learn What They Live

By Dorothy Law Nolte

If children live with criticism,
They learn to condemn.
If children live with hostility,
They learn to fight.
If children live with fear,
they learn to be apprehensive.
If children live with pity,
they learn to feel sorry for themselves;

If children live with ridicule,
they learn to feel shy.
If children live with jealousy,
they learn to feel envy.
If children live with shame,
they learn to feel guilty;

If children live with encouragement
they learn confidence.
If children live with tolerance,
they learn patience.
If children live with praise,
they learn appreciation.
If children live with acceptance,
they learn to love;

If children live with approval
the learn to like themselves
If children live with recognition,
they learn it is good to have a goal.
If children live with sharing,
they learn generosity.
If children live with honesty,
they learn truthfulness;

If children live with fairness,
they learn justice.
If children live with kindness and consideration.
they learn respect.
If children live with security,
they learn to have faith in themselves.
If children live with friendliness,
they learn the world is a nice place in which to live.

To our children

Paul in 2Timothy wrote to Timothy, his spirit son, "I thank God...for thee....Wherefore I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God, which is in thee by the putting on of my hands, For God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind." (2 Tim 1:3-7)

God has presented a perfect way for us, parents, to deal with our children. Often time, I found myself overwhelming by the loaded tasks related to children rearing, I lost my patience, I demanded too much, nagging and shouting... But God shows us in above passage how we should motivate our children into HIS good works.

Not by nagging, threatening, stirring up fear or guilt, but by loving, reminding the God's gift in each and every child He has given to us and confirming them by putting our hands in them.

That is both a human oriented and task oriented approach.

Paul first gave thank for his spiritual son. How often do we give thanks for our children? and told them so? It is not enough to show our thankfulness to our children, more importantly, to God and let our this thankfulness known to our children. Even when there were time of difficulty, our thanks giving will lift us up from self-centerness, self-pitiness. When we fix our eyes on God, we may see beyond the temporary situation but God's eternal plan.

Paul then recognised that every spiritual gift is given by God. Every one has the gift of God, talents of all kinds. It is however parents' duty to confirm and give encouragement. We, parents, are to stir up the gift of God in our children. In order to do so, we have to attentive observe and patiently nurture a child's own path of development, not to be pushy, not to be neglect to every development of our children.

Finally, we have God's promise that God has given us the spirit of a sound mind, of love, and power. The sound mind is for us to exercise self control; the love is for us to extend to others with tender communication and patience; the power is for us to prevail in those difficult time.

Truly, our children are the gifts from God, and HE does care each and every one of them. "Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord,...who has saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace.". Even though we are not perfect, God has his own purpose and grace to assist us in this holy calling of being a parent.

May God help us!

Understanding the children’s behaviour

Many parents have difficulties to understand their children’s behaviour. It will be helpful for parents to have the basic knowledge on human behaviour. There are two groups of psychological principles to explain the children behaviour.
One is referring to Individual Psychology, which is a view of people which recognises them as active decision makers, as purposeful and goal oriented individuals, free to determine their own behaviour, understood only within their social environment, and the other views on the nature of people exist, sees them as passive products of their environment, motivated by unconscious forces such as sex and aggression.
The parental relationship with their children has evolved from autocratic to democratic in today society, and the Individual Psychology principle provides a more acceptable approach for today’s parents to raise up their children in this relatively new changing society. Therefore, the following principles provide a framework for parents to understand their children:

1. 
   The desire of belonging, to be accepted, to contribute is the main motivators of a child’s behaviour. Children do not grow up in isolation. All of their behaviour skills like language, play, emotion are developed in some social settings. There is nothing more important in life than a child’s original family for it is there the basis of personality is formed. In their transactions within the family, children form ideas about life, themselves and others, ideas which form the guiding principles throughout life.
2. 
   View behaviour within the family. That is a very important concept and often being neglected one too. A child’s behaviour is developed and reinforced within family context. Alice is mean to her young sister, is because her big brother was mean to her sometime ago. Very often, parents however, deal with Alice’s mean behaviour alone without addressing her big brother’s problem. That will never solve Alice’s problem.
3. 
   All behaviour is purposeful. “Goal striving is the essence of personality” . The key is to identify the purpose and then act in such a way that the behaviour does not achieve its intended goal. Until parents begin to focus on the purposed of unsatisfactory behaviour, they will continue the ineffective approach of concentrating on the behaviours itself.

The above principles was summarized from “Become a better parents” by Maurice Balson
Becoming better parents

Working mother associates poorer cognitive and verbal development of her child.

The study done by Teacher College gives us more information how does mother's full time working affect her child:

"Full-time employment by mothers by the ninth month of their child's life is associated with poorer cognitive and verbal development for these children at age three, according to a study conducted by Professor Jeanne Brooks-Gunn of Columbia Teachers College and Jane Waldfogel and Wen-Jui Han, both professors at Columbia's School of Social Work. The findings are published in the July-August issue of "Child Development."

The researchers also found that the quality of child care, the home environment and maternal sensitivity are important contributors to verbal and cognitive development during the first three years of life. However, even after taking these factors into account, the researchers found lower cognitive development for the children of mothers who worked full time (30 or more hours per week) during the first nine months of life.

The researchers did not find significant negative effects on cognitive and verbal development among children whose mothers worked fewer than 30 hours per week in the first year or those whose mothers who began work one year after their birth.

"We're not saying working is negative -- we're saying working a lot of hours in the first year of a child's life is associated with poorer cognitive and verbal development," said Brooks-Gunn. "If it's in young children's interest to have mothers working fewer hours, then that must be reflected in our policies."

"Western European countries have much more generous family-leave policies, reflecting people's concerns about the well-being of children," she noted. "We can do better in this country by taking results such as ours and not using them to say women shouldn't be working and instead ask what can work best for families in America so that mothers can work fewer hours when their children are younger."

The study published in "Child Development" used data on 900 white children from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care. The study included detailed data on maternal employment as well as data about the home environment, parental sensitivity and child-care quality and type over the first three years of life. Cognitive development was measured through the Bayley Mental Development Index (MDI) at 15 months, the revised Bayley MDI at 24 months and the Bracken School Readiness score at 36 months.

In other work, the authors have found that the negative effects of full-time maternal employment in the first year of life on children's cognitive development persist to age seven and eight. Following children from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth's Child Supplement, they found that children whose mothers worked more than 20 hours per week in the first year of life scored lower on math and reading tests at age five and six and again at age seven and eight. This study was published in "Demography" in May 2002.