FIRST SCHOOL CAN BE FRIGHTENING

The school will start again and your son/daughter will start their first school. Maybe your children are happy to hear that they will go to school - as many children do - but the first school can be very frightening. Actually, not children who are afraid to go to school, but usually parents do.

Many parents asked the same questions to teachers, counselors or friends who have children at the same school. It doesn't mean that the parents do not understand about the questions itself, but it is just because they worry so much about their children. 

Mostly, parents afraid that their children will cry in their first school days. They are afraid if their children cannot stand still and mess around and so on and so on. 

Worrying things that don't exist is useless. So, why don't we prepare our children to make sure that they are not making us worry when they go to school. Hopefully these tips will help you to solve your " school frightening problems"

Make sure that your children are;

1. able to listen to instructions and able to concentration in a needed situation.
2. able to sit nicely in a needed situation
3. able to use toilet, including flash it and wash hands
4. able to hold pencil and crayon
5. able to answer and asking questions
6. understanding of sharing concept
7. able to solve the problem when they are angry or frustrated without aggressiveness
8. able to doing a simple task like tidy her/his bag etc
9. able to play simple puzzle
10. try to cut simple shape with special scissors for children
11. able to run, jumping, and climb
12. able to wear her/his jacket and Velcro shoes
13. able to mention their full name and nickname, also able to telling their age
14. able to sing rhymes and simple children songs
15. able to retell a story that they know

By practice those things above, I am sure you can sleep well to night. There are still couples months to prepare your first school of your 4 years old children. So, you would rather practice them now. Good Luck Moms!

MOM vs TANTRUM

Tantrum is always become a stressing problem for parents. Tantrum itself such an attitude like screaming, cries, throwing things, and also rolled over on the ground. Cause of tantrum can be varied; such as dressing - in this case a child refuse to wear such a dress, such as her/his uniform or some party dress, or even when you go for shopping with your son or daughter and they ask for something such as candy but you do not allow them to have it, a child can be very tantrum because of it.

So, how would you feel when your children tantrum in front of public? She/he screams, cries, and all of her/his angry expression, and she/he does that only to get your attention. I am sure you will be shy and stress meet this condition. But, talking to children with tantrum like this is useless. They do not listen to what you said or what you do.

However, tantrum is not always negative. It means that children need tantrum. It is because with tantrum will teach them about feeling. They can show how angry they are with the condition or situation that they don't like. Tantrum also give you a chance to teach them how to solve a frustrating problem of her/him. Also, you can teach them that all problem can be handle, so nothing to worry about that. Then what should to do to help children with tantrum? See these tips below;

1. When your children in tantrum, don't give more comments to them. Talk to them after they finish tantrum is the best way. In this situation, we can discuss what things are allow and what things are not allow. When we talk to children with tantrum, they will not copy any word we said.
2. Give up to child with tantrum and give them reward or try is just giving us short solution, children will recognize it as a goal of tantrum. It means that children will use tantrum as "weapon" to get what they want. So, in the future, you will meet more and more tantrum attitude. 
3. When you angry and you being rude to them, he/she will learn that they cannot control their emotion safely and will make them confuse to her/his own feeling.

MY CHILD CAN'T TALK

As parents, we will be worry when our 3 years children can't talk yet. Maybe they can talk but sometimes they do not say it clearly or maybe they difficult to spell "k, t, sh, z and v". Usually, even though our children cannot talk fluently, we still can understand the word they said, However, we need to help them to speak better.

Check this out for tips to help your children speak better;

1. When your children are misspelling, don't correct them explicitly, but you can say it in the correct spelling. Such as when your child said "tak" for "truck" you can say, "Oh... do you you mean truck?"
2. Keep talking to her/him and make more eye contact.
3. When speak to her/him, use the normal language and don't use children language, such as, she/he usually said "dat" for telling "duck" so, when you want to talk about "duck" use the exact pronunciation "duck" not "dat"
4. Talk about emotion and mood; you can use story books. Tell them what the role feels, such as story about girl who lost the teddy bear, you can tell her/him how sad she is.
5. Play with letters
6. Singing the rhymes and kids songs
7. Playing role with dolls

ACTIVITIES FOR YOUR 3 YEARS CHILDREN

Moms, are you searching toys or activities for you 3 years old children? Maybe you think about an expensive toy with more complicated explanation that is explained by the sales promotion will make your children smart.

But don't you know Moms, that the more difficult activities or toys for your children will make them stop using their imagination. It means, that the children will not get any advantage from the toys or activities you gave.

Your 3 years old children like to play the toys in different way than it supposed to be played. Such example, they like to use your basket as their bed or as their chair. Shortly, create a fun games for themselves is a part of their thinking creatively ability and problem solving ability. So, let them play freely as long as they do not do any destructive activities or harm themselves.

Then, what kind of toys or activities that might help them to think creatively? Bellow some tips that you can try for them;

1. Puzzle; we can find many puzzle every where with many types and many pictures. Because your children is just a 3 years boy/girl, then choose a simple picture for them
2. Books; books can help your children to improve their speech abilities. 
3. Block Toys; building toy that is usually made from wood or plastic will improve the creativity of your 3 years old boy/girl, also will pump out their imagination and even teach them about math and physics.
4. Play dough; it can help your 3 years old boy/girl think creatively also it is fun. 
5. Drawing and Painting; it can improve your child creativity and also improve their motor skill. 
6. Play role
7. Memory game.

Furthermore, if you want to teach your child about concept of number, you can teach them while you play with them; these tips hopefully help you to give your 3 years old child meaningfully activities;

1. give her/him dolls or animals toys or fruits toy or cars toy, then you can say, "one for you and one for me", or "two for you and two for me" and etc
2. you can count while tidy the toys together
3. showing them number around you like number of bus or number of house
4. read rhyme of children that is using numbers
5. use play dough; make number and help them memorize the number you made.
6. play domino with your child. 

LET'S TALK ABOUT AUTISM

What is autism?

Nowadays, autism become fame in developmental disorder. But, many people miss understand about autism. Many parents who children with autism always asking about some question like what is autism? Can autism be cured? Can they live like a normal child? Are they stupid? What are the symptom? etc.

Based on the question that often exist, so it will be my first preface on our discussion to talk about what is autism. Autism is a neurological disorder. It means that you born with it and live with it. It affects the brain develop.

Autism is one of five Pervasive Development Disorder (PDDs) that are categorized as;

1. Autism
2. Asperger's Syndrome
3. Childhood disintegrative disorder
4. Rett disorder
5. Pervasive Developmental Disorder not Otherwise Specified (PDD-NOS)

Can autism be cured?

NO! Autism is not an illness, so, it can't be cured. However, people with autism can live productively. So, that's why they need early intervention. Early intervention is important for them, because it will help them to learn and prosper in life and carry on a normal and productive life. However, for some people with autism, they require lifelong help with daily living activities.

Are Children with Autism Stupid?

NO! Children with autism just like another normal children. Some of them have normal IQ's, some of them moderate mental retardation, but some of them have higher than average - here they seem do not have autism.

What are the Symptoms?

These are ten symptoms of Autism;

1. Failure to respond their name; they are not deaf, but looks like cannot hear when people call their name.
2. Avoidance of eye contact; it shown in baby, but in infant, it shown that it doesn't want to be cuddled or held.
3. unresponsiveness; it shown that the children do not recognize someone around them or do not want to interact with people around them
4. Obsession with specific object or things; they will focused intensively with one object or thing, and when another people try to take it from him/her, she/he will be very angry
5. Focusing in details and blocking out all else; such example, he pays attention to the spinning wheels on a toy but does not pay attention to whole cars.
6. Repetitive action or activities; it shown that the children doing a routine activity or action.
7. Watching the same videos over and over again.
8. Repetitive movement
9. Self injury behavior
10. Delayed speech.

DEAL WITH FEAR OF SEPARATION ON 3 YEARS OLD CHILDREN

Many moms asked me how to deal with fear of separation of their young children. Mostly, Moms afraid that these 3 years children will have difficulty to start their first day at school. This question is make sense as we can find many young children cry in their first day of school, because they fear with separation with their parents. Some children will easily to adapt within few days or even ready for this separation, however, some children will need months to adapt. 

Moms, even though your 3 years children is an independent children, however, they still need you to stay around. We can see that these 3 years children like to run for playing then back again to you. In this stage, your control to them is crucial because of their understanding about danger are minim and they will confused when they cannot find you around. Thus, they are afraid of being separate with you. However, you still can help to face this separation.

Then what should we do to deal with our children fear of separation? Well, if you plan that you will deliver your young children to their first school, you would rather give practice to your young children. Bellow, "some exercise" tips to deal with fear of separation of your young children;

1. explain her/him that you will back to her/him, give her a kiss and hug, then go peacefully. If you wait her/him cry, it will make them getting worried and you will also worry her/him too.
2. if your young children have favorite toys, let him/her hold it to create her/him comfort.
3. if you worried about her/him after you left, you can contact the care giver a few minutes after to make sure.
4. if your young children insisted to do not let you go, give them a practice. First, left her/him for 20 minutes, then you back again. After that, add the time. It will give them practice and make them believe that you will always back for her/him. 

Reference:

Carol Cooper, Claire Halsey, Su Laurent, Karren Sullivan, 2008, Your Child Year by Year, A Dorling Kindersley Book, England.

MOM, I DON'T WANT TO EAT!

As a mother, I am sure you will be sad when your little child do not want to eat. Why it is often happen to our children?

It is a common problem that usually happen in our family. We do not know that our children has small stomach where a piece of biscuit or a glass of water will make him/her refuse to eat. Instead of it, a numerous of fast food that shown on media affect to child appetite.

Then what should we do for our beloved one? Well, try this diet program to help your children get good nutrition on their bodies.

	Description	Daily Intake	Food sources
Protein	Protein is needed to repair and renew cell	2-3 servings per day intake of animal protein and vegetable will provide a healthy balance	animal protein include lean meat, fish and eggs; vegetable protein include legumes, whole grains, nuts, seeds, rice, vegetables and fruits
Fats	Fat supply calories and nutrients essential for growth essential for brain function	3-4 servings per day	Healthy fats can be found in vegetable oils, nuts, seeds and oily fish, olive oil, and avocados. Dairy products and red meat should not be given in excess, but still be a part of a child's diet
Carbohydrate	Carbohydrate is needed as body energy and primary fuel source of the body	4-9 servings per day	Whole grains, fruits, fresh vegetables, legumes, and brown rice or red.
Fiber	encourage healthy digestion, helps the absorption of nutrients efficiently, absorb toxins and prevent constipation	if your child get the most appropriate food intake, he will get the required fiber	whole grains, fruits and vegetables with the skin if necessary, good quality cereals, rice and legumes

Notes:
one serving is approximately one tablespoon

Healthy Snack

pre-school children need a snack to maintain energy levels and concentration. You can still provide a healthy snack for your child but in a small form that he/she still felt hungry at mealtimes

Idea for Healthy snack

• fresh and dried fruit, 
• wholemeal toast, 
• breadstick dipping sauce, such as hummus, 
• low youghurt sugar, 
• raw vegetables, 
• nuts, grains, and rice cakes. But do not give nuts if there is a history of peanut allergy in the family

Reference:

Carol Cooper, Claire Halsey, Su Laurent, Karren Sullivan, 2008, Your Child Year by Year; A Dorling Kindersley Book, England

TEN TIPS AT SCHOOL FOR CHILDREN WITH LD part 6

Many children with Learning Difficulties do not like school, because they have many troubles at school. Here, ten tips that will help you enjoy to be at school;

1. You need someone to talk to; many people need someone to talk to, including children with LD. Children with LD are just like another children, it means they do not share their feelings to others, however, when things are getting so tough, you need someone to talk to. Choose people you can trust like school counselor, a teacher, a janitor, a bus driver or a friend who you trust.
2. Keep your head up; it is not a big deal when you have learning differences, when people ask you why you go to LD class or need extra time for your lesson, said it confidently that you have LD or you learn differently from other kids. Say it proudly and act like an important person. The more confident you do it, people will act you like an important person.
3. Become an expert; you need to think about an interest of people of your age. You can choose an activity that you like most and you expert on this. When you are expert, many people will ask you for help.
   
4. Take part in school activities; by doing some school activities, instead of just schoolwork, will make you fun. Show to all people also to your teacher that you glad to help them. 
5. Learn more about LD; you need to learn more about LD, if you have teachers who do not know about LD, you can explain them about LD in order to help them plan for you
6. Makes friend; you need to make friends with a lot of people, not just friends with LD, but friends who do not have LD
7. Be a helper; by helping people such as a younger kids will make you feel happy. So, if you know something better than another person, be a helper. 
8. Stay out of trouble; some school works maybe boring for you, and maybe hard for you, but join others kids and fooling around do not help you to feel better, so always make sure that you stay out of trouble.
9. Know how to relax and cool off; when you meet a hard school works meanwhile you think that no body can help you, try this, close your eyes, take a deep breath, count to ten very slowly and quietly, also said "relax" to yourself and when you feel better, start your school works again.
10. Don't use your LD as an excuse; use your LD as an excuse won't help you to feel better at school. Even everything is look so hard for you, but the best way to make you feel better is you should do your best way to coping it. 

Reference:
Garry Fisher, Ph.D and Rhoda Cummings, Ed.D, 2002, The Survival Guide for Kids with LD, Minneapolis.

HOW'S IT FEEL LIKE TO HAVE LD? part 5

If you are children with Learning Difficulties, I am sure you know how it is feel like, but if you are a friend of a children with Learning Difficulties, you would rather read this carefully and help them to over come their problems.

Everybody can feel sad, hurt and angry, but children with LD usually most unhappy children. It is because they do not think that they learning fast enough, have trouble getting along at school, or sitting still, meanwhile other children will laugh at all the things they say or do.

Based on Gary Fisher, Ph.D and Rhoda Cummings, Ed.D, below are six ways to help children with LD to over come their depressed feeling;

1. Motivate yourself; if you are a child with LD, you need to motivate yourself by doing this "little exercise" in the morning and night before you sleep. Here, you need to say over and over again that you like yourself. You would rather doing it in front of the mirror, example: "I like my capability in linguistic, I know I am best on that". Then choose find five things that you are going to do in a day. Then, in a night, say the good things that you did in the day. Example; Today, I did better on sitting still.
2. Draw your feelings; if you have trouble in talking about your feeling, you would rather use drawing to express them. Then you can show the pictures to a parent or another adult you trust. 
3. Talking to counselor; many schools have counselors, then why don't you meet them and talk to them. They are trained to handle children with depressed. And the good things that you should know is, that they don't share it to anyone. So, your secret will be safe. So, don't worry about that.
4. Make a book about yourself; in this case you can write or draw books about yourself. You can write it as you write your on biography, maybe you can start your first chapter with; Things I like best about myself. Then your second chapter would be "Things I would like to change about myself". After that your third chapter would be "Things that make me feel happy", and then your fourth chapter will be "Things that make me feel sad, hurt and angry" and for closing you can write "How I want to be in 10 years"
5. Take a life one day at a time; worrying about future will not help you to over come your problem, you would rather enjoy and live in TODAY. It means you can motivate yourself with "I promise myself that I will do my best TODAY. Remember, past is just memory which might forgotten, and future is still a dream. Life is TODAY.
6. Be Patient; many people with LD who are succeed in their life is never give up. They remember that they will not in school forever. And they know that most of teachers care about you and want you to learn. Also, most parents love their children no matter what they are. Shortly, you need to laugh at yourself sometimes, be patient, things will be over soon. So, take a chill pill. 

References:

Garry Fisher, Ph.D and Rhoda Cummings, Ed.D, 2002 The Survival Guide for kids with LD, Minneapolis. 

TAKE A CHILL PILL part 4 Success people with LD

After long and serious discussion, let's take a chill pill, while you lean back and read it via your PC, netbooks, or any devices you use to read it.

After reading three previous parts about Learning Difficulties or Learning Differences, there might come a question, "Will people with LD success in their future?"

As what we agreed in previous chapter, we conclude that children with Learning Difficulties are not dumb. They are smart children. Below six success people with Learning Difficulties who did not give up in struggling their difficulties;

1. Nelson Rockefeller; He was a Vice President of United States and governor of New York. He had a severe reading problem. 

   

   Nelson Rockefeller; Vice President of US

2. Tom Cruise; this handsome actor has a reading disability

   

   Tom Cruise; succeed actor

3. Ann Bancroft; She is an arctic explorer and she was the first woman who reach the North Pole; she has reading problem.

   

   Ann Bancroft; the first woman who reach the North Pole

4. Woodrow Wilson; He was a President of United States. He did not learn to read until he was 11 years old. 

   

   Woodrow Wilson; President of US

5. Erin Brockovich; She is a legal assistant who struggled hard for a case against a company that was polluting the groundwater in California. She has dyslexia. 

   

   Erin Brockovich; legal assistant 

6. Whoopi Goldberg; everybody know Whoopi Goldberg, but not everybody knows that she has reading problems in school. This is interesting thing, we can see that she had problem in reading, but in her future, she is succeed actress and comic. And as we know, as an actress she must read lots of scenario, if we compare with her difficulty problem, it seems impossible.

Whoopi Goldberg; succeed actress and comic

Based on success stories of the famous people, we should not worry if we are children with Learning Difficulties, or we have children with LD, because they have bright future like another normal children. They keys here are "Support and Motivation to struggle"

References;

Garry Fisher, Ph.D and Rhoda Cummings, Ed. D, 2002, The Survival Guide for Kids with Learning Differences, Minneapolis.

TYPES OF LEARNING DIFFICULTIES part 3

Act by model

Hello... Hi... my beloved readers,
I am back again with discussion about Learning Difficulties as what we already discussed in the previous chapter. In this part we will discuss about the types of Learning Difficulties.

There are seven types of Learning Difficulties that might children have. Some children might have a type or probably more types of difficulties. It is based on the following problems of children have.

1. Talking and Listening LD; in this type, children have difficulties on Speech and language. Children might talking and listening, but they difficult to understand what people are saying. Usually they talk slowly or struggle with their words. And sometimes, they might not make the right sounds with their mouth. These children not dumb, they can hear sounds, but they hard to understand what the words mean. 
2. Reading LD;  in this type children have difficulties on reading. They might difficult to learning alphabet or sounding words. Sometimes they might not able to hear rhymes like "cat" and "hat". Sometimes, the letters and words seem to move on the page. These children have a hard time understanding what they read. 
3. Writing LD; in this type children have difficulties on writing. We can see that their handwriting is hard to read and probably very messy. They actually had many ideas on their head to write, but it is difficult for them to put it down on paper. 
4. Math LD; These children have difficulties in numbers. They do not understand what the numbers or symbols mean. They might have trouble memorizing math fact or lining up numbers. Even if they memorize how to do something in math, they do not understand what the answer means.
5. Organizing  Skills LD; in this type, these children have trouble in getting organized at all. They forget their assignment, probably they often left their homework on the school bus. They also difficult in understanding directions. 
6. Social Skills LD or also called Nonverbal LD; here, these children have difficulties on "reading" people. They will laugh or speak at the wrong time and interrupt conversations. They do not jokes that their friends tell. They stand too close to person they are talking to.
7. Motor LD; these children have difficulties on controlling their muscles. They move slowly or maybe have trouble in running, riding bike, jumping, hopping and playing sports. They lose their balance easily, and often teased for being clumsy. 

References;

Gary Fisher, Ph.D., and Rhoda Cummings, Ed.D; 2002, The Survival Guide for Kids with Learning                                            Differences, Minneapolis

How We Learn? part 2

In the previous part, we already talk about children with LD and what caused them have LD.
And in this part we will talk about how children with LD learn.

Act by model

In learning things, we - not only children with Learning Difficulties - are using many parts of our body to received information from the stimulus outside of our body. It explained that, if there is a stimulus come, eyes, ears and brain will work together to process the information. So do the children with Learning Difficulties. But in the information processing, there is something wrong which might giving us different reaction to the stimulus itself. Furthermore, it will be explained bellow.

How the information might process in children with Learning Difficulties?

1. Ears; normally, when we received information, sound travels through the air in sound waves. Then the waves go into the ear. In this ear, waves can be changed by eardrum and some bones into special signal where the brain can understand it. Furthermore, the sound can travel to the brain and the brain can identify the sound. However, in children with LD, the signals that received can gets mixed up and the brain ""hears" something else. In this case, the actual stimulus might accepted different by children with LD.
2. Eyes; just like the ears work, eyes also have similar process which in the end will be processed by brain. If you have good eyes, you can read clearly the stimulus that shown to you, however, for some children with LD, the signal never get into the brain. So that's why the respond of the stimulus might be different.
3. Brain; in children with LD, the brain might work differently. It showed that some children with LD have no sense of time, or some children do not have good body balance, or some children cannot understand what other people want or feeling. So, this is why children with LD found difficulty in pay attention to one thing at a time.

Is there any solution for children with LD to learn? 

If you are children with LD, or you are parent with children with LD, or you know someone in your neighborhood with LD, maybe you can try solutions below;

1. Ask a friend or teacher for help
2. Trace words with fingers to read them
3. Use a bookmark or another piece of paper to follow the text and keep place of what we read
4. Read aloud instead of reading silently
5. Build a model or draw a picture instead of writing a report (discuss it with teacher whether they allow it or not)
6. Ask teacher if we can put fewer maths problems on a page
7. Write math problems on graph paper to line the numbers up straight, or turn lined paper sideways to separate the numbers
8. Learn to use a computer for writing
9. Ask teacher for an extra books to keep at home
10. Ask teacher whether can we use teacher's notes to help us study for tests
11. Ask teacher whether can we have extra times when taking tests

Based on solution that we might use to help us learning above, the main keys of solution is "Always asking for help to teachers or friend if we find difficulty" 

LEARNING DIFFICULTIES Part 1

Acted by model

Many people asking about what is learning difficulties. Is learning difficulties similar to people who has lower IQ? Is he/she dumb? Can she/he learning well? And etc

A Child with learning difficulties is not a dumb child or retarded. But this child has difficulty in some part, such as difficult in math or reading. Some child might have difficulties in writing or spelling. Garry Fisher, Ph.D., and Rhoda Cummings, Ed.D, (2002) described that learning difficulties is described as learning differently. It means that a child must be taught in different ways to make them easy to understand the subject that given to them. 

So, what makes a child have LD? Even though no one knows exactly what is caused LD but below is the possibilities that might explain why people have LD;

1. Some kids have problems learning from the start; In this case, probably the child has difficulties in catching ball, stay in lines or understanding what people said. Thus, things will getting worse when they go to school. The complexity of the school tasks will make them difficult in learning subjects at school.
2. Run in families; In this case, check the history of the family whether her/his aunts, uncles or parents with LD. If the answer is YES, it mean the child may has too, but sometimes, there are many people who seem to be the only ones in their families with LD.
3. The problems come when the child was a baby or even before they born; the pre-natal or pra-natal might affect to child with LD. In this case, some child may difficult in the born process or the mother is sick, or they were very sick after they born. 

Is it enough for your search about LD? Well, if you think it is not enough for your search, you may continue your reading on Learning Difficulties Part 2 or visit www.freespirit.com to contact Garry Fisher, PhD and Rhoda Cummings, Ed.D by emailing them at help4kids@freespirit.com 

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