getting along!

hello everyone!

Anusha here! I was looking through some articles on the internet and came across one very interesting one. We all know that every child is unique and different. We as adults have to study these children in order to understand them and raise them up in the correct manner.

Here are some useful tips on how you adapt to your child's needs and character!

Why the harmonious flow in Bonnie Benson's house and the emotional roller coaster at Carla Clayborn's? Is it that Carl is a middle child? Or do her parents lack basic parenting skills? Or peer pressure or single-parenthood? Or unresolved issues from her parent's childhood? We have focused our study of family systems on the multi-faceted environment.

Parents in large families have always known that babies are different from the day they are born. The first modern professionals to acknowledge the tremendous effect of these inborn differences on family interaction were Drs. Stella Chess and Alexander Thomas. After training in traditional psychiatry, they pioneered 30 years of research, which has given us the vocabulary to work with inborn differences

Temperament, clearly visible by the age of four months, affects our lives well into adulthood. Babies differ along a continuum from low to high, on each of the following scales:

Activity Level - From the couch potato to the athlete - one finds it hard to exercise, and the other hard to sit still for long periods.

Sensitivity - From the low sensitivity child who doesn't notice bruises or ear infections, to the highly sensitive one who is miserable because of tags in clothing, or the taste of a different brand of baby food.

Regularity - From those who wake and eat according to an internal alarm clock to those whose body rhythms vary significantly according to interest, activity and emotional state.

Intensity - From the mellow being who smiles and whimpers, to the emotional dynamo, who screams with distress and squeals with delight.

Curiosity/Caution - From those who instantly reach out to explore with their fingers and feet to those who first watch - until a situation becomes thoroughly familiar.

Adaptability - From those who move readily through a routine day, to those who continually struggle with change. The latter not only need extra transition time both to and from waking, bathing, meals, home, daycare, but resent intrusion on their physical boundaries necessitated by diaper changes, car seats, etc. Given the effect of minor transitions, a new daycare or new sibling means.....

Frustration Tolerance - (or Persistence) - From those who naturally work for long periods (to reach a toy or get their shoes on) to those who back off or plead for help after a brief effort.

Distractibility - From those who are easily soothed out of distress by a cooing parent (or later to look up from toys because someone walks into the room), to those who remain focused on their original project, whether crying or playing. Mood - From those who are usually sunny, to those who are generally grouchy. There is some controversy about this last trait. Does it stand alone? Or does it reflect A) other traits - such as adaptability and frustration tolerance and B) how comfortable this baby is in its environment.

There is no such thing as a good or bad temperament. Babies (to say nothing of children and adults!) thrive with Goodness of Fit - that is, with a reasonable match between their temperament and their environment. However, any trait can become a hazard. For example, in this fast changing culture, we value high adaptability. But those of fast adapting temperament can get to the end of the day (or a decade) and realize they have adapted so readily to their surroundings that their own personal needs have slipped by unseen. On the other hand, those who by nature are slow to adapt, can either become overwhelmed by demands for change, or can become natural planners, who learn to respectfully pace the amount of change in their lives.

To live and work optimally with children, we need to integrate both nurture and nature; We need to adapt interaction to the inborn characteristic of each individual. Needless to say, this task will be more challenging to those of us who need extra time to adapt to change! Are you wondering about your child's temperament? A Family Resource provides inborn temperament assessment and consultation.

Helen F. Neville, B.S.R.N. has 15 years experience in parent education, pediatric advice, and teaching stress management. Helen co-leads the Temperament Program at Kaiser Permanente in Oakland, California and is co-author of Temperament Tools: Working with your Child’s Inborn Temperament Traits.

Valentine's Easy Recipes to do with children

Hey everyone! Valentine's Day is coming, I know not all of you celebrate it, but there's something that I would like to share with you all. Well since this year's Valentine's clashes with the Chinese New Year, so to those that don't celebrate Chinese New Year and have nothing on for that day, you can try this at home with your child! Is easy and yummy~!

Well I have two different recipes that I think is really nice to share.


Love Potion Smoothie
1/2 cup frozen strawberries
1/2 cup frozen raspberries
1 small carton of yogurt
1/2 Cup ice cubes
1 cup apple juice
Place strawberries, raspberries and juice in blender. Blend several seconds. If you would like a thicker smoothie add more fruit or for a drinkable smoothie add 1/4 Cup more juice.

Cherry Crepes
4 Cup milk
5 eggs
½ teaspoon salt
1 Tablespoon sugar
2 Cup flour
1 Tablespoon oil for frying
Lightly beat eggs. Stir in milk, sugar and salt. Add flour and mix well with an electric mixer. Let rest for 10 minutes. If necessary add more milk so batter is thin. Heat small fry pan to very hot. Add oil to coat pan. Reheat. Add batter to just cover bottom of pan. Turn to brown other side. Set on plate and cover with a towel. Reheat pan no need to add more oil. Stir batter before each crepe. This recipe makes a lot!!
Cherry filling
1/4 Cup sugar
1 Cup sour cream
1 jar canned sour cherries, or 2-3 Cups fresh pitted cherries mixed with 3/4 Cup-1 Cup sugar
Mix together sugar and sour cream until sugar is dissolved. Set aside. Set one crepe on a board, put a row of cherries across the crepe, in the lower ¼th. Roll the crepe from the bottom over the cherries and to the top. Drizzle with sugar/sour cream mixture.

try it out together with your children, just remember to look after their safety.
will try to post up some Chinese New Year recipes you can do it with your children.

Cheers,

-kelly-

click HERE to see the full link of the recipe
pictures credits to google

Welcome Everyone

Hi people, this is gonna be our first post, and I'm Kelly will introduce myself here first
I'm 20 this year, and I'm taking Diploma in Early Childhood Education in SEGi Subang Jaya College. I'm currently having my last semester of lectures before doing my practicum. I've started to teach the young chilren in my temple since 2008. Those children are 5-6 years old. I started to work since 2009 in a kindergarten and now currently working in a Montessori centre.

The reason why i would choose to be in this line is because I like small children. Well I know is easy for everyone to say that they like children, but it would be different when they need to get along with young children, teach them, or taking care of them. Well my passion came when I was one of the facilitator in children's camp which was organized by the youth group in my temple in 2005. Although those children are slightly older than in their early stage, but thats when I've got the interest in knowing more about young children. Besides, I believe that in Malaysia most of us were being thought with the traditional way when we're in our kindergarten or preschool where the teachers will just make sure that we follow the syllabus given. After i've started my course, I've learned that there are better ways to teach young children now. I find it really interesting, and fun to learn that way. Even I was having fun teaching that way. I find it easier for children to learn and they learn better and faster. With that my passion has increase and I really wanted to be a successful educator.

Well before this when I told most of my relatives that the course I'm taking now is related to teaching young children, and their first reaction was, "HAR?". To them being an early childhood educator is an easy job, and they find this is a job for people that are not so bright. Then they would ask "Why do you waste so much money to study this and just to become a kindergarten teacher?", then I told them that I might have my own centre in the future, and then they only thinks tat I'm successful. But to me, money isn't really the big matter, what matters is the young children. We being as the first teacher of the young children plays a big role in their life. We can actually guide them and change them to have a brighter future. To me doesn't mean you have to be a doctor, lawyer, engineer, accountant, business man to be professional. The professionalism occurs on each person's attitude, the responsibilties they take towards their job. Being an Early Childhood Educator I would say that is also a professional job. Not every1 can be really patient to young children, even I would have to admit that sometimes i tend to loose patient towards young children. Now if you asked me what is my goal? I would say out proudly that I want to be a professional Early Childhood Educator, and I won't feel embarassed at all telling any1 that I'm a preschool teacher even thou my salary might be lower than the rest, but we're doing it for the young children, we are the 1 to guide them to have a better future.

Other than that, I'm really inspired by some of the theorist after knowing how impressive they are. Well we have Maria Montessori where she designed the materials for children to be able to construct learning on their own and at their own pace. Loris Malaguzzi that founded the "Reggio Emilia" approach where it vieows children as being competend, resourceful, curious, imaginative, and possess a desire to interact and communicate with others. Then we also have Friedrich Froebel who is known as the 'father of kindergarten' where he is the one to open the first kindergarten which was in Germany. We have Howard Gardner too, that is best known for his theory of multiple intelligences, where we can know which way the children learn best according to their intelligences. And of course there's others such as Jean Piaget, Arnold Gessel, Parry Smith Hill and the rest. These people are the role models of ours that lead us to help children to grow and learn in a bettter environment. I will explain furthermore if you want to know more about the theorist, just leave a comment and either Anusha or I would try to provide as much informatioin as I can.

Well I guess i shall stop here, and I will continue on in my next post.
We will most probably sharing our experience or share some really helpful article especially about parenting, or even some interesting crafts and cooking lesson that you can do at home with your child.
Thanks for reading,

Cheers,

-kelly-