Blog - A Fine Parent

How to Respond When Your Children Start Swearing

by Shaly Pereira.
(This article is part of the Positive Parenting FAQ series. Get free article updates here.)

There is nothing like hearing your child yell the dreaded F-word for the first time.

It’s especially nerve-racking when it’s in front of the entire extended family. Including the grandparents.

At a family dinner, my eleven-year-old nephew was deliberately jostled by his younger brother, resulting in his half laden plate tilting. With hot curry spilling over his hand, he yelled the F-word as loudly as he could.

Amidst the cacophony of family banter and the clattering of cutlery, you would have thought the word would have gone unnoticed but nope! There was complete silence around the dining table as if someone had pushed the pause button. Several pairs of eyes (including mine) zeroed in on the culprit.

Like a well-rehearsed play, the scene played out.

The youngsters looked down and snickered. Some of the adults (including me) tried to ignore what we had just heard. But not the grandparents!

[Read more…]

How to Nurture Strong Friendships When You are a Busy Parent

by Katerina Manoff.
(This article is part of the Positive Parenting FAQ series. Get free article updates here.)

Close your eyes and imagine your child all grown up, savoring a free weekend. What do you see?

Is your daughter grabbing brunch with her pals? Is your son joining his pick-up basketball team on the court? Or perhaps you envision your kids enjoying a hike or a museum exhibit with a couple of close friends?

Regardless of what your vision for your child’s future involves, I bet it doesn’t include him or her sitting miserably at home, feeling lonely and friendless. As parents, we want our children to thrive socially, forming close bonds with their peers.

So, we encourage our children to make friends from the first years of their lives. We sign them up for baby classes and send them to preschool. We arrange playdates and nudge them towards other children at the playground. We tell them to share, organize group games, and teach conflict resolution skills to handle any inevitable skirmishes that arise between them and their new buddies.

But as we work to support our kids’ fledgling social lives, how many of us nurture our own friendships? How many of us are focused on our own social bonds with our own peers?

Too often, the responsibilities of work, home, and parenting take priority over our own social lives. We spend our days chasing down Hydra-esque To-Do lists – for every item we cross off, two seem to grow in its place.

We lose touch with friends who aren’t parents because they seem to be living in a different world. And we lose touch with friends who are parents because they’re as insanely busy as we are.

Making Friends for my Child’s Sake

A shy and awkward kid, I went through a lot of social drama. In school, I felt that no one understood me and often struggled to make friends. As a nerd, immigrant, and scholarship student at a fancy private school, I was objectively very different from my classmates.

[Read more…]

The Science of Flowers as Gifts, and Its Impact on Family Happiness

by guest_author.
(This article is part of the Uncategorized series. Get free article updates here.)

bloomsybox_1_ds There is something very special about receiving flowers. For generations, they have been seen as a traditional gift to make people feel better when they’re ill, to say sorry or simply as a sign of love and affection.

Of course, the giving of flowers on Valentine’s day is a well-publicized event. However, they are actually given throughout the year because it’s an easy and effective way of showing affection. It doesn’t matter if this is to a partner or a child; to celebrate a birthday, or even to simply show you care.

In fact, you shouldn’t underestimate the power of children giving flowers to parents, or other family members and friends. It doesn’t just make the receiver feel good, watch your child next time you do it; they’ll light up.

Whether flowers are a one-off gift, or you give or receive flowers every month, they spread happiness and a feeling of well-being. But, why is this the case?

[Read more…]

Why You Should Teach Kids the Value of Money Early

by guest_author.
(This article is part of the Uncategorized series. Get free article updates here.)

Disclaimer: This post is sponsored by PSECU, a Pennsylvania-based credit union.

Many parents erroneously believe that good money management skills develop after their kids leave the nest and have bills to pay. But psychological research indicates that children begin forming financial habits not too long after learning to talk, and by the time the littles start second grade, their attitudes toward money have become ingrained.

Given the early age at which kids begin developing attitudes about spending and saving, parents of any means do well to begin discussing money matters shortly after potty training is finished. Children who understand the value of money tend to save more and have healthier financial attitudes throughout life. Teaching them the value of a dollar early helps them make solid economic decisions for a lifetime. [Read more…]

The 3 Habits Every Kid Needs to Build Resilience

by Mindy Carlson.
(This article is part of the Positive Parenting FAQ series. Get free article updates here.)

Grit

Determination

Tenacity

They are all words for Resilience.

Resilience is more than the buzzword of the year. It is what gives us “the courage to go after our dreams, despite the very real risk that we’ll fail in some way or other.”

Isn’t that what we want for our kids? To go after their dreams and their passions and achieve them? Ever since I read Carol Dweck’s now-famous book Mindset : The New Psychology of Success I have been looking for ways to teach my kids this kind of resilience.

We go on hikes and do brain-teaser puzzles. We have even tried a ropes course in our quest to build resilience within them. It was in the midst of walking my oldest son through an algebra problem that I realized that resilience isn’t just a mindset, it’s a habit.

Resilience should be as much a habit as brushing your teeth in the morning or having a snack after school.

It’s something that we should be building into our everyday lives in such a way it becomes an unconscious choice. We simply don’t consider giving up when we don’t get that math problem right the first time. Trying again is our habit.

My boys are good at showing resilience in big moments or for specific projects. For example, my oldest son wanted to experiment with parallel circuits for a science project. He had all kinds of issues with the connections between the wires. The tape would slip or the wires wouldn’t be making good contact with the battery or he attached the wire incorrectly.

There were definitely moments of extreme frustration. He lost his temper several times and had to walk away from his project a few times. But he always came back and tried it all again.

In his everyday life he doesn’t seem to have that kind of resilience as his default. We recently got new kittens. I asked him to open the can of food for them and that’s when the trouble hit. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to open a can of cat food, but that flip-top lid can be difficult to open. When he was unable to get the can open he just gave up!

He didn’t even ask for help! He just stopped trying completely and left the can on the counter for me to find. The resilience to keep trying at the lid was not a part of his default setting.

So how do we make it a real habit? How can we teach them everyday resilience?

[Read more…]