Family: Develop Your Child's Critical Thinking Skills

Develop Your Child's Critical Thinking Skills

Written by Marie Magdala Roker

Continued from page 1

Children thrive in environments in which they know they are loved and respected. Remind them every day that you love them and support them.

7. Understand Your Child's Thinking Process.

In order for you to be an advocate for your child in school, you must know and understand how your child learns. Is he/she creative, logical, musical, spatial, interpersonal, intrapersonal, naturalistic? Know your child's capabilities and accept their creativity.

8. Let Them Think For Themsleves.

Encourage independent thinking. Let your child decide (within reason) what is appropriate for them. Give them enough room to make decisions, but also be there in case their plans don't work out.

9. Teach Them Stress Management Skills.

Help your child to effectively deal with stress. Try not to contribute to their stress with demands and unrealistic expectations. Make learning fun!

10. Teach Your Child To Trust His/Her Instincts.

In order for children to be successful in life, they must learn how to trust their decisions. Your child needs to be confident in trusting his/her instincts and feelings. Children who trust themselves are less likely to participate in unhealthy behaviors

Marie Magdala Roker is a Family Coach and Certified Breakthrough Parenting Instructor. She is completing her Masters in Health Education at Columbia University's Teachers College. She helps parents to reclaim their lives and students to unlock their academic potential. She is committed to helping build healthy families, one family member at a time.

And This Unto You

Written by Abigail Dotson

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as was repparttar

custom in

early seventies among women who had previous caesarean deliveries. My parents picked my birthday and planned accordingly. Their elder child was well taken care of; bags were packed and ready for repparttar 111013

weeklong hospital stay; repparttar 111014

house locked and pet sitters arranged. My mother was prepped for surgery and wheeled into an operating room. Conscious but sluggish, she held my father’s hand as repparttar 111015

men in green scrubs set about their work. My mother’s body was sliced open to reveal a sleeping infant, jarred awake to repparttar 111016

bright lights and cold hands of repparttar 111017

ob ward. Their baby was whisked away to be cut and cleaned and wrapped in a blanket, then stored in repparttar 111018

nursery with all repparttar 111019

other luggage. This was in direct contrast to their plan of holding a wriggling and greasy newborn before repparttar 111020

cord was even severed, but beyond their control. Despite protestations, I was transferred immediately to repparttar 111021

nursery where I commenced to demonstrate my clearly healthy lungs with screams that began repparttar 111022

moment I was born and lasted for days, until I was finally reunited with my mother.

There is a silver lining to repparttar 111023 story of my birth, and that is repparttar 111024 story of Ruby Jane’s birth. My mother gave birth four times before I felt my first contraction, and each time was a lesson to me. So this becomes repparttar 111025 story of two births, a story to say how one birth grows out of another. For a quarter century I had heard my mother tell repparttar 111026 story of my birth, cold and surgical. I had listened to her recount my days in repparttar 111027 nursery, her heroic attempts to drag her broken body across repparttar 111028 maternity ward and lift me from my screams. I ache to think of a mother so far from her baby. I do not remember, but I feel it in my gut. And in repparttar 111029 collective consciousness that is me and my mother, I learned to help my baby into this world with kindness and warmth.

Abigail Is 29 years old and lives in Southern California with her daughter Ruby Jane. Her writing has appeared in Loving Mama: Essays on Natural Childbirth and Parenting, on Mothering magazine's website and also in the periodical Growing Up In Santa Cruz.

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