Develop Your Child's Critical Thinking Skills

Written by Marie Magdala Roker


1. Encourage Questions.

Don't answer every question, instead ask what do they think. Asking questions stimulates conversation between you and your child.

2. Don't Criticize.

Criticism invites low self-esteem. Children feel that they have failed or disappointed their parents when they are criticized. Find alternate ways of correctingrepparttar problem. A child will likely shut down communication if they feel that their parents are not supportive.

3. Respect Your Child's Opinions.

Your child is not an extension of you. Although it is difficult to accept at times, it is normal and healthy for your child to have their own opinion. Children who are confident in expressing their opinions are less likely to join gangs or succumb to peer pressure.

4. Teach Your Child To Embrace Diversity.

Encourage your child to learn about different cultures and ethnicities. A well informed child can will understand and respect other people's values.

5. Teach Your Child To Set Personal Boundaries.

Children need to have their personal space respected in order for them to respect other people's personal space. Help your child to establish their boundaries and insist that he/she enforce them with their peers.

6. Establish A Nurturing Environment.

And This Unto You

Written by Abigail Dotson


My mom says I was born tense. Tense and intense. When she tellsrepparttar story of how I was born, amidstrepparttar 111012 drama and gesticulation, I feel a little sad to know that I am this child she speaks of. I was taken fromrepparttar 111013 womb dead asleep, a planned caesarean woken up byrepparttar 111014 foreign hands ofrepparttar 111015 outside world when all I knew wasrepparttar 111016 comfort of my prenatal solitude. My body froze with fright, carryingrepparttar 111017 weight, it seems, of an entire lifetime of stress atrepparttar 111018 infantile age of birth. When she speaks ofrepparttar 111019 way she could hear me screaming day and night inrepparttar 111020 nursery just a few doors down, and of her helplessness in coming to my rescue, I feelrepparttar 111021 aftermath both of her helplessness and of my own. It’s a feeling I can’t seem to shake. When my incessant wailing finally subsided and my parents were able to hold me, as my mom goes on to tellrepparttar 111022 story, I still could not calm my nervous body, so small and fragile, a mere seven pounds carrying at least that weight in stress. She speaks ofrepparttar 111023 way I would never relax, how even in sleep she would watch me and my curled toes and clenched fists. And I have this vision, this vision of my young mother’s eyes, peering in on her sleeping infantrepparttar 111024 way I imagine every parent does. The way I have watched my own daughter sleepily after midnight feedings when my eyes won’t close again. And I think ofrepparttar 111025 way my mother must have viewed me, no more than a week of life in a tiny body but with a soul already tainted byrepparttar 111026 frightening beginnings of such a difficult world. And I think that as she watched me sleep, she must have cried for so much love... I think she must have seen that life is hard.

I was born nearly thirty years ago to a mother younger than I am now. The child my mother birthed before me had been a c-section and thus my path was set long before I ever materialized. I was a planned c-section,

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