Yikes! My Child Is Struggling with School

Winter report cards were just distributed and your child is struggling with various core subjects. Many parents feel overwhelmed when their child is not happy with the daily school routine. The report card may reflect many of these ongoing challenges. To clarify frustrations, consider asking your children these questions:

What frustrates you about school?
How do you get along with your teacher?
What can I do to help you succeed in the classroom?
What can you do to improve your relationship with your teacher?
What can we do at home to build your learning and resiliency skills?
How can we partner with the school to ensure your success?

Elementary Student Solutions

Through these discussions, parents can listen to their children’s fears about learning and identify concerns and needs. After probing more deeply into your children’s feelings about their classroom experiences, it is time to meet with the teacher to create a plan of successful actions. Effective solutions for elementary school students might include:

Work with the teacher to select reading books that are academically appropriate to support reading skill development. Many teachers can provide parents with guidance on various age appropriate book lists or online resources to reinforce reading challenges.
Ensure that your child is reading each day for at least 20 minutes. This can include sharing the reading of a book together, alternating reading each page to each other, having your child read to you, and reading to your child. This should be a positive experience of nurturing and support for both of you. Have your child read books that he or she wants to read and you can read the harder books to your child.
Integrate art and family play activities with reading. For example, you can visit historical sites when reading about local history or celebrations. Then you and your child can watercolor a site that you visited or create a framed college of a historical family outing.
For math, you can play math games and help your child develop math facts through the use flash cards. Encourage your child to help you with various home projects and work together to problem solve using various math applications. Kids love to cook, measure, calculate square footage, build, sew, construct, design, and budget. All of these activities require various mathematical applications you can support through your guidance and modeling. Ensure that these projects are fun for both of you.
Participate in the classroom to learn how to support your child’s learning at home.
Offer to prep various projects for the teacher to establish an ongoing dialogue of support.

Middle and High School Student Solutions

Middle and high school students should meet with the teacher first and then include their parent in the discussion if not successful. The students can lead the discussion on how to resolve their challenges with a teacher. The teacher and students can also devise a plan on how they can succeed in a class. Then parents can follow-up with both the teacher and their children at predetermined intervals to ensure that all are supporting students’ successes.

Much success in partnering with the school!

Mary Ann

The Power of “No”

My daughter was always an eager, adventurous eater. Once she was old enough to be introduced to solid foods, there was no stopping the discovery of culinary delights! She slurped down noodles, chomped up her vegetables, sipped on bone-broth soups. She sampled foods from every cuisine including American, Chinese, Mexican, Japanese, Thai, and Greek. However, we started discovering that she complained about certain cookies, or Vietnamese noodles, or some but not all granola bars. Completely baffled, we asked her what was wrong with these foods and she said that they were spicy. Soon enough, she had her first ever PB&J sandwich. That’s when her face got red and swollen, her throat closed up making breathing difficult – she was experiencing an anaphylactic reaction to peanuts.

In the aftermath of discovering her peanut allergy, we had to make lots of changes in her diet. Our once adventurous eater became a hesitant eater. One could even call her a picky eater, but no one was blaming her! When she asked why she had allergies, we explained that every person is born with certain physical attributes and personality traits, and it’s what we do with them that gives us character. We explained to her that her physical attribute of having a food allergy might be contributing to the development of a strong personality trait of self-control. In other words, my 5-year-old was learning the power of “no” at an early age.

Setting Boundaries

What does “no” look like to a 5-year-old in this context, you may wonder? Some kids may think that “no” is a punishment, a restriction, or a denial of privileges and pleasures. However, you may actually be surprised that this is not the case! A “no” response to certain foods meant that my daughter trusted her parent’s better judgement for her safety. A “no” response meant that my daughter acknowledged and respected her natural limitations and boundaries.

So how is this powerful? She is now 13 years old, but from a young age, my daughter has learned the power of “no” and has used it many times. Here are some of the lessons learned:

It’s ok to say “no” to friends. Just as peanuts are bad for her, she has realized that certain friendships and relationships can be toxic, too.
It’s ok to say “no” as a means of delayed gratification. She has received many gift cards for birthdays and holiday gifts, but has said “no” to impulse spending. Instead, she saved them up to buy something better and more significant, usually when it is at a discount.
A “no” response is an opportunity to explore something different. After a while, being allergic to peanuts did not stop her from trying new foods. Bring on pickled herring, stinky tofu, kimchi, and durian! This same spirit of exploration was applied to playing sports, learning a new hobby, and learning how to cook.
A “no” response is not always the final answer. It may mean that her desired outcome was meant to happen after some reflection or personal growth, perhaps at a different time or with a different outcome all together.
Sometimes, “no” means “no.” Not everything in life goes our way and sometimes, we have to learn to accept reality and be content. Being content is truly liberating!

How are you practicing the power of “no” with your kids?

Jaime

How to Become a Mindful and Attentive Parent

Each January, I consider how I can do a better job of balancing my daily life when considering my family’s needs, work obligations, and needs for play, exercise, and spiritual growth. When I consider my family’s needs, I find that my ability to give sufficient attention and listen to individual family members can be challenged when working on another project or trying to multi-task to finish a household chore. This coming year, I plan to overcome this challenge by becoming more mindful and attentive in my daily interactions with family members. I also plan to track how many minutes a day I am able to focus on individual family members when they are talking to me or when I am engaged in one-on-one activities. I plan to also implement the following time management strategies:

Time Management Strategies

Simplify each day by reducing the number of chores attempted each day.
Cook dinners three times a week with planned leftovers on alternate nights.
Encourage teens and other adults to alternate cooking meals and help with meal preparations.
Schedule 30 minutes a day with each child and teach the family to respect the time allocated for each child. (Through consistency and example, children learn quickly how to respect each child’s allocated time.)
Give myself an hour a day for exercise, meditation, leisurely reading, or thinking.
Schedule another hour a day to spend with my partner so we can talk about our lives and brainstorm solutions to daily challenges.
Limit the time spent watching mindless television shows and playing on the computer or phone.
Manage my work schedule.
Consider how frequently I am leaving the home at night for meetings, social events, and errands. Adjust my schedule to regularly be home at night for the family.
Consolidate errands and limit them to a couple of times a week.
Brainstorm other strategies to spend more time with family and less time being preoccupied with daily responsibilities.

More Family Play

May your new year be filled with more family time. As you and your children brainstorm solutions to managing daily tasks, they will thrive because you will be more relaxed and have more time to play. When parents model effective parenting and household management strategies, their children feel valued. They also have the opportunity to talk with their parents when they feel challenged with family members at home and with the demands at school.

Much success with mindful parenting!

Mary Ann

Helping Our Children Manage Their Feelings

I just survived another challenging Monday morning in the classroom. My second-grade students were scheduled to attend an educational assembly early Monday morning until a series of power outages forced the staff to cancel the assembly. Then we returned to our classroom after completing a few exercises.

We started our classroom activities by talking about feelings for the day. We listened to a guided mediation where two children have built sand castles on the beach. After a couple of hours, the ocean surf washes away the sand castles. One child is happy while the other child is sad.

Can We Control Our Feelings?

We are not our feelings. We have a choice. This is difficult for most adults to realize. After completing the meditation, I drew a smaller circle within a larger circle on the white board. I told my students that the smaller circle represented those feelings that we can control. The larger circle represented the feelings we cannot control. I then asked the students to discuss what feelings they can control when thinking about the meditation in relation to everyday life.

Joey said, “I can control how I feel about going to school each day. I can be happy or sad. It is up to me.”

Rachel said, “I cannot control how my mom feels about my behavior, but I can choose if I want to be nice or mean when she is angry with me. I cannot control how long she is angry with me.”

Chad was very angry during the activity. He kept interrupting his peers and said, “I am mad about the sand castle disappearing. I do not want to let go of my anger. I am afraid to let go of it because I may lose control or get hurt.”

Is It OK to Have Feelings?

I told Chad he had a choice and that he could use photos of sad faces, happy faces, serene faces, and worried faces to display his feelings. Initially, he selected a face that was incredibly angry. I thanked him for sharing this feeling with me. I then reassured him that it was also OK to select a neutral photo and that he could explore how he might express a wide range of emotions. With my encouragement, Chad said he was angry about all of the hours his parents had to work and he did not have time to just be with them. As Chad expressed his frustrations, he became calm and was ready to learn for the day. He then made the conscious effort to select how he wanted to feel versus how he was feeling.

We All Need Emotional Support

What I learned is that my students need added support daily from their parents and from me to release their stored frustrations. Daily life is difficult for kids when they see their parents struggle to get food on the table, juggle multiple jobs, take care of the family’s needs, and have enough money to pay the bills. We can reassure our children that we have a choice and responsibility in how we feel.

Much serenity in your daily life!

Danielle

How to Develop Leadership Qualities in Your Child

When considering leadership qualities, admittedly, there are a lot of good qualities to name! How do you know what is the best quality to develop in your child? Where do you start? For young children, it is good to start developing foundational leadership skills within their circle of influence. Usually, this means starting with the self. Start developing internal qualities within your child in the context of your home. As children mature, they can add and build upon the qualities that they already possess.

1. Develop Self-Discipline

All great leaders possess this quality and it must be instilled in your child while they are young. One way to develop self-discipline is to assign chores or guidelines for keeping their personal space tidy. After playing with toys, do your kids have to make sure the space is cleaned up before dinner? What are your expectations for dirty clothes and clean laundry? Do you have a consistent routine for kids to do homework? Perfecting the skill of self-discipline takes time and repetition! Once this practice becomes a habit, your kids will be able to add other responsibilities with ease.

2. Take Ownership of Their Actions and Behavior

One great leadership quality we want for our children is for them to know that their words and actions make an impact on others around them. We all want our kids to do the right thing, and yet, sometimes they mess up. For example, our kids might lie to us. Toys get broken during play. Other times, mean words hurt a sibling’s or friend’s feelings. Mistakes are a part of life. However, it is the response to their mistake that makes a great leader. Here are some constructive ways to teach your child to take ownership of their actions and behavior:

Acknowledge their mistake

“I’m sorry I lied to you.”

“I’m sorry I broke the toy.”

Ask for forgiveness

“Will you forgive me?”

Make amends

“May I try that conversation again?”

“I should not have said that. What I should have said was…”

“Can I help fix that toy?”

3. Encourage Participation in Groups Outside the Home

Maybe your child likes to dance or play baseball? Maybe building robots or playing an instrument in the band is their “thing”? Having your child join a team is a great way to help them learn how to cooperate with others in the group. During practice, they will have exercises and drills to help them improve their individual skills. The performance or game will put their skills to the test. Participating in healthy competition will increase your child’s inner drive to improve in a really fun way!

Developing tomorrow’s leaders together,

Jaime