Teach kids life skills

Knowing the benefits of stories, every mother and teacher should know how to tell stories  so that kids enjoy and learn. Like any other art story telling can be mastered by practice. There are stories around us and have been listening to many since our childhood. Just pick one which you are comfortable with. Start with a small story with a few characters. Voice: Narrate with a clear voice pronouncing the words properly. Try to bring variation in your voice according to the mood and characters. Bring the expressions out through your voice like anger, kindness, clumsiness. Pace: Keep proper pace appropriate to create the right atmosphere. Repeat the phrases or the words to bring in the effect.  Try to hum the repetition. Take pauses when required allowing it to assimilate, and to encourage questions or response from your kids. Questions : Ask questions and your kid's views so that they think and analyse. It helps them to frame questions and comp...

One can be happy by  being contented. When one is contented, one has the feeling of completeness. Feeling grateful comes from this, when you can see what you have and not crib on what you don't have. Life is a mystery and who knows what unfolds in future. It depends how we accept and face every situation good and bad.  By instilling gratitude in kids, we are helping them to be stronger inside. Gratitude changes one's outlook towards life and helps in being happy and at peace.  Its not a big task or you dont have to take extra efforts to inculcate gratitude.  You can bring up grateful kids by doing some simple things along with your regular routine.  Simple questions: Asking simple questions like  How was the day? What made you happy? What did you receive today?  will make them think.  Encourage them to tell you what they got like a compliment , a chocolate, help, pencil. Encourage kids to tell the reason they ...

  The ever curious mind of human is always striving to know more. Every bit of information, the brain stores and then relates it with the day to day life. All this effort is due to the urge to excel and grow. To move from darkness towards enlightenment. The inspiration to know more, learn more and move forward  and evolve comes through Stories.  Knowing this we have been using this art from time immemorial in the form of drama, films, plays, paintings, dance and music. In kids, curiosity is deep and minds are open to explore. So stories play a great role in many aspects of their development. Stories unfold diverse characters, their nature, the beauty of different lands, the lifestyles in different ages. As the kids enjoy the fantasy, they even learn about the reality through stories.They learn about the consequences that come along with the actions making them thoughtful and considerate. They learn to gather courage as well as be cautious at times taking th...

      It was 7 in the evening when my son entered the house. His clothes were dusty, sweat trickling down, hair scattered. He was excited and started telling me about his new friends, the games he played while I was listening to him doing my daily chores. Angrily with tears filled up to the brim he snapped at me saying,"You are not at all interested to hear what I want to tell you". "I am not important for you." I sensed arguing with him or defending was of no use. He had been playing outside since a very long time. He was tired to the bones and was very hungry too. Sweat and dust made him more irritable.  I wanted him to have a wash and change his dress but he was not in a condition to listen to any thing but to keep howling, whining and complaining. As mothers we have to deal with emotional imbalance of our kids. Knowing what is going on and helping him understand and cope up with such emotions is the key. Not every outburst is a tantrum or is manipulat...

I used to be so eager to hear my baby speak and when he started blabbering my joy knew no bounds. Then came the phase when we used to get exhausted (but enjoyed) by his continuous chattering. The charm of his speech soon vanished when his answers became interrogative, the tone turned impolite. His words started hurting and and his comments mean.  It was  this phase when he got exposed to many kids from diverse upbringing.  He was absorbing everything around him not knowing what was right and what was not. I definitely did not want him to continue this rudeness. Blatantly criticizing  or chiding him was not the solution. You cannot teach child to be respectful by any one single method. There may be various reasons for kids to be rude. Your approach changes according to the situation. So first you should know the reason. Reasons for being rude: 1. When elders or people around him are rude.     If its you who is being rude either with him ...

If you reflect just two decades back, how and where was your free time spent as kids? Was it confined to four rooms,  the compound walls, the tall apartments or playgrounds, the sprawling fields, the porches? The world has come closer and so is the mindset of people in some terms converging. The imaginary line that separates the sky and earth (horizon) has just remained as an imagination for most of the urban kids which we were lucky to have seen it. The stress of learning to read and write too early, trying to focus on the alphabet in the books and charts instead of looking at the nature and learning is affecting their sense organs. Trying to develop  their fine motor skills, we are forcing them into activities and near work which require too much concentration  for the young age. Our changed lifestyles like getting up late in the morning, going to bed late at night, watching T.V. for hours, handing smart phones to the kids only to replace  you are also...