Self-Esteem Killers ...

If you saw someone beating a child infront of you, what would you do !!
That wasn't a question, because surely you would feel obligated to stop it.
Why? Because it is the most obvious form of physical child abuse.
But what about the "Verbal Abuse" ?!!!
Well, words can hit as hard as a fist, and the damage has as much or more impact than physical violence.

Self-Esteem Killers are a form of verbal violence, it is destructive to a person's well-being and is therefore always a form of abuse.  A self-esteem killer is a statement about another person that is designed to diminish that person's sense of personal worth.  Often these statements are humorous in a cruel way.  When children are brought up hearing these self-esteem killers, they are likely to then pass on self-esteem killers to others without realizing what they are doing in the moment.  They may not recognize their destructive nature. 

Using Self-Esteem Killers with children is very dangerous, because labels become a self-fulfilling prophecy.  Meaning, your child's self-esteem and his/her resulting behavior are built in part on the "labels" of character that you and other caregivers use to describe your child.
Parents are the most powerful people in a child's life, using self-esteem killers to describe your kid's character has much to do with the interpretation a child will have of his/her own character and what kind of person this kid will grow up to be, because they lack previous experience to believe otherwise than what they are being told.

So, what to do ? How to change our language & attitude ? Showing some really "creative" examples of  self-esteem killers to avoid ... will all be posted next !

Character Stations

How does our child learn to read !

Learning to read can start as early as 9 months old!  You don't believe me, watch this:
Your Baby Can Read Program !

Also now in schools in the UK, Australia, USA & Canada, the lattest proven method of teaching kids to read and to write is based on the below mentioned process of a child's early learning of reading & writing. It can be used starting 2-6 years of age.
Jolly Phonics !


In order to understand how these programs work, we need to understand how a child learns to read:

The Beginning Roots:
•Children begin to learn to read before they are even able to recognize a single letter. Throughout the first few years of life, children are exposed to sounds and rhythms in speech. These patterns help them develop an understanding of how words are formed and the individual sounds that compose the words.

Language and Literature's Role

•Exposure to language and literature is essential for a child to learn to read. As an infant and toddler, a child integrates the sound patterns in words and starts to develop phonemic awareness---an understanding of letter sounds and how they fit together in words. From the earliest ages, children learn that certain words rhyme and that there are rhythms to language.

Learning Phonics

•As children finish kindergarten and move into the first stages of learning to read, they starts to recognize individual letters and the sounds they make. When exposed to written letters, children start to associate the appearance of the letter with the sounds with which they have become familiar. This process is the natural continuation of the earlier phonemic awareness. Phonics---the relationship between letters and the sounds they make---is the cornerstone of learning to read. Children first learn to correlate the appearance of a letter with the sound it most commonly makes, then move on to combinations of letters to form patterns of sound.

Decoding

•Once phonemic awareness is solidly in place, children learn to decode words more quickly upon seeing the letter patterns. This ability to visually connect the letters and combinations is called "the alphabet principle." Practices that help a child learn to read include repeating rhyming words and breaking down the words into "taps"---one tap for each syllable. Also try repetitive visualization and pronunciation of common letter combinations such as "sh," "ch" and "st."

Sight Reading

•After children can reliably phonetically sound out basic words that follow the rules of pronunciation, they begin to work on sight reading. Some words in language cannot be phonetically read and the child must learn to read them simply by looking at the word as a whole. Sight reading is a process of memorization.

Maximizing Reading Potential

•To optimize children's ability to learn to read, provide early and frequent exposure to written language. This process is ideally begun before kindergarten. By that stage, the child should have a solid foundation for beginning to learn to read.



Want to know more about those two programs and how to apply them at home if you want!
Follow us at http://characterstations.blogspot.com/


Character Stations

Make the Shift ... Stop PUNISHMENT !!!

  Punishing our kids for having done or said something wrong! Who doesn't or who didn't !
Well, punishment is a "fear-based" parenting method that urgently needs to be replaced by new ways of shifting to family relationships that promote unconditional love, positive self-wroth, open communication, healthy self-esteem , compassion and responsibility and cooperation. 
Big words ?
OK, let's start all over again !

What is Punishment ?
  There are two kinds of punishment - psychological and physical.  Psychological punishment can be verbal or non-verbal threats that instill fear or damage a child's self-image; physical punishment can be slapping, spanking or pulling hair, causing a child physical pain with the intent of associating the child's undesirable behavior with pain.  FEAR is the natural result.
  As a method of controlling others, punishment is a powerful tool.  When children are afraid, parents have incredible control over them.  How does fear of parents affect children?  They will be on edge, anxious and out of balance.  Clearly, children do not function at their best when they are in fear.  For that reason, punishment works against a child's ability to develop into a thinking, loving and confident person. 
The use of punishment creates resistance, rebellion, lying or begrudging compliance.  As a method for controlling children, it works, at best, on a short-term basis, and is likely to work mostly when the punisher is present.  The moment the punisher leaves, the temptation to continue the inappropriate behavior can be overwhelming, as misbehavior becomes an assertion of their desire to be self-determined. 

  Many of us determine our self-worth based on others' opinions, which is called being "out-directed", i.e. if others approve of us, we are worthy.  If others disapprove of us, we feel we must not be worthy.  We can only develop the confidence needed to take action and be fully responsible for our choices when our self-worth is internally based, i.e. we are "inner-directed".
  Initially, parents are the only people children know to look to in order to find a sense of self.  If the parents hold an unaccepting and critical view of their children very early in life (through psychological and/or physical punishment), their children will believe "I am unworthy because I am a bad person"  When parents view their children in a more positive way, the children are more likely to see themselves as important, worthy and good people.  This helps children become "inner-directed", which what we all want our children to be, because we will not be around them all the time to "direct" them.

  It takes a lot of effort to make the shift
* From: authoritarian power To: shared power/team building
* From: win/lose conflict To: win/win with cooperation
* From: expectation of conformity To: appreciation of diversity
* From: catching them being bad To: catching them being good
* From: power struggles To: conflict resolution
* From: passive aggressive To: assertive communication
* From: verbal/physical abuse To: promotion of self-esteem
* From: PUNISHMENT To: DISCIPLINE WITH LOVE

It does take a lot of effort, but the good news that it works and that it is not only dead words on screens!!!

" Here is a little known psychological truth - a paradox, too:
  you acquire more influence with young people when you give up using your power to control them!"says Dr. Thomas Gordon author of Discipline that Works.


Character Stations

INFLUENCIAL PARENT(S) of Influencial public figures !

   Parents are often blamed or credited for the way their adult children behave, the success that they have, and the misfortunes they experience. We often look to the parents to see where someone's values come from and to see who is "responsible" for the type of person one becomes.

In many instances, it does seem we are primarily a product of our upbringing but certainly there are times that delving into one's past and parenting style just doesn't match up with what we see.

This page is dedicated to parents, who definitely influenced their kids so positively in ways that had changed their lives' paths and only pushed them forward. Yes, the way we handle our kids, talk to them, inspire them, support them, encourage them, believe in them, play with them, respect them, educate them ... etc and above all LOVE them, does indeed influence our kids' outcome.

Here are some examples of parents, that we could learn from :

• ALBERT EINSTEIN:

It's interesting to note that neither parent appeared to have any significant knowledge or aptitude for science or math. Both of his parents were primarily interested in Albert's academic progress and he seemed to enjoy suppport related to this from the extended family; from financial support to the provision of educational materials his schools failed to provide. He was reportedly dyslexic and had limited verbal skills for many years. Both he and his parents had to ignore the negative reports from teachers in order to succeed by finding different schools.

• RICHARD BRANSON : 

 the founder of the Virgin Group and the only person to ever create eight separate billion dollar companies each in a different sector.

Richard was part of a close-knit family, raised in the countryside of England. From a small boy he was strongly influenced by his parents, who still remain an integral part of his life today. Whenever he is asked about the influence of his mother on him, he says: "impossible to keep up with". When Richard was a small boy, his mother was determined that he should stand on his own two feet. At 4 years of age, she put him out of the car and told him to find his own way to his Grandmother's house. Still a memorable event for Richard, he attributes his mother's determination that he should find his own way in life as a great part of his success. He says: "What you're really doing is bringing up your children to continue onwards after you. It's finding the time to be really close to your children. Finding the time to be sure they have 100% love and commitment from a father or a mother."

I will - daily - add two influencial public figures, who were once normal kids raised up by some "amazing" influencial parent(s).  Follow us for more inspiring parents !!!

Character Stations

How to talk with your Baby before your Baby can Talk !

Babies have the gift of curiosity and thirst for knowledge. What if you were able to understand what your baby was thinking about, and provide an enriching interaction based on that knowledge? The Baby Signs® Program allows you to do just that!
Babies can learn and use simple hand gestures, or sign language, to communicate what they need, what they want or what they see as young as 5 months old. Imagine if your 6 month old told you she wanted to nurse without crying, or your 11 month old told you he saw a dog across the street without grunting, or your 14 month told you the side walk was too hot for her bare feet without screaming!
This basic ability to communicate before they can talk, gives babies a great boost to their self esteem, helps parents and caregivers appreciate the intelligence of their babies, and can dramatically reduce the frustration that parents and babies experience when communication is difficult.  Intensive Research demonstrates using signs with pre-verbal babies helps them learn to talk and gives them a jumpstart to their intellectual development in addition to other Benefits.

Watch this !!!
 
You can take classes and you can even start at home.
HOW ? ... @ Character Stations !!!

Character Stations

Early Learning is not for "Show Off", it's a science !

  Some parents - especially mothers - think that Early Learning is a luxury that we can work on with our kids, so that it would feel nice showing off what our kids "know" that others don't.  Well, that is not really what Early Learning Programs are all about !
Learning should be about the child, not about the adult keeping up with other people’s children or proving herself or himself as a perfect parent or caregiver.
Early Learning should help your child understand his or her experiences, not fill their heads with facts through “drill and kill.” And when children are actively involved in what they are learning in a hands-on way, they remember more.

    Research on the development of young children, including their brain development, creates a great deal of interest in early learning, with many positive repercussions. Studies show that “real” learning doesn’t “wait” until children enter school. The early years are critically important learning years.

So again, what is Early Learning or Early Childhood Education are all about !

Early childhood education is the organized sequenced practice of educating at one of the most vulnerable stages in life. According to the NAEYC & UNESCO ECCE (Early Childhood Care and Education) Unit  (National Association for the Education of Young Children), Early childhood is defined as the period from birth to 8 years old. A time of remarkable brain development, these years lay the foundation for subsequent learning.

Early childhood education often focuses on children learning through play.
The terms preschool education and kindergarten emphasize education around the ages of 3–6 years. The terms "early childhood learning," "early care," and "early education" are comparable with early childhood education.
Researchers in the field and early childhood educators both view the parents as an integral and inevitable part of the early childhood education process. WHY ? Because children learn through their important relationships(social learning); they learn when they feel good and are engaged and motivated in what they are learning (emotional learning); and they learn when they are making sense of their world (intellectual learning) ... So, no one would disagree that the security and warmth of being around one's own parents provides the best atmosphere for our kids' Early Learning.
Let me rephrase this again : No one should ask brave working moms to stay at home and provide "the atmosphere" for their kids learning ... all am saying is that parents (and that highly includes daddy too)should be an integral part  of the early learnig.  An hour or two with parents who have the right tools for their kids' right age bracket is better than a whole morning at the best knowledgeable and most professional daycare in town.
Much of the first two years of life are spent in the creation of a child's first "sense of self" or the building of a first identity. This is a crucial part of children's makeup—how they first see themselves, how they think they should function, how they expect others to function in relation to them. For this reason, early care must ensure that in addition to employing carefully selected and trained caretakers, program policy must emphasize links with family, home culture, and home language, meaning caregivers must uniquely care for each child using Developmentally Appropriate Practice, Individually Appropriate Practice and Culturally Appropriate Practice. Care should support families rather than be a substitute for them

Early childhood education takes many forms depending on the beliefs of the educator or parent.
Some of the most popular resources and programs are available at Character Stations and will be posted soon ! So, keep on following us !


Character Stations

What is Character Education all about ?

  Character education is basically developing positive personal attributes and civility among our kids.
It is a whole-school effort to create a community in which positive attitudes, values and behaviours are fostered. These qualities are promoted explicitly, modeled, taught, expected, celebrated, and continuously practised in every day actions. In short, character education is the promotion of universally desirable qualities such as respect, responsibility, honesty and integrity.

HOW ?
Programs have been designed in a way that makes it attractive and natural for kids to absorb and related to and that is done through movies, story-telling, heroes, hands-on activities, songs, projects, volunteer work and mini-projects.



 Character Stations is certified and trained to teach Character Education material through two Programs: *** CHARACTER FIRST



*** GOOD CHARACTER !!


Well, if you think about it, we all need Character Education and not only our kids and students  : )

Character Stations