Archive for the ‘Children’ Category

My daughter finished today her math program. In five months, she did the entire sixth grade, and got an A.

Only seven months ago she felt sick and drowsy when entered the course, read the directions, and gave a look at the lessons. She literally felt dizzy and refused to continue. I didn’t force her for her panic was authentic. Read the rest of this entry »

Nobody lives in a serene quiet safe place. There’s always some stress, because the world is so interconnected that we can’t isolate ourselves enough. Therefore, stress daily affecting adults and children. The question is to be aware of it, hence able to address it, not only suffering it.

Children (but also many adults) are less conscious so they take more time to realize what is happening. Stress decreases people’s tolerance to any problem, difficulty, or hurdle. Eventually the situation turns into a snowball, the person is more and more nervous and vulnerable, at the point that it produces unpleasant “side effects” in the body and in the behavior.

How can you help children to deal with stress? First of all, check out how you address stress. Your child will mirror you, therefore, he won’t open up with you if he doesn’t feel safe. Can he tell you anything? Is he allowed to show his emotions? Not judged? Not controlled?

The second step is to put aside your pre-understanding, that is what you already know about your child. It’s very easy to stereotype our own children. Each event will be categorized under the same label. This is killing your child personality and his future. A child is someone evolving in a non stop process. Stereotypes act as stoppers and sinkers. Thus, be open mind allowing your child to grow, discover, change.

With a stressed baby, breastfeeding, singing, walking softly in a serene atmosphere will be the cure. Of course, you must be feeling fine yourself, for if you are tense, the baby will feel it and he won‘t relax.

When a toddler is stressed, cuddling, embracing and talking to him with a soft tone of voice will help to break down the harsh aspect of the problem. When he is a little calmer, try asking a few simple questions to help you to understand what happened to him or how he feels the situation. Finally, give him paper and color pencils and have him drawing. Moving is also a good tool, changing the place, the view, the perspective, helps the mind to do the same.

When an elementary student is stressed, it’s the same as before, but reinforcing the questions session. It’s not a question of interrogating him, but to show a genuine caring interest to welcome his feelings, bringing them up to light and working on them. It’s important to give him space, allowing him to have different reactions from yours. Don’t lecture, don’t come down with your “nice values”. On the contrary, give your child permission to be true to himself. Only after the naked truth comes out it is possible to shape it into a comestible public truth.

Sometimes, children, as well as adults, need time to put order into themselves. They may watch TV, stay in their bedroom alone and do whatever seems to be just a “wasting of time”. This is their “cave” moment. Give it to them, but don’t loose the focus. They need to come out sooner or later and face the situation, that is working on it to overcome it.

Another tendency children may have is to discount on parents and siblings their own stress. In this case, they blame with you for any little thing that has nothing to do with the real problem. Stop it, not in the name of good behavior, but in yours. You don’t want to be harassed, you have yourself you burden to bear. You need to be patient and caring because you love your children, but you definitely don’t want to be a martyr or a saint, because this is not the example you want to give them. You want to show them how to be a decent human being in a stressful world, someone able to carry on love and clear judgment in her relationships when things get tough.

My daughter has recently joined a chorus. It’s a Church choir, a new experience for us, since we are not “church-people”. She’s got there through her piano teacher who is the manager of the chorus besides having a wonderful voice.

Why did I want my daughter to be in a choir? She has been saying for a while that she didn’t have a fine voice, she “couldn’t” sing. Therefore she found one more reason to somehow depreciate herself. Being a young teenager in times like ours is not easy!

After a few chorus session, my 12-year-old daughter told me that she finally can hear her own voice! It’s not that the others sing so loud that she is silenced by them. Just the opposite, she finally took courage to make herself audible. I wonder how many meanings are in a voice – being heard or shut. People say that in the eyes of a person you can see her soul. In a voice you can identify it as well.

A nice way to have your child raising her voice is to allow her to sing. Singing has the same combination of meaning for the Self as dance has for the body. One can be awkward in her movements, like many children and teens who barely can manage their sudden big bodies. Dance would give them control over their movements, plus, the most important, grace. The same does singing: it’s a graceful expression of inner life.

Singing has amazing effects on one’s self esteem. It frees one’s soul and makes available the idea to speak up for oneself. This is an extremely important issue for teenagers. Maybe this is the reason there are so many of them singing in the TV shows. It seems that they can’t be just actor: they must also sing. The act of singing has thus this symbolic meaning: being heard, getting out from the shadows of being ignored to the spotlight of the public ears.

If singing has a symbolic content, it’s doesn’t mean that it’s enough to grant a wonderful expressive life. It opens up the vocal chords, it gives the chill of having the chance to speak up loud and being the center of everybody’s attention. Now what? Once the show ends, all may go back to the same old routine. Therefore, when a teenager needs to test her own voice it means that a chorus is a good opportunity to work out her need to express herself in higher dimensions, which is in her real daily life.