Do you have a teenager who is begging for more freedom? Are you uncertain how much freedom is too much during the teen years? Parenting teenagers requires a parent to walk a fine line between boundaries and letting go. Out of four children, I am currently parenting my third teenager and I’d like to share some simple guidelines that will soothe your parental anxieties and help your home life be calmer.
– Know your teen.
It’s easy to say everyone is different; it’s more difficult to describe, in detail, those differences. You will find parenting teenagers less-stressful and your teen will respond better to you if you spend serious time knowing your teenager.
Yes, this is called relationship and it’s spelled T-I-M-E. There’s nothing new here. But are you doing this? Are you building the relationship with your teenager that will last a lifetime? Here’s a little test: think of your two best friends. Calculate how much time you spend weekly with each, whether in person, on the phone, or online. How does that amount of time stack up with what you give your teen?
Another worthwhile relationship test is to think about who knows you the best in the whole world. Who would […]

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Tip! How Much Do They Cost ? Some organizations offer free parenting classes. However, some of these classes are limited engagement classes and do not offer regular on-going advice and counseling.

Child stories are an excellent way to promote child development. You can use teaching material along with children’s stories to teach moral lessons, factual knowledge or emotional intelligence.

The beauty of using child stories in this way is that children learn without feeling like they’re “learning”; they learn by osmosis.

Using stories to teach also gets children to really think about things. They can actively get involved in the story rather than just passively listening to it or reading it.

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So, how can YOU use stories in this way? When you follow these 7 simple steps, you’ll find that using stories to teach is incredibly easy, and fun, too!

#1 Decide what you want to teach

What do you want your child or students to learn? How do you want them to feel at the end of the “lesson”?

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#2 Ask specific questions about events or characters from the story

Questions such as “why did this happen?”, “why did Santa do that?” or “how do think Billy felt?” are good examples. Try to get children to “analyze” the story - to think about why something happened and its consequences, the motivations and feelings of characters, etc.

#3 Relate the story to the child’s own life/experiences

This is KEY - by doing so the child will assimilate the lesson(s) of the story. It becomes more real and personal for the child. Ask questions like “how would you feel if?” or “do you ever feel like [character]?”

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#4 Use props and visual aids

This is particularly useful for teaching factual information (e.g. anatomy), but you can also use it to provide visual cues that help children get into the story (imagine it more easily) and remember it better.

#5 Have them get physical

Besides getting them to think, you can get them to act out the story, perhaps even creating their own version of it. They’ll really feel like the story and its lessons are a part of them. Moreover, when children move their own bodies, the story becomes more real and personal for them. This also helps kinesthetic learners.

#6 Have them relate the story to the larger world

After you get them to relate the story to their own experience, you can really expand a child’s mind by having him or her relate the story to the larger world.

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#7 Create a lesson plan

It’s obviously good to prepare, but you don’t need to spend a great deal of time on it, and even parents can create a simple lesson plan. You can also find ready to use lesson plans and children’s stories.
Conclusion

In my experience, “success” and “happiness” are not determined so much by talent and (technical) knowledge (although they are important, too) as they are by character and emotional intelligence. By using child stories to help build character and emotional intelligence, you can put your children or students on the path to lifelong success and happiness.

Tip! Understand that differences can be good. Believe it or not, children can benefit from differences in our parenting styles.

Paul Arinaga is founder of the Child Stories Bank.
http://www.child-stories-bank.com
The Child Stories Bank provides FREE original children’s stories as well as resources to help writers create and get their stories published, and a directory of child storybook illustrators.

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Tip! Understand that differences can be good. Believe it or not, children can benefit from differences in our parenting styles.

I love 3M’s Post-It Notes, and keep a stack of colorful pads always near at hand. They’re good for flagging edits on a manuscript, for communicating with others in my home when we’re busy living separately during the day, or for jotting down phone numbers, grocery lists, and sudden bursts of inspiration for story-writing. But the best use I ever found for them was when my son was in elementary school. I discovered they were great parenting tools.

It was driving me crazy that the sink in the bathroom always looked atrocious every time I walked in there. It looked great every time I stepped out of the washroom, but rarely did it look so pristine on entering. There was usually some crusty feeling stuff on the taps and not only did the grunge drive me crazy, but having to remind my son about it time and time again, nearly drove me insane. I’d wash the crust off, rewash my hands, then turn to dry my hands on a towel, only to find the towel marred with whatever my son had supposedly washed off his hands earlier.

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It was frustrating and annoying. No matter how many times I told him to clean the taps off and use towels for drying his hands, not for wiping dirt on them, the bathroom was still like that several times a day. I told him he’d lose a day on the computer every time I found it like that. It didn’t work. He lost the computer for a week and nothing changed, and even when he was off the computer, it was still like that. He was getting used to hearing his name pronounced in a way only an irate mother can pronounce her child’s name (we’re quite skilled at drawing out the syllables for effectiveness).

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Or he’d be playing online or off, and as soon as he heard the tone of his name in that way, he’d say, “Oh, sorry, sorry,” rush to take care of it and get back to playing with his toys, or hop back on the computer chair and tap away at the keyboard.

Since the computer was his favorite “toy,” I set up a schedule of times he was allowed to be on it, and would take away privileges a half hour at a time. That didn’t work. He was fine with losing his comp time because he’d simply go draw pictures or play with his toys. Still the grungy bathroom problem continued.

I was getting sick and tired of being upset with him over such a trivial thing, yet I hated that it seemed my hands got messier trying to clean them, than they had been before I started!

Finally, I grabbed a brightly colored Post-It, and wrote on it, “Ha Ha! I am dirt and grime and I don’t want you to play on the computer! I play dirty! Ha ha ha ha!” I added a little picture of a grime spot with a mean smile. I stuck that one on the mirror in front of the tap. I took another Post-It of a different color and wrote “I am NOT a back-up washcloth! I’m a towel. Please use me to dry clean hands. Don’t clean them on me! I drew a little crying towel.

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It was working! No more grime, no more leftovers on the towel . . . but the other towel was then being used for cleaning. I stuck up another note and wrote “I’m a towel too! Please no dirt and grime!” I drew a trembling towel with a grime monster about to devour him.

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After that day, the bathroom was always nice and clean and the towels lasted on the rack more than half a day, and I didn’t have to say a word.

Neither of us mentioned the notes until about a week later when I put a little reminder note up for myself in the kitchen (which I do frequently) and he said, “You’re sure into notes these days huh? Like in the bathroom?”

“Yes,” I replied. “I saw those, too. But I’m not a towel, and I’m not dirt and grime, so please don’t think they’re from me.” He laughed, gave me a hug and said “You’re such a cool mom.” I took the compliment for the rare wonder it was, and we never brought the notes up again.

For a few years more, the Post-Its Patrol kept our home in tip-top shape: over a coat rack, “Please may I hold your coat for you?”; above the laundry hamper, “I’m not full yet, more clothes please!” The notes were all over the house until my son was able to remember certain chores and responsibilities without reminders. Even his cousins and friends abided by the Post-It Patrol’s rules. Best of all, I didn’t have to nag my son for those things to get done.

Tip! Where To Find Them ? Parenting classes can be found pretty much anywhere. The most common institutions that offer these classes are hospitals, churches and temples, community centers, and other social organizations and support groups.

Now that my son is a teenager, the notes are gone and the walls around here are a lot less colorful, but it’s a fair trade for raising my son in a home where yelling is rare, arguments are discussed in respectful tones and chores are actually done. I don’t know if I could have managed it without a little help from my Post-Its.

Kim-Marie Ward is a freelance editor of both non-fiction books and fiction novels, a ghostwriter, and has written several articles for various ezines and newsletters (online and in print). She’s an active member on http://www.Writing.Com, an online community for Writers. Stop by and visit her portfolio at: Kim-Marie on Writing.Com.

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