Everybody is a Genius - Einstein

Life Is One Big Canvas

5 Things Parents can do to Help Children Enjoy Life

There is clear evidence that how parents interact with their children has a lasting effect on the kind of person the child grows into, how happy they will become and how much they will enjoy life.

Whilst at Chicago University, Kevin Rathunde conducted a number of family behaviour studies and observed that teenagers who had a certain type of relation ship with their parents were significantly happier, more satisfied and stronger in most life situations than their peers who did not have this relationship.

The optimal family relationship can be described as having 5 characteristics;

1. Clarity - Clarity of family goals should be unambiguous.
2. Centering - Providing Feedback on the moment or time they are in. Not pre-occupied with future careers or potential outcomes. 
3. Choice - Provide a Feeling of Control over choices but this also includes Consequences.
4. Commitment - Concentration on the task in hand. Becoming unselfconsciously involved.
5. Challenge - Provide increasingly complex opportunities for action or development

The presence of these 5 conditions make possible what is described as the "Autotelic Family Context," because they provide an ideal training for the enjoyment of life.

Consequences

It is essential that parents provide realistic encouragement, support and motivation to their children in all their activities, leaving room for them to succeed or fail on their own terms and to experience the consequences.

It is equally essential that parents refrain from sugar-coating and soft-padding the reality of life's ups and downs. 

Consequences are a part of life's rich tapestry and the sooner children understand that they are responsible for their own actions the better for them.

The parent is there to provide reassurance that their children are loved and belong as part of a 'family' who support and encourage each other. It is part of the responsibility and consequence of being a parent.

ADHD: Medication addresses the condition not Motivation

"I take ADHD medication, and it has helped me focus at work and at home but it hasn’t helped with my motivation. I still don’t want to clean up or get organised. Why don’t meds for attention deficit improve my motivation?" 

Lots of people ask this question but believe me, it sounds as if your medication is doing what it should do -- improving your focus and your attention to detail, making things easier to remember, and making you more aware of time.

However, medication doesn’t necessarily improve your motivation, especially for doing the tasks that you describe. But don't be alarmed. Self motivation can be learned.

Chores such as this will probably never be fun. However, if medication makes it easier for you to consider doing a task, and to stay focused while you are working, you may find that, over time, you will become motivated to do things.

It will become a matter of developing a more positive mindset to tackle challenges instead of avoiding them.

Of course you can sit around waiting for that to happen, which I don't recommend. Better if you can take some positive steps to get support to increase your motivation.

There are numerous self-help books, motivational coaches and psychologists who dedicate their lives to supporting people with motivation issues.

In most cases it's not the task itself, it's getting 'started.' It may help to ask someone to get you started and then you can carry on regardless.

Make a written list or plan of chores and tackle them one at a time. After you have completed one give yourself a small reward; a cup of coffee and a biscuit, will suffice.

Mundane chores, like cleaning up, are generally boring for everyone, but you will feel accomplished when you have made the effort. 

You will be able to appreciate the benefit of doing it and see yourself as capable of accomplishing it. This will lift your confidence.

The feel-good thoughts you get will increase your confidence and willingness to perform other mundane chores and tackle other issues you normally avoid but never be afraid to ask someone for help, even if it's only to get you started.

Medication may be only half the solution, a more positive mindset is the other half and you need them both.

Work on your motivation by seeking support from online articles, books, family, trained experts or medical psychologists. They are waiting and wanting to help and support you.

Magical Motivation for Manual Dexterity and Dyspraxia

It's often hard to motivate youngsters to exercise, especially if they have dyspraxia or more serious physical disabilities.

A new approach from a Tel Aviv University researcher is working to bridge the worlds of behaviour and science to help kids with dyspraxia and motor dysfunction conditions.

The research team are working to improve the physical skills and inner confidence of youngsters by using a trick they like to keep up her sleeve. It's called "magic" or more accurately, conjuring tricks.

Dr Dido Green of Tel Aviv University's School of Health Professionals developed an innovative yet remarkably simple series of therapeutic exercises for children and young adults based on sleight-of-hand tricks used by professional magicians.

Dr. Green and her magicians used sponge balls, elastics and paper clips to teach the children how to perform challenging, fun and engaging exercises.

Making physical therapy fun
"Children with dyspraxia, or more serious motor disorders like hemiplegia, perform routine exercises with their hands and wrists to be able to carry out basic functions such as opening a door, doing up their zipper, or closing buttons," explains Dr. Green.

She is an occupational therapist with a masters degree in clinical neuroscience and a Ph.D. in psychomotor development of children. "Not only did the kids get a kick out of the magic tricks, they loved doing the exercises every day."

Magic Camps
Dr. Green hopes to create summer "magic camps" for disabled children in both the U.K. and Israel, and will further investigate the benefits of magic for improving motor development skills in children with more severe disabilities.

Her initial research, now in the process of publication looked at a sample of nine children. "We had a hunch that learning magic tricks could do wonders for kids' movement problems, but we wanted to see if the kids would actually practice them," says Dr. Green.

She needn't have worried. It was a big success!

The children practiced ten minutes a day over four to six weeks, resulting in a significant and measurable change in their motor skills. "It was a big enough effect to make us want to develop further the concept of using magic or conjuring tricks to improve motor learning," says Dr. Green.

Further research
American Friends of Tel Aviv University (www.aftau.org) supports Israel's leading and most comprehensive center of higher learning. In independent rankings, TAU's innovations and discoveries are cited more often by the global scientific community than all but 20 other universities worldwide

50 Things Parent Say to their Kids