10 Things Your Dog Can Teach Your Child and You - Cesar Milan

A balanced pup or dog can teach a child so much more than how to properly care for an animal and be confident in their lives.

But first you, the Parent, have to create and maintain the balance in the dog and in the child.

You can be loving and friendly but you are NOT a 'friend' of the dog or the child and you should behave accordingly.

They will find and develop their own friendships separate from you and it is important that they do so.

You have a primary responsibility to be the Parent to the child and the Packleader to the dog, focus on those tasks, take them seriously and all will benefit.

Studies have found that a pet encourages a child's physical, social, emotional, and cognitive development.

Children who have pets are more likely to have higher self-esteem, develop better social skills, and even have more friends but do not discount your role in this relationship. It is pivotal.

Here are just a few of the lessons that Cesar Milan, the Dog Whisperer, suggests your dog can impart to your child.

Love and Loyalty
There are few (if any!) species on earth that boast the devotion that comes naturally to a dog. Coming home to that happy face and wagging tail every day without fail can help your child develop confidence and self-esteem.

Exercise
Dogs provide a wealth of opportunities for your child to get active — joining for the walk, romping around the backyard, or playing a game of fetch.

They also serve as an example of why exercise is so important. Dogs need regular physical activity to stay emotionally and mentally balanced — that's true for humans, too.

The Importance of Family
Dogs are naturally pack animals, and research shows that they bring out that instinct in humans, too. Families spend more time interacting after getting a pet.

Use your dog as an opportunity to connect as a parent. Get the whole pack out for walks, playtime, and involve them in the care and grooming.

A dog is not just another toy to be picked up and put away when your child claims they are bored. A dog is a commitment for the child, as the child is to you as a parent! There is a vital life lesson right there.

Reading
If you can't help your child practice reading because you have to cook dinner? No problem! Your dog can take over for awhile.

Research shows that he may actually do a better job than you anyway, particularly if your child is struggling. Why? Children are more relaxed, likely because a dog is a nonjudgmental audience.

Recent research claims that children with reading and learning difficulties such as Dyslexia, benefit greatly when they practice in front of their dog.

Patience and Compassion
A dog isn't capable of all the things that humans are, and as your dog ages, she will require special care and attention.

Understanding those differences can help your child learn to be patient and compassionate with those who suffer from disabilities, the elderly, and younger children.

Communication
Reading your dog's body language can help your child pick up on non-verbal communication between humans, too.

You can encourage this by taking the time to teach your child about common cues. It's beneficial for his safety around other dogs, too.

Socialisation
One study asked children what advice they had for kids who had trouble making friends. Their answer? Get a pet!

Dogs encourage your child to put their communication skills to use. Since dogs serve as an easy icebreaker and a shared interest, it makes meeting new friends easier.

Trust
If your child has trouble opening up to you, he may still feel comfortable talking to his dog, providing a safe outlet for private thoughts and secrets. The trust he builds with his dog can help him eventually learn to open up to others, too.

Responsibility
The more your child is involved in the care of your animal, the more she'll learn about responsibility. Let your child take the lead on providing for your dog's basic needs (with your supervision, of course).

Silliness
Sure, dogs help teach responsibility, but more importantly, they also serve as a reminder to let loose, have some fun, and live in the moment!

There are few things more fun (and mood-boosting) than acting nutty and carefree with your pup.

Clearly these lessons are valuable for parents, too.

It's all too easy in this busy day-and-age to lose sight of what's really important. Take a moment to thank your pup for imparting these important life lessons to your pack — and for bringing you all back to the here and now.

Reading Difficulties: The evolution of those annoying online security tests

A free tutorial website, Duolingo, aims to translate the entire web with the help of people starting to learn a new language.

It's a project born out of guilt from the man behind one of the most annoying features of web surfing - those online security checks involving random words.

Duolingo hopes to convince millions of people to work for free and thus translate all web content in a matter of years.

It may sound like an ambitious plan but it's not the first time founder Luis von Ahn and his colleagues at Carnegie Mellon University have enlisted a global workforce to work for nothing.

As a 22-year-old graduate student in 2000, von Ahn invented the Captcha - those distorted images of words and numbers used to sign in to ticketing and social media websites, among others, which users have to decipher to prove they are human.

The software is used by more than 350,000 websites to prevent computer programs from attacking them with spam. In 2007, von Ahn realised that 200 million Captchas were being typed by people all over the world every day.

"At first I felt really good about that because I thought, 'Look at the impact that I've had'," he says. "But then I starting feeling bad."

Typing each Captcha takes about 10 seconds, he estimates. Multiply that by 200 million, and humanity as a whole is wasting about 500,000 hours on these security codes every day.

He decided to put these hours to good use and devised ReCaptcha, a system that uses each human-typed response as both a security check and a means to digitise books one word at a time.

At the same time the New York Times was digitising 156 years of its archive using a team of typists. Over a decade, the typists had transcribed 27 years of newspapers. The paper began using von Ahn's software and in 24 months had transcribed the remaining 129 years of archived newspapers.

ReCaptcha was acquired by Google in 2009, and it is still used widely to tell humans and spamming programmes apart. But its translating software is exclusively available to Google's Books project to transcribe every book in the world.

All of that doesn't detract from the fact that for most people, these security codes are nothing more than a frustrating waste of time. For those with dyslexia or sight problems, they can be a serious barrier to internet use.

Dr Sue Fowler, at the Dyslexia Research Trust, says the codes only add to the trouble dyslexics have filling in web forms. "Even looking at it closely, I wouldn't know what to do with it," she says.

There is an audio alternative, but these are even more confusing as most just sound like a flurry of noise.

And the automated security codes are getting more and more difficult. Some of the latest manifestations can appear as a jumbled blur of letters, numbers and punctuation that is almost indecipherable.

"As of a few months ago, if we showed someone a ReCaptcha they were successful at it about 93% of the time," says von Ahn, adding that once that drops to 75%, users give up on trying to access a site.

Since selling ReCaptcha, von Ahn has teamed up with one of his graduate students, Severin Hacker, to create software that gives the user something in return for their time and effort.

The answer is Duolingo, a site that gives free language tutorials and in exchange solicits aspiring linguists to translate sentences from the internet.

At present, it only caters for English speakers looking to learn French, German or Spanish, and Spanish speakers who want to learn English. They start with very simple sentences and work up towards more complex ones, increasing their value as a translator as they progress.

10 Things to Consider: Parenting and Nurturing Skills for Parents

Consider the use of eight expert-approved strategies to further nurture an engaging, resourceful, creative, curious, and considerate child.

Boost Your Childs' Brains and Physical Health
Most doctors recommend no TV or screen time for kids under 2 years old, and no more than two hours a day for everyone older.

This includes computers, video games, and DVDs but beware you do not inadvertently undermine this recommendation by putting TVs in the children's bedrooms. "The best place for a TV and a computer is in a space shared by the whole family," says Susan Linn, EdD, a psychiatry professor at Harvard Medical School.

Kids between 1 and 14 years whose bedrooms are TV-free have lower rates of obesity. They score higher on standardised testing. They go to sleep at least half an hour earlier each night, fall asleep easier and establish a good sleep pattern.

Build up an Immunity to Consumer Culture
Science has demonstrated a link between increased exposure to ads and increased rates of children consuming high-calorie foods, abusing alcohol, and smoking. "You can work with your child from the age of 4 or 5 to build up resilstance to the consumer culture," says Tim Kasser, PhD, a psychology professor at Knox College in Illinois and a father of two boys, ages 9 and 11.

When his family watches TV, Kasser mutes the commercials while his sons make up their own dialogue. "Now if you ask my children what an ad is, they will reply, 'They want your money!' " he says.

Inspire Your Kids to Be More Active
Making a contract with your 8 to 12-year-old child to watch less television will make him or her more active, according to a study at the University at Buffalo. "Give your kids points for spending time outside," says Leslie Sim, PhD, a child and adolescent psychologist at the Mayo Clinic. "Then let them exchange those points for special activities with Mom or Dad.

Do not buy them 'stuff' as a reward. Make the reward something that is inexpensive but is going to be truly meaningful to the child. Most kids want a chance to spend time with their parents and to 'do' things with them, that's a big reward for them and it gives everyone great memories to look back on.

Be a Player, get involved
Brain development research shows that infants learn best through human interaction, manipulation of their physical environment, and open-ended, creative play, says Michael Rich, MD, PhD, director of the Center on Media and Child Health at Children's Hospital in Boston.

Yet a host of commercially produced "educational" video products have been created for parents with babies and toddlers. "Any time spent in front of a screen takes away from more developmentally optimal activities (quality time)," says Dr. Rich.

Make Play Fun
Sim offers these simple tips to enhance play: Don't instruct, don't question, do praise, do imitate, and be enthusiastic and verbal in how you describe the child's play. In fact, fathers have a greater effect than mothers on their children's language development in families with two working parents, according to a study in the Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology.

It doesn't say whether it was a good effect or not but I would definitely discourage the use of 'adult' language around the child. It is clearly detrimental to the development of good vocabulary and social interaction. It's not funny and it's not clever. Buy a parrot if you want to teach something to swear!

Bond at the Dinner Table
Eating in front of the TV is bad and clearly associated with a) a severe dependency or need to spend more time watching TV or b) an inability to break with the habit, or c) a complete breakdown in inter-family communications, according to a study carried out by the University of Washington.

On the other hand, family meals that are taken away from the TV lounge, are associated with smarter, healthier kids, says William Doherty, PhD, a professor of family social science at the University of Minnesota.

To make family meals work, make it an enjoyable experience:

• Both parents must be commited to doing this,
• Switch the TV off! - Don't just have it on in another room. That will not do!
• Involve the children in the preparation and cleanup of meals. Assign them tasks to do,
• Be prepared for them making a mess in th ekitchen, i.e. spilling milk, breaking the odd cup, covering the cat in flour, etc. Don't make a fuss about it! They're learning,
• Start and finish meals at the same time. The meal is not over until everything is washed up and cleared away.
• Use the knives, forks and spoons supplied. Do not eat with your fingers.
• Don't make food an issue. Don't badger the kids about finishing all their greens,
• Have a round-the-table discussion or talk. Talk about what happened today and any other topics that the kids enjoy. (This could be one of the father's new roles)
• Give each child a chance to speak and encourage them to say something.
• Praise their efforts and value their comments
• Discourage insults and counter any attacks on each other's self esteem

Show the Love
It may be easier to give your children another hour of Nickelodeon or to buy them the latest Transformers model, than to struggle against it but it is more valuable to both you and them, to give them your time and attention instead.

This can be particularly difficult for single parents but do try. If it is proving too difficult, please contact me directly for more information and support on raising a balanced and well rounded child, as a single parent .

Your children want to spend time with you. They want to have a share in, and be a part of, you and your life. Sadly, if you don't spend time with them now, when they are young, they will not feel the need to spend time with you later in life.

Father's Role
Father's think that this can be a particular problem for fathers, because they are told that their primary role is as a defender and provider. Unfortunately, they have a very narrow definition of what 'providing' means and connect with providing money and stuff.

This thinking is stuck in the medieval age and no longer applies today. It hasn't done for centuries. The truth is, fathers have never been clearly informed or have not truly accepted their new role as a father in the modern world.

Two Parent families
In two parent families, fatherhood involves the provision of guidance, teaching and nurturing in a collaborative and cooperative partnership. Equally sharing and taking half the load, in caring, nurturing and being an active player, in developing the best outcome possible in raising a child.

Follow your children's lead and show them that you are part of their world. Let them know you care. You do this by being involved in everything they do. You show active interest in what they think, in what they are doing or in what they want to do.

Studies show that kids who receive more one-on-one attention from their father as well as their mother, grow up more secure, confident and very socially active.

Free Your Child's Creativity
At age 5, kids prefer timeless toys such as generic dolls, stuffed animals, and cars, yet only two years later, these preferences are replaced with brands such as Dora and SpongeBob, imposed on them by targetting the child in TV marketing and other advertising.

Licensed and branded characters come with a pre-constructed set of parameters and abilities. They stifle the creativity, imagination and encourages a shallow sense of materialism. Child development experts recommend buying only unlicensed, unbranded products and encourage parents to discourage the over-exposure of children to marketing vehicles, such as TV, film, cartoons, etc.

Inundating children with branded stuff fills their heads with inappropriate, unachievable expectations and deprives them of opportunities to look inside themselves and imagine, to create their own imaginary worlds and personalised storylines.

A Strong Sense of Self
Children's Creativity, should be positively re-enforced and encouraged to produce an outward expression in the form of art, music, play acting, etc. Being part of the whole process of imagining, creating and producing, the child develops a really strong sense of purpose and self.

A self that can work with and stimulate the child's own imagination. A self that can not only create something unique, but also direct it, or control it entirely by themself, via their own thought processes.

Question?
Would you rather have a child with an active animated personality or a personality whose activities are driven by animations?

Just as your child has entered your world, you now must be prepared to join the child in their world, however they imagine it. Always remember to enjoy your time together and you will be laying down happy memories for the future.

Should you have any questions or comments to make on this article, please send me a message and I will respond as immediate as possible.