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Every now and then, parents hear that cognitive skills are very much important to make kids smarter and parents should help their children to improve their kids’ cognitive development but do the parents really know what cognitive development is?

Let me first elaborate here, what exactly are cognitive skills or when we talk about cognitive development what should we focus on?

Why cognitive skills are needed due to excessive competition?

Cognitive skills are skills that help you to understand, process and react according to situation. It’s your cognitive skills which help you to understand that today is colder than normal day and so you should wear sweater to go out.

Any day to day situation, big or small decision and every choice you make in your life need your cognitive skills and so now you know why it is pretty much important for your kids too.

Cognitive skills are not only to make your kids extra intelligent but it is essential for them to perform well in day to day life, to take care of themselves in uneven situations and to improve their decision power.

Personally, I don’t believe in any competition and so I would suggest you not to force your kids for anything but yes, these are the skills which constantly help one to grow mentally and mental growth is equally important to physical growth and thus you must make sure that they don’t lack in these skills.

What skills can be taught to children to help them grow smarter?

When we talk about cognitive skills in children we mainly focus on:

1. Concentration span
2. Memory
3. Processing procedure and/or time to process

For example, when you instruct your 4 years old kid 1. To remove his shoes 2. Wash his hands and 3. Join you for the dinner and if your kid listens all three instructions (even if they reply with No), you can say your kid has good concentration level. If he does all of these means he has got an excellent memory too and if he takes extra effort to put his shoes in shoe rack or wipes his hands after washing means he really has good processing power. So, basically cognitive skills mean 1. How well your kids listen to instructions? 2 How do they process that information? and 3. How much they really remember?

All three skills are inborn and improves gradually with the age. For example,

Concentration: Your 3 years kid cannot sit for more than 10 to 15 minutes to colour while 5 years kids can sit for longer time.

Memory: All the parents are aware of short memory span of younger children and that’s the reason they all use distraction method to stop their kids from crying or rotate toys instead of getting new toys every time.

Processing: Your two years toddler can handle one or two instructions at a time while 4 years pre-schooler can process three to four instructions in the same amount of time. Normally, for kids, every year add ups one or two instructions to process. (Of course, this doesn’t mean you can instruct your 12 years old kids with 12 instructions at a time but yes, they can complete the task that contains 12-15 instructions all by themselves.)

Though, kids learn all these at their own pace, you can help them to improve these skills with little effort and repetitive practice. Our old playtime like marbles, hopscotch, seashells games and even humming bird game play vital role to develop cognitive skills.

Ways to improve your kids’ cognitive skills or speed up their mind to learn these skills without forcing them:

1. To increase concentration span you can read them story books and ask them to tell you the same story again. You can encourage them to play games similar to “concentration 64”. (yes, old games are pretty amazing to develop cognitive skills!) Musical instruments, painting, blocks and puzzles are also very helpful to increase concentration span. But at the same time remember that concertation is all about how well they listen, not how do they listen. If your kid is not looking at you but answers your questions perfectly, shows that he has got good concentration. Sitting at one place can count but not necessarily important.
2. To increase memory span, you can use memory games likes memory cards, missing thing from a table or tell me what’s in my basket. Small conversations with your kids about their day in a school is pretty much effective. Encourage them to share details.
3. To increase thinking/Processing power you can give them tasks to accomplish. Instruct them with multiple instructions and see how well they can perform. Leave the control for a while and let them decide what should be done next. For example, if you come back from shopping, instead of guiding them what to do next, let them figure out what could be done next from their cognitive memory. Let them miss the jacket or water bottle for the picnic and let them learn “what did they forget” and “how did that impact them” as at the end practical experiences teach a lot than theory.

I will still insist you to show your kids “the old games” that you played as a kid because no matter how good blocks or puzzles are, they cannot replace the magic of old games that played essential role in our cognitive development.

Foster Feel

First of all, I would like to apologize for putting my lovely readers and friends in such a long wait state. Foster Feel couldn’t post since long due to some technical issues and now it’s back and I can’t tell you how much thrilled I am to post one more article on this website.

“If you want to find a mother, follow her kid!”, joke people, but actually its truth. Mother and kids are glued with each other in such a way that kid/s are always in mother’s mind no matter how far she is.

A mother can go for shopping, a mother can go for a movie, a mother can go for dine out or if she is lucky enough, she can even go for a picnic or on a trip with her friends but does that mean she is on leave?

No, because no matter where she is, her thoughts are always around one word and that’s K I D S.

I consider my self as one of those lucky moms who can get a chance to sneak out for herself and recently I have been for a movie with few friends. Though, we have decided to enjoy it thoroughly without kids in our minds, just in 15 minutes, we were chattering about our kids! That’s call motherhood and our leave!

Though, we all want to go away from our motherhood (at least once in a month) and want to live life freely like before, the truth is it is history. Mothers can take a leave physically but mentally, she is always with her kids.

During our leaves, what we all can think about is our kids, their meals, their toys, their school schedules, their science projects and their mood swings. Hundreds of things are in our minds and most of those circles around our “Kids”. We go out with our friends to take a break as a mother and we end up talking about kids, whole time!

We love to complain about our kids when we know, the next person is going to tell us “Oh, yours is much better, look at mine!” That’s fun.  Isn’t it? That’s our motherly friendship where we know no matter how much frustrated we are with our kids, our friends are going to show us how good we are as a mother and how good our kids are.

I am proud mother not because I feel so, not because my kids say so, not because my family admires for that but I am proud mother because my friends think so and every now and then they remind me how good I am, so I don’t give up my good vibes and can give my 100% to my kids. That’s our friendship which only mothers can understand and only mothers can feel. And that’s our leaves where we constantly talk about our kids and still consider ourselves away from kids.

I am lucky to have these friends in my life who encourages me to be a good mother and so, I would love to dedicate this article to them.

Well, now you all know (most of us already knew) that mothers can take a leave but she won’t because no matter how much she craves for the one, she is incomplete without her kids.

If you too know these kind of mothers or have these kind of friends, please dedicate this articles to them.

To be Jealous is just an emotion like happy, sad, cranky, excited, bored, grumpy and angry. It is perfectly okay to feel it once in a while as a kid. Normally kids face this feeling between the ages of 5 years to 6 years but sometimes it arrives early. Though feelings are very good to learn, it is very important to teach your kids which feeling they should accept and which one should be avoided. For example we have to teach our kids that we should choose happiness over sadness and we should avoid jealousy and anger as much as possible.

One day my 6 years old daughter came to me and asked “mom do you think that aunt doesn’t like me?”

I was really surprised and eager to know her point of view so I started conversation with “of course not dear, what did make you think like that?”

And here what I got “because she always praises my friend but not me!!!”

And I got the whole story. The friend she was talking about was very confident at early age. That girl used to visit many places alone and so we did talk about her couple of times and my daughter overheard some of those conversations.

For kids it is very common to compare themselves with others. Once they turn 5 they look at the people to be best. They try to copy their parents, their teachers, their friends, their neighbors or anyone who looks best to them. As a result they follow them blindly. Well it is not their fault; they just want to be best. And if their best people complements other than them they feel they are not up to the mark and get into the competition. As a parent it is our responsibility to teach our kids that there is no competition and there is no word like best. We don’t do things to impress others and there is no need of others to love us.

Things became easy for me because I knew my daughter was little jealous to be best and I knew exactly what I needed to do here and that worked too. And so I came up with one more article. (As most of my articles are my experiences only).

I explained her two things:  1.There is no comparison. Everyone is different. When we praise someone that just includes someone not you. 2. Even if Aunt likes her friend more, she shouldn’t be worried about that. Everyone likes different things, different food, different clothes and so as people. You cannot be favorite of all. And that is perfectly okay.

Mostly this feeling comes for friends, cousins, classmates or siblings. Sometimes they compare themselves with others or sometimes they notice their parents doing the same. Sometimes they overheard something and sometimes they simply misunderstand the things. They have little knowledge of being best and that makes them little confuse.

And so here I am demonstrating when kids become jealous first:

1. When kids are not getting enough attention: Well we can’t define enough here because each kid needs different amount of time and comfort. 5 years is big milestone and brings big changes in your kids, and so their requirements changes too. Till now they were looking for your physical presence but now they want you to be present both mentally and physically. What you need to do is just spend quality time with your kids instead of looking for quantity time only. You might be giving your best but here they are the boss.
2. When their favorites pay attention to others: This was the case with my daughter and it is very easy to overcome when you have good parent-kid relationship. If you are enough close to your kids’ heart they won’t really mind all these things for long time and understand your explanation too but if you are not you must work on that.
3. When they overheard the conversation: Kids’ minds are very tricky, they think in different way and so you must be careful with your words and/or action when they are around.
4. When this feeling is inherited: If you feel jealous once in a while then chances of your kids’ being jealous are higher. Not because it is in your genes but because somewhere somehow you will surely express your jealousy by one or another way and as kids are cute copy cats they will copy this too. Work on your feelings to manage theirs.

Do you think your kid is jealous to be best? If yes then follow these rules to help them to deal with their feeling:

1. Pay attention, pay it little more.
2. Don’t discuss kids’ when they are around.
3. Make regular conversation with your kids. Best place is your dining table. Ask questions like who is best in school, who is good in sports, who is good in reading etc. They don’t need to be best in all. All have different attribute.
4. Model others but not too much.
5. Stop justifying your kids did or feelings in front of others. That encourages their wrong behavior. Bad is bad no matter what is the reason.
6. Do not feel pity on your kid, you are making them weak.
7. Scold at the right time not all the times. They should know what is wrong exactly when that happens.
8. Make sure your kids get enough sleep. Sleep is the solution for each and every problem. If they are fresh, their mind is ready to accept the truth and analyze the facts else just not.
9. Give hugs and kisses frequently. That helps your kids to grow and nourish their brain and body.
10. Don’t forget to mention one good did of your kid before you call it a night.

There was a time when you couldn’t imagine kids without a toy and now it’s time when you won’t see even a single kid without gadgets! Gadgets like mobile phones, tablet, play station, laptop and television are taking place in kids’ life like it is necessity but the truth is it is just a facility. Once in a while watching something on TV or playing video games is change for both parents and kids but every day is just a bad habit. If you are one of those parents who think gadgets are helpful in many ways then I would like to show you where exactly parents prefer to offer gadgets to their kids and how can it not be necessity.

Here are the reasons when/where parents prefer to offer gadgets to their kids:

1. While eating: As a parent we want our kids to eat healthy and little more. Well there is no definition of little more but yes we all try to feed little extra to our kids and for that we offer anything and everything. But do you know compare to gadgets, table games are more successful tool to feed the kids with entertainment? Gadgets just distract kids from their food so we can feed them whatever we want but table games actually offer interest in food so they can enjoy the meal too. For more please read the article Follow 8 rules to feed your kids.
2. When kids are cranky: We just need to give little time to teach our kids right soothing ways at right age and we are done. You may use soft toys, blankets or some books to soothe them and truly speaking the effect of those last longer than watching television or playing video games.
3. When we do not want disturbance: When we are over occupied or on phone call we feel gadgets are the quick solution to our problem but the truth is it is just an option among many other solutions which we don’t see. Look around and you will surely find the perfect way to relax.
4. To teach something: To teach manners or to extend your kids’ knowledge there are books, there are magazines and there are educational toys. You don’t need videos for that. I agree videos are interesting and take less effort (from both parents and kids) but out of 50 videos only 1 video fulfill your requirement. Rests are just time pass. And most important thing is you can never be sure what exactly your kid will learn from those videos.
5. While travelling : Yeah this one is sure tricky because getting kids’ interest in something like travelling, nature or long drive is a lot more effort but you can always divert them with travel toys, travel games and books. Slowly they will get interest in nature as well.
6. Time pass: Well first kids don’t need time pass. They have whole time to play and enjoy so if you think it is a long day and your kids are bored (which they are not) let me remind you of the toys you bought for them. Toys are their time pass not video games.

Well if you are a parent who permits gadgets for above reasons then it’s time for you to rethink on that. If you are a parent who too thinks gadgets are not good for kids and want to wean it, here is the solution which can help you with that.

1. Change yourself: Actually it’s not kids who crave for gadgets it’s us who think gadgets can do magic. We say we are running out of time but if we look into our screen time (including mobile calls and social sites) we waste more than our 40% of a day in doing nothing!!! Sad but true. So now not for yourself then for your kids get the change in your life. Kids are cute copy cats; their base of interest is mostly your interest so if you stop using gadgets they will automatically follow you. Start working on your habit and it will automatically reflect on your kids’ habit. Trust me it’s not tough, I have stopped using gadgets in front of my daughter since last 5 years and it is working really smooth.
2. Add outdoor games: Fresh air, free space and good partner in sports that’s all kids need. Take them out, play with them, walk in trail, run to race and introduce real sports or games which you used to play as a kid. You never know you might need this more than your kids.
3. Divert with encouragement: If you went too long with gadgets then your kids may ask for it in initial days. Don’t be disappointed. It’s perfectly normal. They are expecting the thing which you once set into their routine. What they need is just a company and that can be you. Try some indoor games to divert, sing songs, read books, bring out artist in you or tell them stories. (If nothing works TRY WATER or SAND toys. That never fails.) There are so much fun activities to do and so choose whatever is suitable for you.
4. Don’t say No: No one likes to listen NO. It is a small word but the impact is huge. I am not saying never use NO but just be cautious. I have seen many parents who say no for everything and give half of those things. This way they lose control over NO and their kids both. When you say No for everything, kids get confuse and upset but if you say No for certain things then your kids will surely give it a thought. So if you want your kids to listen to your No for gadgets, say NO for the right things only. Be wise with your words, be patient, trust your decision and have faith in your kids. Nothing is impossible.

Summer is almost over and so the vacation. Everything needs to be back on track especially kids. We believe it or not but during vacation we pamper our kids a little more. Sometimes with little extra TV and sometimes with new toys. Sometimes with picnic trips and sometimes with holidays. Sometimes we grant them junk food and sometimes we allow them extra night fun than the normal sleep pattern (just a bit but we do). All the small changes give them happiness throughout the vacation but at the same time that makes hard to fall back into routine. Well this does not mean you should not grant their wishes in vacation but yes you should prepare them for upcoming normal routine life too.

Here are few tips to help your kids to settle down in school after vacation:

Prepare for next: I know it is bit difficult but at least give a try. Drastic change can make them uneasy but little change fulfills the needful. Instead of going back to routine after school reopens, try to get back the routine before 2 weeks of opening date. Talk to them about upcoming school life, add one hr. study in last few days of vacation and talk about school friends. All these small talks prepare their mind  for upcoming changes.

Get the new stationary: You may think old one are just perfect or no need to buy new but all these small excitements actually alarm their mind for the upcoming school life as well as give them reason to go back to school. If you don’t agree with me I would suggest you to do window shopping for these stuffs with your little one and observe how they react? That would give idea about your upcoming situation. Once you buy new school essentials, let them remove the tags, fill the bags but don’t put them away. The visibility of these stuffs will remind your kids’ mind about school and that will really help them to prepare themselves.

Accept it: After vacation kids struggle with their morning alarms, daily study and homework.  They get less time to play and they have to follow some school rules too.   Even you could have struggle if you would have this much fun in vacation so relax, take a deep breath and accept it. It wasn’t this way either and it is not going to last forever.

Listen to their concern and complaints: Kids enjoy the comfort and fun throughout the vacation and once the holidays are over they need to leave certain things in one way or another and as a result they complaints. Sometimes they become grumpy or mad. Take the things easy and listen to them. Don’t jump into conversation of right and wrong, do not compare with happy go school kids and do not scold as well because at the end that will make the things harder. You can explain them when they are in good mood but prefer to be quite if they are there to complain. Give them time to absorb the new (actually old) routine.

Stories are best: Read books on school life, share some stories based on your kids’ fears and concern regarding school and share some stories of your childhood too. Stories of your mistakes and learning, stories about your fears and overcomes, and stories about some good did. If you don’t remember just make the one. Any how they are not going check on your childhood!!!

Add flavors in routine: Instead of rushing to fall back into routine, add some family time or fun time for next few days/weeks. It will provide them comfort zone. For example, in this vacation my little one learned bicycle and so I planned evening cycling with my daughter. I also like to reserve extra one hr. for her only (kind of parent-kid time) where sometimes we paint or sometimes we play or sometimes we simply enjoy talks with snacks. But this way we try to connect with each other the way we used to in vacation and I must say it’s real pleasure.

Continue summer fun in one or another way: Pick up some small activities of your summer fun and try to rewind those on weekends so they feel like vacation. For example, you can either go for picnic the way you did in summer vacation or you can just enjoy pretend play of picnic in your balcony or garden. This will offer them the effect of vacation but still in normal life.

Every kid is different, some likes school some don’t; some enjoys at school but don’t like it and some likes it but don’t enjoy the school. Some suffers separation anxiety and some are just easy going so at the end it is you who knows your kid better. Go with the flow and encourage them to accept the things that they cannot change.

Happy school day

“Schools don’t give homework of more than 15 minutes in a day” but I don’t think that’s the case with me as my daughter takes 1 hr to get ready for the homework and another 1 hr to finish her homework!!! Where is the concept of 15 minutes homework?? Well I am happy to announce that I am not alone here, it is a common issue with most of the preschooler to primary grade students, either they are not ready to seat or they are not ready to write.

I remember when I enrolled my daughter in Nursery, in very first PTM her teacher asked me “Is there any way your daughter can sit down” of course in polite way but she was really asking for my help and I suggested “Try with story books, she likes stories”. Well slowly her teacher too got very good bonding with her but yes challenge is always there. First she was not ready to seat and now she is not ready to write!!!

Your kid might be a sitting player or all the times explorer but when it is time for you to send them to preschool you must help them to seat and focus on particular things whether it is a toy, a book, a rhyme or even a play. First thing you should do is accept that your kids’ teacher is not complaining but just asking for your help as at the end you’re the one who knows your kid best.  Well even if you know everything it is not an easy task to teach your explorer to seat and focus and so here are some tips to help you out which really did the magic for me:

Know your kids: Observe your kid and figure out her nature as every kid is different in some or other way. Some kids can jump all the day long while some kids can get tired in just 10 minutes. Some can play with one toy for entire week while for some kids even 10 toys are not enough for one day. Some kids get scare from anything and everything while some kids are always ready to take risk. Figure out your kids’ nature to select the right activity to engage them.

Select the activity: Now as you know your kids’ nature, it is easy to choose the activity to engage them with which they can seat for a while. You may use books, puzzle, blocks, scribbling, drawing, coloring or musical instruments. All these activities are helpful to increase attention span of your kid. Respect your kids’ likes and dislikes, no need to play puzzle just because few of her age kids are playing with it.

Stick to time: If you really want to work on your kids’ concentration add one or two of these activities in her routine. If you are focusing on homework, add 10 minutes homework everyday even if it is off for school. This will make them ready to do the things which they don’t like to do but necessary to do.

Take a break: Bitter truth is most of the kids cannot focus on anything for more than 10 minutes so change the activity (subject in case of homework) after every 10 minutes to help them to be focused. If your kid is really hyper active you must take 5 minutes break after every 10 minutes work which will help her to release her extra energy.

Say No to distraction: This is really tough especially when your kid is explorer like mine!!! Even if everything is set anything can catch your kids’ attention and distract them. This includes your cell phone rings, chirping sound of bird, crawling ant on the floor, doorbell ring and many more. So choose the time and place carefully. That may be the case that when you send your kid to get pencil, she don’t turn up even after 10-15 minutes and when you check on your kid, you might catch her playing with something else in her room!!! Well accept it and enjoy it as this innocence makes them lively and loving but of course next time make sure everything is ready before you start your activity.

Praise for good: “Kids and stars” always works no matter what is the age. Just like every good behavior here you give them star for every 10 minutes work.