Raising Smarter Children

The other day I was in the supermarket and a child knocked over a bottle of juice.  A frantic mother screamed at her child for the wrong he’d done, and it dawned on me that neither had learned anything good about responsibility during the process.

How do we raise smarter, more responsible children anyway?  Read the rest of this entry »

I want to take a quick break in our RaisingSmarterChildren.com mini-series on Smarter Children Activities, because of news on a new study from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

The study says that unvaccinated kids are 23 times more likely to  get pertussis or whooping cough…and as a mom, I still have questions about whether kids should be vaccinated – do you?

Read the rest of this entry »

           Do you think your child’s past equals your child’s potential?  You might want to check out these very inspiring stories of kids who went from ‘losers’ to ‘leaders’…

Walt Disney was fired by a newspaper because he lacked ‘good creative’ ideas…

Read the rest of this entry »

After watching the Michael J. Fox special on optimism, I thought it would be nice to share a few thoughts. I hope you’ll share your thoughts with us too.  

Do you think it’s better to be optimistic in life, and help your kids be the same?

Read the rest of this entry »

It’s amazing how one person’s generosity can make a real difference in a child’s life.

One person, who experienced remarkable success with strategies they learned in Learning vs. Testing, made a large contribution which helps every child succeed in school.

Read the rest of this entry »

Learning styles – how could they possibly affect everything?

Well, know it or not, they do, because your actions, behavior, conversations, schoolwork, and everything else you do involves your personal learning style.

Are you frustrated in conversations with your kids or spouse?  How about with a co-worker?  Then you simply have two different types of learning styles, and that frustration is easily fixed, once you know what a learning style is and how it affects you and other people as well.

Let’s say that one of your kids has a really messy room and the other keeps their room spotless.

You too, keep your room spotless.

Here’s the rub.  When you talk to your child who has the messy room, you use your “visual” learning style words to talk to your “kinesthetic” learning style kid.

Visual learners think in pictures, use picture words and when they read, they turn everything into pictures.

Kinesthetic learners are tactile, love to move around, feel things, and don’t even have pictures in their mind usually.

So, when you say, “Clean up that messy room”, they don’t know what you mean – literally.

If your kinesthetic child doesn’t make pictures in their mind, it follows they don’t have any concept of what messy and neat mean.

So, here’s a quick tip about learning styles and the next couple of posts will share a few more:  Learn to speak the learning style language of your kids, who may have a different learning style than you do.

The same goes for your spouse – you may be having little or even big fights all the time, simply because your words are like a camera — look, see, etc., and your kids or spouse use words like “feel”, touch, move, grip, etc., with absolutely no “camera” words in their vocabulary.

Take a moment and think about this – learning styles, visual, auditory and kinesthetic do affect everything you, what you do, what you say, how you act, and the same applies to everyone else too. 

It’s usually the visual learners who perform best in school because their style matches written tests, recalling information in pictures to write the words faster, etc.

The kinesthetic kids are great athletes for example and very gifted in their own way, but we’ve failed them in school, because they can’t show what they know on those darn written tests.  They know how they feel about things, but often don’t translate that into written words fast enough to recall and perform well on the test.

So, for now – just remember that your child, spouse or co-worker may have another learning style than you do. 

If you find that you just can’t talk well together, or do things so differently that it’s annoying you, remembering that everyone has their own personal learning style often helps.  Then just try and figure out the words they use during conversation – are they camera words, feeling words, or do they talk alot, and remember something you said six months ago- that’s an auditory learner who learns by listening.

No need for daily conflict once everyone gets this learning style thing – because there are so many ways to tell who has what learning style and then how to get along with their style.

Today, go to http://www.howtolearn.com and take that Personal Learning Styles Inventory at the top left of the page.  Have your whole family do it too, and read it aloud to your kids just in case they have a reading problem you don’t know about.

Have your co-workers take it.  Some of the biggest coprorations in the world are using this Personal Leanring Style Inventory; so are school districts and thousands of individuals. 

Note the results just in your own family – and a few more learning style tips will show up in the next couple of posts.

Remember – every child and every person is smart – in their own individual way – give them credit for their talents, even if they aren’t the same as yours, and you’ll be a lot happier. Those learning styles do affect absolutely everything you, your family and your co-workers do.

Warmly,

Pat Wyman and Erin Mavredakis, M.D.

Submit your comments anytime and we’ll respond (you need to add those two numbers together so we know it’s a real person) and if you like the post, hit the share button, and send it around the social networking communities like Digg or Technorati (their members may want to know about learning styles too.)

Dear Parents and Friends,

Have you ever been in one of those situations where you’re tempted to keep something that somebody sent you by mistake? 

For Christmas, my son wanted the entire DVD set of a T.V. program he loved.  I think it lasted 8 seasons. 

So I contacted a separate store at Amazon (the set was new and about $30 less I think and the store was CSTT), and sure enough, a man named Chet came through and went the extra mile to get the whole set here before Christmas.

(I also got a very helpful book called Have A New Kid By Friday, by Dr. Kevin Leman -(this second link is his blog and wow, he’s a dad with amazing advice for raising kids without the attitude, and character without being a character. )

He’s also one of the funniest people I’ve ever heard. (We’ll call him and request an interview to post it on the blog for you).

Anyway, here’s the honesty dilemma:  a few days later, another, brand new set of the same DVD series came in the mail. 

Of course, the whole family loved this particular show, so now what? 

I decided to test a theory about whether the values I taught my kids were intact, so I called my daughter first (who I know really wanted the set too,) just to see what she would say.  

“Well Mom, you have to return them.  I’d really love to have them, but it’s the right thing to do to send them back.” 

Whew – good thing she said this - I can rest easier at night :):)

Next, I called my son to tell him what happened.  Happily, he basically said the same thing.

Of course, I really wanted the series too – and it would have been easy enough to keep them. 

But this is not about what we all wanted – it’s more about how to help your kids (you too - and that includes me),  respond with honesty, character and good values.

So, for my part, I wrote the man and asked how to return the second set.  Yes, it was the right thing to do, but I sure did want those DVD’s :):)

In this post, I’m really asking a question – how are you teaching your children good values, like honesty and strong character to keep doing the right thing?

When my kids were younger, I did several things to seed the traits I knew were best for them to lead a basically good life and give them values to pass on to their kids (I sure wish they would hurry up and have some!)

Here’s what I did to help them learn some good values, and I want to share it because it worked so well.

I set up situations in advance and we talked about them.  I’d provide a scenario, and then have them role play how they would respond in advance. That way, I knew when those situations came up in real life, they might at least think about what we talked about before acting.

These chit chats included the tough stuff like drugs, alcohol, defending a friend when other kids were saying bad things about that person, etc.

As a mom, I have to recommend this – think of all the things that happen in kids lives – and at all different ages.  When it’s time, try to come up with “what ifs” and see how many ways they say to handle the situation.

As a teacher, I’ve seen nearly every behavior from kids in every grade, and believe me when I tell you, while the kids shared details of their lives with me, there is no way you’d want to know the things I heard and saw. 

So, back to your own kids. Nix being naive – there are so many unknowns out there – get prepared – read stuff, (do you like the big word – stuff?), listen to experts, put the things you learn into practice – do it to help your kids develop those values we all know are good – like the difference between right and wrong (you don’t “steal” something you already bought, just because somebody else mistakenly sent it to you).

Think for a while about your kids and what they are exposed to.  You really have to pay attention, because as Dr. Leman says, “kids are smart, and they will outsmart you, so you’d better be prepared.”

Imagine this -what about the texting we hear so much about – where kids say such horrific things, the victim becomes suicidal?  How about all the “follow your friends’ acts or you’ll become an outcast?”  You have to shoplift too, just because you’re with your friends and they all do it.

It’s not easy being a parent, but as this New Year starts, I think beginning to prevent the things you don’t want, by talking about real things, and having your kids give you all the possible ways those situations could be handled is a great way to start. 

As you’re reading, I know you’ll have lots more good ideas, so share them with the community here, in the comments or the “share this” button.

Thank you and we always welcome your comments.  As you know, Erin is my daughter, and you can read about her in our “About us” section, so I can’t really sign her name to this one because I asked her about what we should do with that extra DVD set.

And my son, J.P., was the recipient of the first set of DVD’s – so, without him even knowing, I am thanking him for his honesty now.

As always, remember every child is smart – and I believe, when given your love and direction, your kids will choose honesty over deceit, and develop strong character and values.  Hey, you may be surprised and find them being role models for their friends.

Happy New Year!

Warmly,

Pat Wyman

I get so many e-mails from parents, literally begging for ways to help their kids do well in school, I’m going to mention my e-book, because it answers all those questions.  It really is a gift for your kids.

I’ve worked with kids for just about 30 years now (including my own) and someplace in there, discovered strategies that really make a difference in a child’s life. 

Instant Learning For Amazing Grades has 210 pages of easy and practical ways to study and get terrific grades on those written tests.  Your child’s learning style plays a huge role in school and how they learn – and this e-book will show you and your child how to harness the power of a learning style to succeed!

More here.. http://www.howtolearn.com/amazinggrades.html and you and your child can take the Personal Learning Styles Inventory on http://www.howtolearn.com

Again, may this new year be better than ever for you and your family.