How Kids Learn Archives | Sleeping Should Be Easy

How to Encourage Delayed Gratification in Children

May 24, 2020

Research shows that delayed gratification is a necessary skill for kids and adults alike. Here's how to encourage delayed gratification in children. Do you want one marshmallow now, or two in five minutes? That was the question psychologist Walter Mischel asked several children in 1972. His now-famous marshmallow test studied whether kids would delay a reward, and how they compared to those who didn't. He gave the children two options: They could eat the marshmallow in front of them now, but if they did, they would only get that one marshmallow. They could wait a few minutes … [Read more...]

Why You Shouldn’t Reward Your Kids All the Time

Behavior

May 22, 2020

Most parents use a reward system for kids, from potty training to chores. Here's why you shouldn't reward kids (and what to do instead). Stars. Candy. A new toy. I swore I wouldn't resort to rewards when my toddler was potty training. But I still found myself making my own version: I drew stars on his "pee pee poster." The poster, taped to the bathroom mirror, was meant to encourage continued potty-training success. For a while it worked... that is, until the glamor and novelty of the stars eventually wore off. Because even though I wasn't handing him stickers or candy, I learned … [Read more...]

Why Too Many Toys Can Be Bad for Kids

How Kids Learn

May 20, 2020

Is your house overflowing with toys? More isn't always better, and can even have adverse results. Here are the downsides of having too many toys. Birthday parties and play dates have given me a glimpse into just how many toys other kids have compared to my own. Tall shelves filled with action figures, floors strewn with stuffed animals. I began to wonder what these kids might think coming into our home. The holidays have also made me wonder whether I give them enough gifts. For his first Christmas, my eldest didn't even receive a toy from us—I figured he was too young to even … [Read more...]

How to Respond when Your Child Makes a Mistake

Communication

May 05, 2020

How you respond to the mistakes your child makes is just as important as correcting it in the first place. Learn how to respond when kids make mistakes. I kept telling my boys to knock it off. We were eating dinner and the three of them were acting goofy with one another. On this particular night, they were moving their arms left and right in a marching swing. And as I had predicted, one of them knocked over a cup of water. To make matters worse, all three just sat looking at the water as it continued to drip onto the floor. As much of an accident as it was, the silliness and the … [Read more...]

Why We Need to Encourage Our Children’s Interests—Even when They Seem Strange to Us

How Kids Learn

Apr 16, 2020

Do your kids have a passion for hobbies? Here's why we should encourage children's interests, no matter how strange or different they may seem to us. "I've had it with fountains," I complained to my husband. What had been a cute quirk—my son's fascination with fountains—was getting out of hand. It even took over an outing at the zoo, where he'd rush to see fountains instead of the bears and monkeys. Still, I bit my tongue. As strange of an interest as it was to have, fountains still held a special place in our son's heart. So we did what we thought would help nurture it even more. We … [Read more...]

How to Encourage Open Ended Play (And Why It’s Important)

How Kids Learn

Apr 09, 2020

The benefits of open-ended play are many. Discover how to encourage open-ended play to boost your child's creativity and imagination. My son opened a carton of Jenga and started building structures. One was a doghouse for his stuffed animal, another was a fountain, and one had double doors that was supposed to open with a push with a button. Of course, Jenga blocks aren't "meant" to be built into structures, much less a doghouse or a fountain. But they helped cultivate my son's creativity and imagination—with no instruction manual needed. What is open-ended play? It's the type of play … [Read more...]

How to Teach Kids to Embrace Mistakes

How Kids Learn

Apr 04, 2020

Kids may not like mistakes, but they can learn so much from them. Use the following techniques to teach kids to embrace mistakes and all their lessons. We focus a lot on mistakes, don't you think? How often have we given kids grief for spilling a cup of milk or accidentally throwing a plate in the trash? Why do we correct them more often for words they bungle than the plenty they can read perfectly? This aversion to mistakes carries over into adulthood, too. Even the most motivated adults don't like mistakes—they're the hassles and setbacks that keep us from reaching our goals as … [Read more...]

7 Useful Ways to Teach the Alphabet, Montessori-Style

How Kids Learn

Feb 20, 2020

Wondering how to teach your child the Montessori alphabet? Discover 7 little-known but effective ways to teach letters the Montessori way. When choosing a preschool, I had heard that Montessori schools were different from traditional schools. They encourage self-sufficiency and life skills in the curriculum (my kids called this "practical work"). Classes aren't divided by age so strictly. And teachers work with the individual child's level instead of teaching the same material to all the students at the same time. Another aspect where Montessori schools tend to differ? The way … [Read more...]

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