7 Smart Ways to Protect Your Children

The danger is lurking for your children, even when they are at home. Here are 7 wise ways to minimize anything unpleasant to happen.

Alone at home: Inform your child not to tell anyone on the phone that you are alone at home. Teach your child to call you in case of an emergency. Make sure that your child is able to lock and unlock doors and windows. 

Internet: Be aware of your child’s activities on the Net. Inform your child not to provide personal information such as a home address, telephone number, or school name online. Highlight to your child that the person he is talking to may not be who he claims to be. Never allow your child to arrange for a face-to-face meeting with anyone without your permission. According to an article, Smartphone Pictures Can Give Away Your Location. Taking a photo of your innocent child taken with your smartphone and post it online is risky because people can trace the location where the image is taken.

Public area: To avoid abduction educate your child not to accept things from strangers and not to allow others to touch you. Teach your child not to do anything alone. Ignore the adult who approaches you for help, It can be a trick. The person should get help from another adult. The best thing to do is for your child to run away to a place with a lot of people.

On the road: Never leave your child alone in the car even for a short while. Be aware of another car bumping into yours at isolated spots; it may not be an accident. Drive on to avoid untoward incidents.

Technology: If your child is using an iPad or iPhone, you can locate the whereabouts of your child. You can monitor if he or she is on the right route to their destination. When your child is at a different location be alert and find out why.  Find out more about Apple’s iCloud to locate your devices at Find my iPhone, Ipad, and Mac.

Communicate with your child: Be open and approachable so that your child will find it easy to talk to you.  Tell your child that he can talk to you about anything and everything   Listen, believe and trust what your child tells you.

Educate your child: As soon as children are learning the body parts, you can introduce the right vocabulary for their private parts such as penis, vagina, breasts, and buttocks. Dr. Ian Russ, Ph.D., says that "If children don't have the vocabulary to talk about their body parts, then if something happens they can't tell anybody. They know that it's off-limits to talk about. They can't get help." By telling your children the right words to use they will feel comfortable telling you should something bad does happen to them.

How do you protect your child?

7 Effective Ways to Motivate Your Child Who is Studying in Another Country

The best way to make children good is to make them happy. ~Oscar Wilde

When your child is away from home studying in another country, how do you keep in touch, showing your concern for his or her well-being and keeping them motivated?  Here are a few things you can do to support and motivate them:

1.       Send a daily quote: This is what I do to my son who is studying in Singapore. Every morning, I will, without fail, email him a motivational quote. There is nothing better than some encouraging words to start a brand new day. Motivational quotes inspire and stimulate you to start a new day with the right frame of mind and stay positive and motivated.  

2.       Weekly chat over Skype: In order that he is not interrupted in his study and daily routine, we only chat with our son during the weekend through Skype, which is free.  This weekly session is to touch base and exchange information and also allows us to be on top of his progress. It is heartwarming to chat and see his face on the computer screen. How do you keep in touch with your child and how often?

3.       Help him do homework: My son is studying Business IT. From time to time, I will help him with his assignments through email.  My experience in the real business world and the proper usage of commercial English is a great help to him.  He is happy that he can count on his dad and I am happy that I can help my son.

4.       Be enthusiastic and provide support for your child’s effort and endeavor:  Always encourage your child in what he or she is trying to achieve in their study. When they know that you are supporting their effort, they will try harder and do their best.

5.       Congratulate him for each stage of his success: Share the joy and happiness with your child when he or she has met with success even in a small way. Success breeds success and it is a powerful way to build confidence and stay motivated. By the same token, stay by your child when they meet with setbacks and obstacles. Encourage them to bounce back and be resilient.  

6.       Celebrate his or her success: Don’t forget to celebrate his success when your child has returned home for his or her semester break.  It is to renew their fighting spirits and encourage them to do better in the journey of life.

7.       Remind your child to be health-conscious: Does your child exercise regularly? My son is not physically active. We often remind him to move about more often so that he can be fit physically and mentally. To be successful in life is to be fit physically and excel academically. 

You will know your child is motivated because of he or her:

·         Sets challenging goals

·         Gets assignments done  with great effort and concentration

·         Is enthusiastic to learn  and know more

When you are motivated, you can motivate your child.   

What Can You Teach Your Children about Money

Effective personal financial management is one of the important goals in life. It is prudent to develop a positive attitude and cultivate good habits for your children while they are still young.

 1. The habit of savings: Give your children a coin box each and teach them the good habit of depositing coins into the box and over time when the box is full, a sizable amount is accumulated. An important lesson here is that when you save consistently and continuously every day, you will be able to build a substantial amount.

 2. Open a savings account: When your children are bigger, take them to the bank and open savings accounts for them. The lesson for your children to learn here is that, apart from the good habit of savings, they will earn interest and compound interest when they keep their money in a bank. The money is also safe.

 3. Monthly allowance: It is a good habit to give your children a fixed allowance at the beginning of every month. It is a good way to teach them to do budgeting and setting aside an amount each month to save and not to spend all. They should learn not to spend more than what they have budgeted for each day of the month.

 4. Save for what they want: When they want a big-ticket item they have to learn and save a portion every month until the amount is enough to buy the item in cash. This is a good habit because when they are working they know it is the best method to buy an expensive item instead of borrowing money or using a credit card and incur interest.

 5. About inflation and interest: It is also important to inform them that It is costing more and more to buy the same items as time goes by and the interest earned from the money you keep in the bank is not enough to cover the rising cost of living. The alternative is to invest and grow your money.

 6. The importance of growing your money: it is necessary to educate your children that investments, such as stocks, bonds, and mutual funds are for the long term. It is to beat inflation and to save for their retirement and their children’s education.

 7. About debt: A very essential aspect of money is debt. It is vital to teaching your children not to incur debt to buy things because debt attracts interest. When it is not properly managed, a person can be bankrupt. Teach your children to be disciplined and buy things with cash only.


 What are the other things that you can teach your children about money?

Related article:
10 Money Matters to Teach Your Children

13 Tips to Bring Up a Happy Child

One test of the correctness of educational procedure is the happiness of the child.
Maria Montessori

As parents, you can do a lot to bring up a happy child:

1.      Be active outdoor:  There are many advantages to spend time outdoors with your child.  Apart from fresh air and sunshine, your child gets to build up his or her body and reduces stress and negative emotions. It is also a chance for them to have fun and find satisfaction in what they do physically.

2.      Hug often:  To hug is to show affection and it is an effective way to convey your love for your child. For the baby, your tender touch will be able to promote health and alertness.  For the parents, hugging can reduce stress and calm your mind.

3.      A lot of free time: Avoid filling the time of your child with a lot of activities and classes. Let the child have more free time to do what he or she likes and stimulate their imagination. Allow your child to do less and encourage relaxation that leads to creativity.

Free the child's potential, and you will transform him into the world.
Maria Montessori

4.      Eat healthily: The key to good health is to eat fresh food, consume less fat and sugar and follow a balanced diet. Drink plenty of water and not sugary drinks every day. A healthy body is essential for the healthy and happy growth of your child.

5.      Listen to your child: When your child is talking to you, put down whatever that you are doing and listen to him or her attentively. Be patient and don’t interrupt. It is the way to show your concern for your child. In this way, you encourage your child to communicate with you freely and willingly. Your child just needs to talk to someone.

6.      Teach your child to care for others: Encourage him or her to help others by taking part in community services. This is an effective way to show your child that giving is a wonderful way to be happy too. 

7.      Discourage perfection: You can encourage your child to do his or her best but do not measure their performance according to your standards or expectations. It is applying stress and pressure on your child. Allow your child to learn and grow happily. 

8.      Stimulate the artistic talents in your child: Introduce music, art, dance, and other artistic activities to unearth the inner world of your child. To dance, draw or play music is a way to express his or her emotions and feel satisfied.

9.      Teach your child to solve problems: Help your child to identify a problem and ask how he or she is going to solve it.  Guide your child to take the correct steps to solve a problem. Assist your child to come up with a solution to a problem.  

Too often we give our children answers to remember rather than problems to solve. ~Roger Lewin

10.  Compliment your child constructively: Spot what he or she has done right and compliment accordingly. This is the best way to inspire and motivate your child. He or she will be very happy and excited to do more and better.

11.  Read stories to your child: It is the best way to cultivate a reading habit in your child and to provoke his or her imagination.

12.  Teach your child about a positive mental attitude: Promote confidence in your child. Let your child know that whatever happens to him or her is not important, the most important thing is to react to things positively. This is to encourage optimism, hope, and positive expectations in the mind of your child.

13.  Be happy yourself: Your child follows what you do and not what you say. Be cheerful, upbeat, and smile often. Spread happiness around the house and influence your child to live with joy and happiness.

Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them. ~James Baldwin

The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother. ~Theodore Hesburgh

Effective ways to develop your children

Your children are very knowledgeable about the advancements of technology, but do they know about basic living skills? Here are some tips to get them to lead a “normal” life:

1. Limit time for TV and the like: Avoid surfing the Net, using the computer, playing computer games, or watching TV for more than two hours in a day. Don’t allow technologies to be their master. They must learn to manage time.

2. Close to nature: Explore nature with your children. Start by walking around the park. Do camping or jungle trekking and get to know more about living things in the wild.

3. Doing house chores together: Get your children to be involved and do cleaning up and tidying the place. They can also observe and understand how maintenance work, such as electrical and mechanical items, is carried out by adults at home. 

4. Reading: Encourage and develop your children in the habit of reading at home. This is the most beneficial habit which lasts a lifetime.

5. Charity: Involve your children in charity work so that they will know and learn about personal finance and giving back to society.

6. Be happy with your children: Spend time to talk and listen to your children. Talk to them about school and be their friend. The closer you are to them the easier it is for them to open up to you

7. Avoid overdoing things for your children: Do not be overprotective. Allow your children to experience what life is all about. Overly concern weakens the fighting spirits of your children.

8. Set example: Show a good example to your children and not preach. To cultivate the reading habit you have to read at home instead of watching TV. Be polite and respectful to your children when you want them to do the same to you.

9. Life is more than just academic success: Life is also about happiness and creative development. Avoid applying too much pressure and stress like attending tuition classes. Let your children grow naturally and enjoy their childhood.

10. Do not be materialistic: Stop buying spree for your children. Happiness is not getting more and more things. Teach them to earn their own way to get what they want so that they know nothing comes easy.

11. Avoid too many negative words: Negative words like you are stupid and you are no good to dampen their spirits and damage their self-esteem and self-confidence. They will behave as though the negative characteristics are what they are.

12. Build confidence: Avoid comparing your children with others. Praise when they have made progress and done well. Your children need your support and encouragement.  Motivate and guide them with positive feedback and  empowering them to be creative

The most important thing about child-rearing is to discover and unleash their creative power.

10 Things to Teach Your Children about Money

Money

“If you wish to get rich, save what you get. A fool can earn money, but it takes a wise man to save and dispose of it to his own advantage.”― 

Brigham Young

Money is not everything but you can’t live without money. Talk to your child about money as soon as possible so that he can start young to manage money wisely. Here are the10 points to teach children about money.

1. Time is money: Promote the savings habit when your child is young. Show your child the wonder of compound interest when you start saving early. As an example, just save 100 dollars at 10% interest and keep it for 50 years and your money will grow into $11775.91 without doing anything on your part.

$100/=	Compound Interest @ 10%
YEAR	PRINCIPLE	INTEREST	BALANCE
1	100.00	10.00	110.00
2	110.00	11.00	121.00
3	121.00	12.10	133.10
5	146.44	14.64	161.08
10	235.91	23.59	259.50
20	611.58	61.16	672.74
30	1589.21	158.92	1748.13
40	4125.23	412.52	4537.75
50	10705.38	1070.53	11775.91

2. Live within your means: Set examples for your children. Do purchases for your child according to his needs. Don’t follow other parents what they buy for their children. The financial resources of each and every family are different

3. Happiness is not about the possession of material things: Instill in your child’s mind that happiness is not necessarily wearing branded shirts or having a PS3. Happiness can be achieved by having a good time with your child. Your presence with your chills brings much more happiness than your presents

4. Avoid wastage - Cultivate the good habit in your child to conserve energy by turning off the lights or air-conditioning when not in use. Do not allow the tap to keep running. Lead the way at home for your child to follow to prevent wastefulness.

5. Use the pocket money wisely: Pocket money should be given at the beginning of each month. This will allow your child to budget for savings and spending for the whole month. If your child needs a big-ticket item he should keep aside and accumulate an amount every month until the desired amount is obtained for the item.

6. Set limit for the purchase of each item: Specific an upper limit for the purchase of each item especially clothing and shoes. Look for comfort and durability and not brand

7. No impulse buying: Make it a habit that shopping is done according to the shopping list only Allow you, child, to learn about self-control

8. Gifts on special occasions only: The best time to send a gift is when your child has done well in his year-end examination. It is a recognition of his effort and achievement

9. Limited resources: Your child needs to know the financial resources of every family is limited. There is a budget to follow every month so that the limited money can cover monthly expenses as well as savings for rainy days.

10. Borrowing: A very important lesson for your child to learn is that borrowing money to buy things you want is a bad decision. Borrowing means incurring interest and paying more for an item. The best thing to do is to save enough to buy in cash.

When your child is able to apply what he has learnt about money, he will be able to accumulate wealth.

5 Secrets to Build a Strong Personality in Your Child

• “The best way to make children good is to make them happy.” – Oscar Wilde

According to the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, personality is the various aspects of a person’s character that combine to make them different from other people. Personality is what others perceive you by the impression that you have given to them. Psychologists believe that it is during childhood that lays the foundation for the healthy development of a person’s personality. How do you promote a strong and healthy personality development in your child? Here are the 5 secrets:


1. Promote physical development: A healthy body with agility and flexibility in movement is a prerequisite for balanced development in your child’s personality development. It is important to ensure your child is sufficiently nourished with nutrients to build up his health. Encourage your child to play games and take part in physical activities to train his bodily capabilities.

2. Warm and tender love: It is during the infant period that the mother should satisfy the psychological needs of your child. The warm embrace and tender stroking of your child is the right way to love your child. Avoid hurting your child. All these will facilitate the positive development of his personality.

3. A conducive family environment: A strong relationship between husband and wife will create a peaceful and serene situation at home. Apply a democratic style (see related post at the end of this article) to bring up your child. Provide appropriate motivation and reward your child accordingly. Let your child experience success so as to enhance his personality development.

4. Learn social networking techniques: One major development in childhood is to encourage a healthy relationship with his friends and classmates. A child’s social networking skills will benefit his relationship with others.

5. A happy learning environment: School is not only a place to develop children academically but physically and their character building. Teachers should identify the strengths of each and every child and provide affirmation. Positive feedback will instill in a child a sense of concern for his family, society, and promote self-worth and a feeling of personal responsibility.


Personality is a combination of a person’s character, appearance, mental and creative outlook, and the way he gets along with others and how he adjusts himself to the environment. It is also his motives, goals, interests, belief, and his value judgment

Related post:

3 Parenting Styles

3 Parenting Styles

Parenting Styles

Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them. - James Baldwin

Are you a democrat, a dictator, or an independent? What is your parenting style? 

  Democrat: You respect the views of your child and at the same time, you insist on your child to do what is right. You communicate freely with your child and you expect nothing less in his appropriate behavior in line with his age. When you bring up your child this way he will grow up to be independent and self-assured. He is curious about self-control and likes to mix around with others. 

  Dictator: You exercise your absolute power as parents and you do not encourage opinion from your child. You do not show much affection. You child will grow up to be unsatisfied, unsecured, worried, suspicious and he will not like to make friend with others.

  Independent: There are no rules at home and you don’t expect anything from your child. There are no clear guidelines for reward or punishment. You do not take the trouble to promote the spirit of self-reliance and self-supporting in your child. Your child will very much rely on others. He is unable to control himself and hesitates to act. 

 The way you rear your child will shape his or her future behavior.

“Encourage and support your kids because children are apt to live up to what you believe of them.” — Lady Bird Johnson, former First Lady of the United States

6 Virtues to Teach Our Children

There are six virtues to instill in our children so that they will grow up to be wholesome people.

1. Respect:

· Treat others the way you want to be treated.

· Be respectful to others.

· When someone is talking to you , you must listen carefully

· Do not bully or cause troubles to others.

· Do not bad-mouth or scold others

· Understand the person before you pass judgment on him

2. Trustworthiness:

· Be honest, do not tell lies.

· Be reliable, deliver what you have promised.

· Be courageous to carry out the task, though it is difficult

· Do not betray the trust of your friends in you

3. Caring:

· Treat other kindly and generously

· Help the needy.

· Sensitive to the needs of others

· Do not harm or treat others shoddily

· Think of what you do will affect others

4. Responsibilities:

· Do it when you have agreed to do so.

· Do what is expected of you and don’t expect others to do it for you.

· Think carefully before you do it. Think of the consequences.

5. Fairness:

· Allow others to have their opportunities.

· Treat others like you treat yourself

· Tell the truth.

· Follow the rules.

· Listen to others with an open mind.

· Don’t blame others for your own mistakes.

· Don’t take advantage of others.

· Do not form cliques.

· Think of what you do will affect others.

6. Citizenship:

· Do your part for the school, community so that it is a better place to live

· Play your part for the things that are happening around you.

· Look after the environment.

· Respect others.

· Be a good neighbor.

· Abide the rules of family, school and the society.

These virtues highlight the importance of character building of our children so that they can become model citizens in future.