Blogs

April 27, 2015

Should You Raise a Happy Child?

Yes and no. Here’s the thing – You want your child to be happy. But you don’t want to make them happy. The difference – When you WANT your child to be happy, that puts them in charge of their happiness. They figure out what brings them joy, they figure out what makes them smile. And as a parent, you are simply in charge of supporting them in their decisions. They learn from their mistakes, and are able to function in the outside world because of this early training. And everything you do, say, and provide will reinforce that idea. But when you want to MAKE your child happy – that puts you in the driver’s seat, but since it’s impossible to know exactly what makes another person happy – you end up buying them everything, taking them everywhere, doing everything for them. Leaving them with no skills whatsoever to […]
March 19, 2015

The Homework Dilemma

  Why should kids be given homework?  A school in New York City has recently decided not to, citing current research and thinking on the homework topic.  Is this a major news story? Yes, it has captured attention of many parents and has become the topic of discussion. Let’s first try to understand why students have been coming home with homework all these years to supplement what they had already learned during their school time.  Should children be thinking about and sharpening up or building upon ideas that they learned during school hours away from the school by doing their homework?  Most parents and educators would say yes. But, do the teachers need to give homework to students so that they can build upon what they had learned in the school? This question has been intensively investigated and its results extensively analyzed and interpreted.  According to the education experts, homework is […]
February 20, 2015

Stop Sabotaging Your Child’s Success!

A few parenting tips By Evelyn Cucchiara, Founder & Creator of  ‘The Toy Tamer’ We all want to be the best parents we can be, but some of the things we do now may be setting our children up for problems later. Here are three things you can change now to help assure your child’s future success. Photo Credit: SheKnows Blog – www.sheknows.com Honor the no. Your child has specific likes and dislikes right from the minute they are born.So do you. Unfortunately, they two don’t always match up. That’s why you have to honor your child’s no. This doesn’t mean letting them do whatever they want, whenever they want. It means that before signing them up for an activity, or dragging them off to an event, simply ask them if it interests them. Older kids can definitely tell you their likes and dislikes, younger kids tell you through their […]
January 13, 2015

Your all-in-one school and personal calendar at your fingertips

My BFF from college, Sangho who lives in Bloomingfield, MI has a child in 4th grade who is a gifted violinist and plays the orchestra in school. Sangho is a meticulous and dedicated parent, who travels the world as a senior manager for Owens Corning. She adds every event for her child’s school to her calendar, arranges playdates for him, cooks every meal in advance so he has his favorite food when he gets home. Despite all of her organizational skills, last month, her son missed the school concert. The concert was on a Tuesday in December, however due to fat fingers or a typo, Sangho had put the event on her calendar on the next day. Lo and behold, they missed the concert and she felt very guilty about it. As parents managing multiple calendars, we are sometimes overwhelmed with the sheer volume of events that are coming at us. […]