Ya Mallen Jagne

Most parents do not share details of their finances with their kids. This is usually because of the assumption that the child will not understand the details, will not be interested or because they simply do not find the need to get them involved. On the contrary, it is never too early for your child to understand money and how it works. Getting your child involved in the economics of your household will arm them with the very vital knowledge of how to handle money; saving, investing and reproducing. Why Is It Important to Teach Your Child About Investing? The times demand that your child grows up with an understanding of the world of finance and business. This way, they will be able to recognize and make the best use of the opportunities at large. By starting at such an early age, you can entrench the values of an entrepreneur within them. These, they will find very useful even before they are old enough to take on any serious financial venture. How then do you go about this? 1. Get Them Used to Saving First It is never too early to introduce your child to start saving. You can start with the very popular piggy bank concept - get your child familiar with the idea that if you save up enough, you can get great things with your money at the end of it. They can begin paying for certain fun items from their savings, then the child can graduate from a piggy bank to a personal savings account. 2. Teach Your Child The Basic Concepts of Investment When your child’s understanding of money grows, you may present them with a greater purpose for the money being saved; something you know they will be interested in. This might be a good time to explain concepts such as stocks, interest rates, risks and returns to your child; in a fun and simple way. Tell them about the companies you have shares in, how you got the shares and how it works. Explain it in such a way that they will be able to relate. You can give them examples of stuff in your home, which you were able to buy from the returns on your investment. It’s a good idea also, to get your child to read books and play games about investment. Monopoly is a good one. There is an endless supply of books and games online that your child can learn from. 3. Investing The next step should be Introducing your child to cool companies that you think they will be interested in. Video game companies are an example. Target companies that manufacture a product or provide a service that your child has an interest in. After your child has decided where they want to invest their savings, you can chip in and buy the shares. Teach them about tracking company performance and have fun while at it. Don’t forget to keep encouraging them to save. Before your child grows [...]

One of the problems all parents have in common is getting their kids to pick up after themselves. You must have already discovered that yelling and banging your head on the walling doesn’t work. Kicking at toys doesn’t work either. The thing is, kids are just messy. It is innate. Before anything else, you need to understand that they don’t really mean harm by messing up, they just can’t help it, it’s all the curiosity and excitement. It can be pretty frustrating but there are a few things you can do to help them help you. 1. Talk to them Try talking to your child about why they need to clean up after themselves. Make them understand that they have a responsibility to clean up. Explain how it inconveniences the both of you: “when you don’t pick up your toys after you are done, mummy has to use the time she has to spend with you, to pick it up". You can remind them of a time when they needed something but couldn’t find it because they didn’t stow it away when they were done using it. Make it a routine to remind your kid when to pick up their toys. For example; “before lunch we pick up the toys”. If you have a particular time for picking up and putting away toys, it will be easier for your child to learn. Notify your child that it will be toy packing time a few minutes before so they will mentally prepare for it. 2. Motivate them You can motivate your child to pick up their toys when they are done by rewarding them occasionally. Offer them something you know they would appreciate or find exciting, like allowing them to do something that you normally wouldn’t (provided it is safe), spending a day together at the park, a movie, a new toy etc. Your child will love to pick up a few toys for a treat but be careful not to make them feel like they should get paid to do it. 3. Competition You can actually turn toy picking into fun. You can have your kids play games like: who picks up the most toys in 10 seconds. The thought of a race and winning is exciting enough to get kids picking even without an incentive. This doesn’t only work with picking up toys, you can get your kids to help with the cleaning around the house that way too. If you have one child, you can have them compete with you - make it look like its actually taking an effort. They can also try to beat their previous record. Keep records on a board or chart somewhere in the house where your kid can see it. If you stick to this method, you will find that your kid will start clearing up after themselves without you remining them. Good Luck!

It is only natural that your child doesn’t like eating vegetables – literally. It a survival instinct picked up hundreds of thousands of years ago by your ancestors. What happened is; there was a tendency for bitter or sour tasting plants to be poisonous and the sweet, sugary ones to not be poisonous. Your great great great grandparents had to stick to the sweet tasting stuff to increase their chances of surviving. This is why kids grow up instinctively preferring sweet stuff; you learn to love the bitter and sour stuff. Next time your kid refuses to eat their vegetables, don’t take it too hard. They mostly don’t mean to be difficult. Here are a few things you can do: 1. Breastfeeding your child can actually make it easier for them to try out new food later on – like vegetables. This is because the taste of breastmilk changes according to the type of food the mum has been eating, unlike formula which tastes the same always. If its too late to breastfeed your child, no need to worry. Just read on. 2. If you ask your child to eat their vegetables once and they refuse, don’t insist. Let the conversation drift to other things and try again another day. It might take a good number of tries to get them to eat it but a back-and-forth between you and your child might get them defensive and make it a mission to not eat their broccoli. Patience is key. 3. This step will require you to have a taste of your own medicine, so if you don’t like vegetables either, brace up! Prepare a meal of vegetables that you like and eat it in front of your kid – passionately too. They will likely get curious very soon and want to try it out. Don’t disappoint them. 4. If you want your child to warm up to vegetables, you might want to start easy. Offer your child the sweeter vegetables – carrots, tomatoes, sweet peas etc. Introduce the bitter ones a bit later when your kid is more comfortable. It will help if your child feels like eating vegetables is not solely your decision. Get them involved. You can ask your child what vegetables they would want to try and/or how they want it prepared. You can make it exciting by making special shapes or pictures from the vegetables, or even creating stories. They can help you get the food prepared. If you have enough space for a little vegetable garden in your house, you can start one. Get your child to work on it with you – turning beds, planting seedlings, watering, harvesting, and eating. You kid will like the idea of “eating the fruits of your labor”. So, next time your kid acts up about eating vegetables, don’t let it bother you too much. You have a few tricks up your sleeve to get them to do it without resorting to a fight.

Tablets and phones have taken the place of TV as a way of keeping children distracted and out of your way. Recently, a survey has shown that 1 in 3 children use an iPad even before they are able to speak. Quite an effective way to keep them quiet, until they get hooked and you can’t get them to do anything else. It is absolutely devastating. This article will help you recognize the early indicators of addiction before it is too late and also to provide you with ways to help your child get over the addiction. These have a significant impact on the mental health of young people. Including a potential to affect their sleeping habits. It can be rightly said that today’s playground is virtual, given the significant part gadgets and the internet play in the lives of this generation. Perhaps, a lot of parents are yet to grasp the extent to which these gadgets, the internet, and social media influence the lives of their kids. At a point, technology and media begin to have more influence over your child than you or anyone else does. When it reaches this extent, taking the gadget away from your child will cause them severe distress. When you notice this happening, then you know that it is time to take the matter very seriously and do something about it. Children who are not addicted to their iPad may get excited by a variety of other activities. Children who are addicted or are on the verge of addiction will display signs of distress and agitation when their device is taken from them. In this way, you will know that your child has an unhealthy dependence on their device. The effects are not only limited to agitation and distress, and will also be reflected in other aspects of the child’s behavior including their eating habits, sleeping pattern, and interaction with peers. Identifying The Signs 1. Lack Of Interest In Other Activities One major sign that your child is addicted to their device is their total lack of interest in any other activity. As a parent trying to get your child to do fun stuff, especially outdoor activities such as playing at the park or going to the movies, you will notice reluctance on the part of your child. As the addiction deepens, the child’s behavior will shift from mere reluctance to outright refusal. It will become increasingly harder to tear them away from the device and if you succeed, it won’t last long at all. 2. Constantly Talking About Or Getting Distracted By Technology Your child will talk about their device all the time and will talk with notable eagerness about things related to the device. It could be games, social media, chats etc. There is always something to talk about regarding their iPad. One sign to look for is that your child is always eager to get back to their device, no matter what it is they are doing. If it is switched off, [...]

Sometimes it happens that our child appears shy, reserved, perhaps even anti-social. It can be quite frustrating having to deal with this and if not handled with caution, it might damage your relationship with your child and cause them to withdraw further. It may be that your child is naturally shy and would prefer the comfortable fortress of solitude. They might see social interactions as awkward and burdensome and would rather avoid it. This might change as they grow older. On the contrary, your child might be battling more complex issues and might need help to get past them. There are different reasons why your child might clam up that are beyond ordinary shyness, it is important that you are able to identify the situation your child falls under. This article will focus on Selective Mutism. Shyness or Selective Mutism 1. How to tell the difference Is your child naturally bubbly at home or with close family? Does your child remain bubbly and open when out of this safe space or within a larger straighter circle? If they grow a bit quieter, that might be pretty normal. What isn’t normal is if they switch off completely and become unresponsive. This is a sign of selective mutism.  Selective mutism is easily misunderstood and often misdiagnosed, but if detected early it can be solved before it causes too much trouble. According to child psychologist Kristen Eastman, Psy.D, children who suffer from selective mutism are often mistaken to be deliberately defiant or shy and it is generally expected that they will grow out of it. This is hardly the case. Selective Mutism is rooted in anxiety and a sort of underlying fear of “doing-it-wrong”. You child would fear to speak among classmates, grown-ups or any circle where there are other persons besides immediate family. This will generally impede their ability to function, in school and outside. Children who are merely shy can be coaxed into action, children with selective mutism cannot. How To Recognize Selective Mutism A child with selective mutism can typically be identified by an inability to communicate in certain social settings like school but is comfortable interacting with immediate family or really close circles, like home. Although not gender specific, it has been observed that little girls are more susceptible to selective mutism than little boys. It is only most notable when your child ventures outside the confines of the home and into larger circles like pre-school. Children with selective mutism battle extreme anxiety at the thought of doing the simplest of things, like saying hello, asking a question or even letting an adult know if they are in pain or uncomfortable. They could rightly be described as frozen, characterized by the inability to neither initiate nor respond when approached. This makes it difficult for the people around them to cope with them or help. Other signs of Selective Mutism may vary from child to child and may be more or less extreme. In the extreme case, a child will only [...]

In this digital age, with so many available internet-based entertainment options, parents find it increasingly difficult to groom their kids into embracing reading. Young ones are most likely to be stirred towards video games, comic books, movies and other similar means of entertainment. This is quite despairing but there is hope for your child! The internet and digital revolution can actually be an opportunity to promote reading in your household. This article is meant to help you help your child get into reading and it doesn’t only have to be digitalized material. The smell of new books and the sound of turning pages is just too beautiful to give up on! Why Reading is Important for Your Child Encouraging children to read creates a world of opportunities for growth, communication skills, creativity, critical thinking, compassion, intellectual capacity and an invaluable understanding of worldly concepts. These valuables gathered by your child will not only be useful in their young age, it will serve them all the way through to adulthood and greatly impact all stages of their education as well as their careers and general day to day activities and interactions. Here are two things to consider: 1. Communication Skills Children build communication skills by engaging in reading activities. Gradually, a child will grow the ability to eloquently and clearly, with accurate descriptions, express their thoughts in words. This greatly helps their social interactions and will be seen to reflect in all activities including those at schools. You child becomes expressive and very confident. 2. Creativity What is even more exciting is how reading affects your child’s imagination and consequentially their creativity. Reading opens a world of possibilities. Through books, children gather information and experiences from people and places far removed from their everyday existence. This gives them a glimpse of the diversity of the world and the many different world views, lifestyles, people and forms of existence that make the world what is, stretching your child’s minds and helping them understand the idea that one is only limited by one’s imagination. Different Genres And How They Affect Your Child Different genres of books each have a part to play in molding your child, for instance, Mystery stirs your child’s problem-solving faculties, develops their analytical skills and intelligence, teaches the concept of cause and effect as well as conflict resolution. Being able to put together pieces of the puzzle, connect the dots and know what to look for definitely helps your child years after the last page of the book has been turned over. Adventure sparks curiosity and a love of exploration and discovery in your child’s heart and mind. It greatly colors your child’s life and allows them to create stories of everyday things, people, and events. What’s even more wonderful is that while your child is experiencing the thrill of an adventure in the depths of the Makazumba jungle or fighting a battle on the back of a white mammoth, they get to learn an endless list of new things [...]

Like every other parent, you probably think your child is special too. Not to say they are not, but there are certain things that are natural of a child. Habits, as lying or whining and being difficult, will be traits you will find in your child, varying in degrees according to the age or growth stage of your child. Do not be surprised or alarmed if you find out your dear child has been deceiving you far more frequently than you would ever think. If you observe your baby’s behavior, even at an infant stage, you will find that deception is a constant part of their daily routine. Little babies will do all in their power to earn the undivided attention of their parent, that is what all the seemingly uncalled-for wailing is about. During the toddler stages, your child can be observed to do things such as fake crying, pretending that they had eaten their food, or that they are injured or straight out lie about not eating the candy. If There Are Rules, There Will Be Deception So long as there are rules for your kid to follow, there will be moments of deception. This is because as soon as your child is old enough to understand and abide by the rules, they will break the rules at some points. Quite frequently sometimes, and to keep themselves from getting in trouble, they may tell lies. This may be as early as to three years. At this point it easy to know when they are lying. When the hit 5, they might be able to lie to you successfully. This information is to establish that lying is a normal part of growing up and although you must discourage the habit, you shouldn’t be too worried about it at that stage. You Might Be Teaching Your Kid To Lie The environment that your child spends time in, such as the home, may determine how much they lie. Your child may lie a lot and unnecessarily because they think it is okay and no trouble at all to lie. As parents, we find that we do lie to our kids sometimes or make them lie on our behalf. An example is when the child asks difficult questions that we feel the answer will be inappropriate or damaging to them and when we ask them to tell the person on the phone that we are busy when we are not. The former is understandable, given that the child discovers that answer as they grow older and more suited to. The latter might send to your child the picture that it is okay to lie. It will be wise to avoid lying to your child or making them lie on your behalf unless it is absolutely necessary. Considering the fact that it is highly likely to be impossible to keep your child from lying, you may be able to avoid creating situations where they would have to lie to keep them from developing [...]