We are good at social niceties and saying “Thank You” is a part of it. Being grateful though goes beyond it. It’s a feeling of appreciation in the heart which can be expressed outwardly in a multitude of ways. And we have a lot to be thankful for if we would take the time to count the blessings. In one…
Often as a psychiatrist I have parents coming to me with children who have temper tantrums, anger issues and other maladaptive behaviours. The main concern of the parent apart from behaviour remodelling of the child is their own conduct during the meltdowns. Parents either often give in to the demands of the child or resort to using threats to punish…
We all have wished one time or another that there was a magic wand which we could wave and make all our problems disappear. Wouldn’t it be nice to have one. Wave it over the spouse and see the anger evaporate. Wave it over the children and they become perfect embodiment of calm and respect and endowed with new skills…
Exploring reincarnation with our little ones in our weekly online Family Joy gathering was not only fun but also very expansive. We did it over two meetings. Family Joy is an offering of Ananda India Online. We used play dough to understand the concept of reincarnation. How the same play dough could be fashioned into many different objects of different shapes…
When we share about our spiritual path with children and talk about God, they can pose some difficult questions and here’s an attempt to answer one such question. ‘Where is God’ is a very frequent question asked and the oft provided answer to this question is God is everywhere. One can answer that question in multiple ways. We could tell…
As parents we all have had to face meltdowns or temper tantrums of our children. We do not want to be caught in the midst of it as most often than not it’s very disconcerting. Most of us either try to deal it with a heavy hand, cold shoulder or give in. We know neither of these are healthy responses…
As parents one of the major responsibilities we feel is to correct our children whenever they commit a mistake. We believe it’s best to correct immediately and that if we are able to correct our children they will model appropriate behaviour and be successful. Also we want to cushion them against other people’s harsh opinions. With this belief we continue…
Attention is a very powerful positive reinforcer. “What you pay attention to grows“. It’s operant conditioning. So if you are paying more attention to your child’s annoying behaviours while not praising the good ones, more such behaviours are going to manifest. Let’s understand this concept with the help of a simple example. Case Scenario: Picture this. A child playing by…
Early this year National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) invited suggestions to reduce the academic burden of the students. Students’ distress around academics and career is increasing at an alarming rate. With students’ suicide making news parents are more cautious than ever. Though we might not be directly pressurizing our children to study, we might still be building academic burden…
Internet and social media are becoming a nightmare for many parents but that need not be the case. Though this article has been written keeping in mind younger children who are being introduced to internet, the principles outlined are equally valid and helpful for all age groups. Evaluate the need critically: Don’t be in a hurry to introduce gadgets and…