Parenting Tips

Your child is a budding mathematician — full of wonder about how the world works, noticing patterns around them, and solving problems. Parents and caregivers play an important role by helping your child learn math, even before they start school!

Change is part of life — it’s something we all have to learn to handle. But the huge shifts that have taken place in children’s worlds due to the COVID-19 pandemic are off the charts.

If you clicked on the title to read this article, you are probably feeling frustrated. Tired. Defeated. Parenting can be tough, especially after this year of parenting in a pandemic. You’ve probably already read a lot of parenting and child development articles, blogs, and books. But even with all the expert recommendations, you still feel like you’re struggling with your child’s behavior. What now?

Dinner time. New veggie. Here we go! I placed a piece of sautéed bok choy on my 4-year-old son’s plate and said, “Hmm. This is a new veggie called bok choy. I wonder what you’ll think about it.” He closely examined this suspicious veggie while sampling some more well-known items on his plate. He circled back after a few minutes and willingly tried it. On his own time. At his own pace. At his own will. After his brave bite, I followed up, “Was it crunchy? Soft?” to which he replied, “Soft. I like it.”

Grit involves sticking with something until you succeed. It's another word for perseverance or resilience, and it gives us the strength to try, try, try again. Grit supports a "growth mindset" ― a belief that our intelligence and skills can grow with effort. Kids with a growth mindset thrive on challenges, show resilience in the face of obstacles and view failure as part of the learning process. For a two-year-old, grit might look like learning how to put on shoes, use the potty or use words when they feel frustrated.

Social media is abound with messages to parents that their love and attention is all their kids need during this stressful time. These messages are no doubt intended to be empowering.

Watching a child learn to read can feel miraculous.

And for good reason: reading is an incredibly complex process that requires children to recognize shapes (letters), match these shapes with their corresponding sounds, combine these sounds into words, and then mentally pair these word with their definitions. Emerging readers must also begin to understand and apply decoding rules, pause at punctuation, and infer word meanings based on context clues.