Where do you turn when you have a problem relating to your children?
I mean a problem like dealing with bullying or helping your children to prepare for exams or maybe you want to understand more about Asperger’s?
Parents 999
The team over at Educational Quizzes has put together a toolkit of parents 999 useful resources to help you with just that. These subjects might be something you talk to your friends about, but maybe some online research is a safe place to go before reaching out to others, particularly when the subject area might be more sensitive or maybe just an area you want to know more about.
They are planning on adding a lot more content but at the moment there are 17 articles to browse through and then at the end you can take a quiz for a bit of fun or to ensure that the information has been digested.
I am particularly interested in the following articles on emotional resilience in children and children’s brain development.
Emotional Resilience
This is particularly important in our family as two of my three boys play a lot of football to a high level and they are faced with constant pressure from team mates, coaches, competitive games, school mates, parents and each other. I want my boys to grow up resilient to all challenges and to bounce back whenever things go wrong as inevitably they do.
I also want to prepare them both for the fact that what they are doing now, playing for a football academy, might end one day, and they must be able to accept that possibility and likely event happening. After all most boys in the FA youth system do not make it through to be a professional footballer.
The article is laced with useful advice and pieces of information like
Allow your child to face up to challenges and go through them. Support them with suggestions or guidance, but do not over-protect them. With every challenge they face, they will learn new strategies to deal with difficult situations that will help them in the future.
Encourage your child to be an individual and seek out like-minded friends who share the same interests. Having a support network – whether friends or family – helps to build up emotional resilience and mental wellbeing.
Celebrate the positive things your child says and does. Feed their dreams and aspirations. Do not dwell on the negatives. If something negative happens, face it head on together. Teach your child to deal with it, and then let it go.
After reading the article there is a quiz to complete if you want a bit of fun to see what you have learnt and information you have digested. I took the test and got 6/10. I loved the last question which talks about how your child should feel loved and valued.
Children’s Brain Development
This is another area I am really interested in, particularly as I see the differences between my two eldest with their learning ability at school. My eldest Dylan, has often struggled with reading and spelling, but excels at maths when Josh my middle son is more balanced and does well in all learning areas.
According to research, 80% of a child’s educational achievement is determined by parental support for learning at home.
By the age of 8 the human brain already weighs 90% of its full capacity, according to scientists’ estimates. However, although the brain might be almost fully grown in size, it has not matured and developed enough to deal with all of the pressures we all face on a daily basis.
Another really interesting article that goes on to talk about teenage brains, and that looks like a huge time of change which could be quite dramatic for our household!
Overall Impressions
I really liked the variety of subject areas discussed and the length of the articles at 999 words was just perfect. The articles are full of useful links to more information is you wish to explore further.
Some subject areas are difficult to fit into just the 999 words particularly when referencing different ages of children, e.g. the article about brain development could be split into two with pre-puberty and post puberty maybe?
Sometimes the quiz questions were difficult to reference in the text, but simply clicking on any answer will tell you the correct answer and why.
It’s a useful toolbox of information that can be used as a great point of reference when you are first considering issues or have questions.
