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January, 2008
Teaching Your Child Good Citizenship Builds Character
Pick Your
Battles When Disciplining Your Child
Daily School
Attendance Ensures Success
A Word From the Director
Good citizens think of other people’s needs.
They have empathy and compassion. They also have the desire and
courage to make the world a better place.
Children aren’t born with
these traits. They need role models and experiences to develop them.
Teachers teach citizenship when they ask students to be polite and
follow rules, respect the rights and property of others and help
classmates do chores valuable to the classroom community. Some
schools have school-wide citizenship projects, such as recycling,
fund-raising, food drives and school beautification. Here’s how you
can be a part of developing your child’s civic spirit:
Model
caring and sharing. Offer a ride
to a parent who needs transportation to attend a school activity.
Visit an ill friend. Take cookies to the local fire or police station.
Volunteer in a soup kitchen.
Show
your child she can make a
difference. Give her household chores. Have her donate used toys and
clothes to a homeless shelter. Let her be a “surrogate grand-child”
for someone in a retirement home.
Play
board games with your
child. Emphasize perseverance and treating opponents fairly.
Read
books celebrating
community-minded qualities. In Leo Lionni’s Swimmy, for example, brave
Swimmy rights a wrong.
Talk
about how others might feel. Say,
“Maddy lost her dog. How do you think she feels?”
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Pick Your
Battles When Disciplining Your Child
Pick your
battles. If parents could pass down one piece of discipline advice,
that’s what it would probably be. Don’t get into power struggles with
your kids over every single problem. Choose what’s important. And
there are battles that are worth having. Here are four good reasons to
set limits:
To keep
your child safe. Don’t
let your child play with matches. Insist that she wear a seat belt in
cars. Make sure she uses a bike helmet. Don’t let her run into the
street.
To help
develop character.
Telling the truth is important. Calling people mean names only hurts
their feelings. You are right to set limits in those areas. You should
also teach your child not to cheat, and to respect adults (including
teachers).
To
develop responsibility.
Children need rules and responsibilities in order to grow into
productive adults.
To get
along with others.
Children need to learn to wait their turn, to say “please” and “thank
you,” and to share.
Daily
School Attendance Ensures Success
He woke up late and
there’s no way he’s getting to the bus. Would it really matter if he
went to school late - or not at all? In a word, yes. A study from the
Journal of Educational Research found that attendance makes a big
difference. Kids who are in school every day do better than those who
aren’t.
But what can
you do to make those mornings easier? How can you get your child up
and out the door, on time, every day? Here are some tips:
Start the
night before. Is
homework in the backpack? Are permission slips signed? Does he have
lunch money?
Put the
backpack by the door
your child will go out.
Lay out
clothes - down to the
socks. This one step will avoid more morning fights than anything else
you do.
Create a
to-do list of jobs that
have to be done in the morning.
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Greetings from PCN
Another year
is upon us and as we start using our new calendars, we have a chance
to clean the slate and set our priorities for the New Year. Sometimes
we get into a rut and believe we need to do something a certain way
because it has always been done “that way”. The New Year gives us
permission to make changes and take a look at the things we have made
priorities.
As a family, talk about goals
and what is important to each family member. Have your family sit
down and decide what activities are important to the family. Giving
everyone a voice brings your family together and allows for planning.
I recently found some old lists from our family’s activities and goal
setting. It was fun to look back at what we wanted to do and then
reminisce about the things we did and accomplished that year.
Remember, it is not how much we do that counts, it is whom we
are with at the time. Take time to enjoy your family and start the
New Year fresh.
As always call the PCN office if any have questions or are in need of
a resource. Enjoy your family time.
Darcy Jensen and the PCN Board
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