April 28, 2014

Top 10 Highlights of April 2014

Dominique Parenting and Kids, Thoughts Monday Listicles

Tiger Girl and Me at Philips Disney Nightlight Launch

April marks the start of Spring. The change of season where flowers start to bloom and animals come out of hibernation.

A white rose

1) Roses and Cactus are both plants which have prickly thorns. One however is more long lasting then the other even though it may not be so eye catching at the first glance.

Yellow and Purple Orchid

2) If single color flowers are not captivating enough how about looking at duo-color flowers instead.

Our Food Pyramid

3) Besides featuring flowers I also talked about how our family has been embarking on our journey in healthy living. In the quest of increasing our vitality levels I have altered our approach to what we eat the amount of each food group which is consumed. We haven’t been eating enough vegetables and have been taking in too much meats and dairies. All this has been altered now.

Doggie boy posing for the camera

4) Dealing with a struggling learner hasn’t been easy as the traditional ways of teaching will not derive the desired results. One needs a lot of patience and innovation to ensure that the child understands what is being taught. There are many different steps and constant revision needed for a concept to be understood completely.

Cheeky looking Tiger Girl

5) Having a Strong Willed Child has been a challenge for me. Dealing with her certainly keeps me on my toes as I have to constantly think of how to outsmart her.

Our new wedding bands

6) We recently purchased new wedding bands after thirteen years. It was a renewal of our wedding vows in lead up to our 13th Wedding anniversary next month.

Tiger girl and me

7) Kids really say the darnest things. They do not have any self censorship and really speak what they feel. It can be quite embarrassing hearing the words from their mouths.

8) I managed to read two books this month. Vibrant Living and We’ll always have Paris. Travelling with the kids and living a healthy life are topics which I am interested in. I do hope in future I will be able to go on one on one trips with each kid.

Stone Reptile

9) There has been quite a bit of Crocodile talk on the blog with my memories on how it was like in my primary school. Those were the days where it was quite common to have reptiles in enclosures in school.

10) Tiger girl went for her first pajamas party when we were invited to view Philips new range of Disney inspired nightlights. She can’t wait to test out their new range and hopefully she be able to get the nightlight in her favourite Disney character.

How has your April been?

April 24, 2014

Dealing with a Strong Willed Child – Part 1

Dominique Parenting and Kids, Parenting Views less stress, Parenting, Series

Tiger girl posing for the picture

Strong Willed Children are commonly defined by having the following characteristics. They are known to be demanding, insistent, stubborn , difficult and even rebellious.

Handling a strong willed child can be a real challenge for parents. They are typically highly creative and intelligent and you really need to “burn many brain cells” trying to come up with more ingenious ideas to be able to reason with them so that they see your point of view.

Monkey boy is and overachiever while Doggie boy is a struggling learner. Tiger girl ,on the other hand, is totally different from her brothers. She has been even more challenging to deal with an is an extremely strong willed child as compared to them.

Tiger girl, being the 3rd born and a girl, is growing up faster then her brothers. I put it down to the fact that girls mature faster then boys and having two older brothers gives her ample opportunity to build up her social skills.

Having older siblings can be good but unfortunately this also means that she picks up both the good and bad from them. ( If only there is a fairy wand to wish away all the bad habits that she picked up from them it would certainly be neat!!)

Tiger girl has always had a clear idea of what she wants and goes all out to get it. She is very vocal and expressive which makes it easier for her to be understood.

She is not one to budge once she has made her decision. She may scream, shout and cry if she doesn’t get her way and it is really trying to reason with this three year old.

She can be nice as an angel one moment and in a split second turn into a shrieking hyena once she finds that the odds in the particular situation is not to her favour.

Tiger girl can kick up a fuss and complain like a drama queen for at least an hour or so if I let her be. It can be really frustrating dealing with her and trying not to give in to her wimps and fancies when you are pressed for time or have other impending issues to handle.

In the next part of this post I will be sharing with you the different techniques I have used to rein in this strong willed child of mine while at the same time giving her the space to develop at her own pace.