Play board games to stimulate an interest in learning. Not only are they tons of fun, but they help your child develop his reading skills and practice following rules.

     A family day at the museum, library, or other stimulating place will encourage your child to be interested in his environment and take a hands-on approach to learning. Ask your child questions about the artwork he sees at museums, such as “Why do you think the painter chose this color?”

     Volunteer at your child’s school whenever possible. You can go along on field trips, help decorate for class parties, or read to the class. This will show that you care about your child’s schooling enough to go to his school yourself.

     Finally, make sit-down dinners a regular part of your family’s evening, turning off the TV and cell phones so you can sit and talk without distractions. Take advantage of this time to show a genuine interest in your child’s schooling and in academic subjects in general. Ask him lots of questions, tell him funny anecdotes about when you were in school, or tell him what you thought of the book he’s reading in his literature class when you read it in high school yourself. This gets across the important message that learning is important, one of the most valuable lessons you’ll teach your child and which will help ensure his success in all his future endeavors.

Describe of a new good friend for Danny the Dragon and his traveling companion Skipper. The lucky winner will receive a free Danny The Dragon gift basket full of great stuff! Just go to the bottom of this page and enter your ideas.

PARENT’S January 2010 CONTEST details:

Submit your comments sharing what you like best about this Danny website and why. I’d really like to know actually. One lucky winner a month and this month is an autographed book.

Who will the lucky winners be? I hope it’s YOU!

Tina

by reseacher and writer Robert Bell.

I thought I’d share this with all of you

It’s time for dinner and you’ve called to your children three times so far to turn off the TV and come to the table to eat.  You start using threats of coming into the living room yourself to turn off the television, to ban TV for the rest of the night, or to eat their dinners for them, but they still don’t come. Sound familiar?

But aren’t kids supposed to have problems listening to their parents? Aren’t they, after all, just kids?  I asked children’s author, researcher, and humanitarian Tina Turbin, author of the Danny the Dragon children’s series and mother of three grown children, about getting kids to listen. “Teaching kids to listen can be a process, but in the end it’s entirely possible to have kids who listen to you, and in fact, this is actually how things should be,” Tina says.

Danny the Dragon Meets Jimmy, the first book of the acclaimed children’s series is celebrated not only for its engaging story and captivating illustrations, but it’s praised by parents and critics everywhere for the way it demonstrates important family values such as treating others how one wants to be treated, family togetherness, and helping each other. Jimmy’s family, blessed with the magical meeting of Danny the Dragon, is truly an ideal family. Clearly, it is a family in which the children listen to their parents.

Tina says that such a family isn’t just something you find in imaginative storybooks, but it can be the stuff of reality. “It was a challenge sometimes, but our kids listened to us.” How do you get your kids to listen to you? Tina offers some tips to parents who are anxious to find out.

First of all, maintain eye contact, looking at your child when you talk to him, Tina says. Talking over his shoulder while he watches TV or calling to him from another room is not conducive to communicating effectively. Turn off the TV for a minute and kneel down to your child’s level so that you’re facing each other, Tina advises, and then go ahead and talk to him. “A hundred percent of the time, he’ll understand you much better,” she says.

Be realistic in what you’re asking him to do. “Sometimes I see parents who ask their children to do age-inappropriate things that they’re just not yet capable of, and it overwhelms them,” Tina says. For instance, your child may have trouble folding his clothes, but he may be able to match socks together and fold them. Parents also expect their children to sit still in public places for hours at a time, but children are children and need to get out and run around. Instead of ordering your young kids to do the impossible task of staying silent and still at the bank, drop them off somewhere more kid-friendly. You may just be asking too much of them.

Related to this is that you can’t realistically expect your children to listen effectively and do what you say when they’re hungry or tired. How do you get along when you’re starving or after a poor night’s sleep? If you suspect your kid is hungry, get him a high-protein snack to give him a blood sugar boost, and then go ahead and repeat your demands. He’ll be far more likely to listen, Tina says.

Next, when you offer your child choices, only give him one or two at a time because too many choices can overwhelm him. Instead of asking, “What do you want to do?” ask “Would you rather help with the laundry or set the table?”

“It’s important to be clear and give as many specifics as possible to help your child understand what you’re looking for,” Tina says. It’s not enough sometimes to just say, “Set the table.” Tell them that in the next ten minutes, for example, the table needs to be set with plates, glasses, silverware, and cloth napkins.

Set a good example in your own listening. When your child tells you something, listen to him and show that you understood him.  “Sometimes I notice that parents will walk away in the middle of listening to their children to do something ‘more important’ or they won’t give any sign of having listened,” Tina says. Children are watching their parents all the time, absorbing what they see into their own behavior patterns. If you want your children to be respectful and listen, show them how you listen to others yourself.

Finally, be positive and supportive when your children do what you want. “When they do listen, say thank you or tell them they did a good job.” Aim to give your child at least one compliment on a daily basis, even if what he did didn’t go exactly as planned. “You’ll get more of what you support with positive remarks.”

Developing listening skills in your children isn’t usually an overnight task, but by following these tips Tina has to offer, you’ll find that soon there will be a recognizable change in how your kids respond to what you say, and perhaps your own family will begin to take the form of the ideal family in Tina’s Danny the Dragon children’s series.

As an author, researcher, and humanitarian, I am often approached by parents about a variety of issues. One topic that never ceases to come up is family issues such as how to promote family togetherness. As a family advocate and mother of three grown children, I speak from experience when I tell them that cutting down on or eliminating TV is the first step in strengthening the family. At first this may seem like a daunting task, but with a few simple tips, parents find it’s much easier than they suspected it would be.

First of all, there is the matter of reducing the amount of TV your family watches to just a few shows a week. In order to do this, I recommend a family meeting to discuss your goals as a family and as individuals. Then take an honest look at what everyone is getting out of television. Unless someone is a professional television critic in your family, chances are good that everyone will agree that they should watch less TV and spend more time pursuing their own goals. With a meeting like this, your kids and spouse will be much more likely to go along with their new lifestyle of less TV because they’ll understand the reason behind it.

I highly recommend implementing a service such as TiVo ® to help keep TV watching to a minimum. After deciding on the reasons for watching less TV, each family member can decide on a handful of shows to watch together as a family, plus a personal favorite or two. These will be the shows that you’ll record with TiVo ® and watch only during designated watching times—Friday nights or Sunday afternoons, for example. These should be shows that are entertaining and also enriching in some way. They don’t necessarily have to be historical documentaries, but avoid the shows which might be properly called “garbage.”

How do you stick to this reduced TV watching schedule? The best way is to come up with stimulating alternatives. Take the kids to the library or play board games. Have larger, longer family dinners at the table. Keeping everyone busy will get their minds off this missing element in their lives. I highly recommend using this time to get the kids to strengthen their reading skills and develop a strong interest in reading. Depending on their ages, read to them or have them read to you. Soon you might find that your family—gasp!—may prefer reading over watching TV.

I always recommend to parents the importance of setting a good example. If you want the kids to see how much fun reading can be, let them catch you in the middle of a book. If you want the kids to appreciate family togetherness, turn off your cell phone during family time. By diving enthusiastically yourself into activities besides watching television, you will influence your kids to do the same more powerfully than any words could.

There are so many reasons to dramatically cut down on television or to cut it out altogether. You’ll find in the end that your children will be much more likely to become avid readers and, as a result, perform better in school and in life. Instead of acting out the drama and degradation on popular TV, your kids will demonstrate the values you seek to pass on to them. You’ll also find your own productivity will increase, and oftentimes, a marriage will be sparked back to life by eliminating television. It may be a challenge at first to get used to your new lifestyle, but soon the benefits will be so rewarding that you’ll be too busy enjoying your higher quality of life that you won’t even think about the absence of television in it.