Category: Parents Zone

Source: Psychotherapist, Lee Wai Tong

At the age of one, children gradually learn to walk. At first, children will be very excited to explore everywhere. But gradually, they will ask adults to hold them and not be willing to walk by themselves. Parents will be feeling headaches, sometimes the child may be really tired, and sometimes they just want to be held out of a sense of affection. What can parents do when their children ask for a hug?

Some parents have mentioned to me that their children couldn’t walk when they were one year old, but they wanted to walk very much. When they learn to walk later, they especially like to walk at that time. The parents were happy that the stroller could be left at home, thinking that the child would walk in the future. However, after the children became familiar with walking, they would want to be held by their parents, and even the parents would need to take a stroller and go everywhere in the stroller.

If you don’t have a stroller, it’s a big test of the parents’ physical strength. Of course, parents want their children to walk again, and some parents say, “If you don’t walk, we won’t go out.” Parents actually want to go out with their children, have fun, and walk around, so why not set a goal with them? For example, if you go there, you will hold them, and if you go there, you will walk, and you will make this commitment before you go out. For example, when the child is just out of the lift door and says he wants to be held, we have just said that we have to go downstairs, from the entrance of the estate down to the gate, before we can hold him. We have a goal for the child; the child moves naturally downstairs to hug, and the parents promised to carry him to the gate and place the child back on the ground. 

Sometimes children would suddenly say they wanted to be hugged; parents could tell their children to walk to the other side of the light before hugging. On the one hand, we all enjoy parent-child fun, and secondly, children have a goal, know where to walk to hug, and are naturally more willing to walk a little more. Sometimes children are really tired, or the feeling of hugging is actually very intimate, so they want to hug to get the intimate feeling. So we need to let the children know that we will hug them, but there is a goal, for example, to walk there and hug them at that time, so that everyone will be happy.

Written by:Dr. Wilbert Law, an assistant professor in the psychology department at Hong Kong University of Education and a registered educational psychologist.  

How do parents react when their children coax and pamper them, ask for different things,  or play with them in a baby-like voice? Do you think children are troublesome? Or do you feel that your child is just messing around, doing nothing serious?

But why will children pamper? Research has shown that adults are particularly sensitive to the sound of pampering, so it is easier to catch their attention. It is possible that the child is pampering his parents because he needs your attention at that moment. Sometimes adults are so busy with their lives that they may neglect them, so children will pamper their parents when they see them.

Another possibility is that when children are tired or feel powerless, they may pamper or   act like babies. These behaviors are very common in the growing-up stage.

How can parents respond when their children are pampering their parents? In fact, when   we understand the possibility of our children’s pampering, we know that they are not        deliberately provoking parents, they can try to sit down and talk with their children to       understand their needs, especially if the child is pampering because he or she is tired. We  can help them express themselves with some words. For example, ask your child, “How do you feel?” “Are you very tired?” “What can I do for you?”

Of course, you may also want to reduce your child’s pampering behavior by encouraging   them more, using age-appropriate words and behaviors, and praising and affirming them  more often. When they are pampering you, do not scold or mock them.

Written by: Caritas Rehabilitation Services,Clinical Psychologist, Yu Kwok Ting

Some parents may be more impulsive and even have a habit of blaming their children for  problems such as disobedience, deliberate anger, or naughtiness. When children fail to do  what they want, they become angry with their parents, but this will gradually alienate them from their parents, which will damage the parent-child relationship in the long run.

Parents’ personalities, families of origin, and parenting methods learned in different ways  will affect parent-child relationships. And the adults’ thoughts will influence their mood. If adults find themselves in frequent conflicts with children, which affect the parent-child      relationship, we can ask ourselves three questions.

1. Whether there are other possibilities

If a child is not able to do all the homework required by his or her parents, the first thing   the parents think is that the child is just having fun and not doing homework, but the real    reason may be that they do not know how to do it and need parental guidance. If parents    take preconceived notions as facts, they may ignore the needs and difficulties of their children and damage the parent-child relationship

2. Whether one’s own thoughts have been confirmed

Some parents often say that their child is “deliberately annoyed” and then see their child’s  behavior as disobedience, but perhaps the reason for the child’s behavior is carelessness,    but the parents are influenced by their subjective feelings and misunderstand their child.

3. Are your thoughts helpful to the goal?

If a parent’s goal is to mend the parent-child relationship, but he or she often holds the idea that the child is “deliberately working against him or her,” is this thinking really helpful to his or her goal? Parents can try to find more realistic and justifiable ideas to help them achieve their goals.

Written by: Senior Parenting Specialist,Bally

When children go to school, they have to eat on their own. It is not an easy challenge to    teach children to eat well, as they have to eat attentively and refrain from playing with      food. In fact, parents only need three steps to teach their children to eat on their own.

First, parents need to teach their children to eat on their own. Parents are frequently          anxious for their children to finish their meals quickly, fearing that they will not eat and    will have to be fed by their parents. In fact, starting at 6 months of age, children should get used to using their own hands to put food in their mouths, with parents only assisting them.

Parents should let their children pick up the utensils and eat by themselves so that they do  not just get fed but also get a sense of participation and motivation to eat.

Second, help children with hand-eye coordination. Sometimes children may not be able to  hold the utensils properly because of their own hand-eye coordination issues and may be angry and not eat. Parents can use words to remind children how to move the utensils           backwards and forwards, or they can train children’s coordination skills on a daily basis so  that they can cope with the challenges of eating on their own and reduce the difficulties they encounter.

Third, give praise and encouragement. Children will inevitably encounter difficulties and   frustrations when learning to eat. If parents keep scolding, “Why is it so messy?” “Why do you eat so slowly?” Naturally, children will not be able to enjoy food and will not eat on    their own initiative for fear of being scolded when they see food.

If parents provide encouragement at this time and praise their children when they do, they will continue to be courageous and overcome the frustration of learning to eat. Parents      should also remember that when children are eating on their own, don’t clean up after them, as this will prevent them from trying to eat on their own.

In addition, parents often misunderstand that their children do not eat. In fact, children just don’t like certain dishes, and if parents force them to eat, it forms a vicious cycle.

Written by : Dr Chiu Cheung Shing

As soon as the season changes, both children and adults are susceptible to allergic rhinitis problems. For example, children may have difficulty in breathing due to allergic rhinitis, feel stuffy nose that affects their sleep quality, and have to wipe their noses all day long, and if the situation is serious, they may even suffer from sleep apnoea. 

Allergic rhinitis can be caused by both congenital and acquired factors.  Although it is difficult to cure allergic rhinitis due to congenital origin, if the acquired factors can be properly controlled, then the chance of children having the disease will be greatly reduced.

How to prevent allergic rhinitis caused by acquired factors?

Allergic rhinitis caused by acquired factors mainly include the following factors.

1. allergens at home 

2. outdoor allergens 

3. some infectious diseases

As for the home, the more dust accumulated, the more likely to induce allergic rhinitis symptoms, so parents should be not only more frequent cleaning the bed for children, but also take away some of the stuffed animals and toys, and bed sheets, quilts and pillows and other things that are easy to hide dust, you need to wash with hot water at about 60 degrees, once every 4 days to clean the best.

If the outdoor environment is dusty, parents may need to close some of the windows to keep the air flowing and to reduce dust at the same time. It is also important to reduce the chance of infection, as once children have cross-infected each other at school, any virus can also worsen allergic rhinitis

In addition to reducing exposure to allergens and infections, we can also prevent allergic rhinitis in our daily life by sleeping and waking up early, doing the right amount of exercise and eating a proper diet, which will help a lot in preventing allergic rhinitis.

Is there a chance that allergic rhinitis will not recur?

Treatment of allergic rhinitis depends on how much the condition affects the child. If the effect is mild, home care or environmental control is sufficient. However, if the condition is more severe and causes frequent discomfort, oral medication and, if necessary, aerosol nasal spray may be required to reduce the discomfort.

If all environmental factors are controlled and treated with medication, in most cases, allergic rhinitis can be successfully controlled and may not recur.

Written by : Dr Cheung Kit

Every child has his or her own characteristics. As a parent, you may not be able to tell what your child is trying to express by their expressions, behaviors and vocalizations. Take the example of a child’s reaction to dozing, the form of expression varies from 

person to person.Some may cry, some may lose their temper, some may rub their eyes, or a variety of other reactions. Among the many reactions, in my position as a doctor,

the most unwanted habit is “rubbing eyes” because this will easily cause inflammation.

Eye inflammation is not caused by unclean hands？

Interestingly, the inflammation was not due to the child’s unclean hands, but to other

causes. In this case, the inflammation was not initially caused by bacteria, but by 

a blockage of the secretory glands near the eyelashes. When the hand rubs against the 

eye, the originally open ventral outlet is disrupted by the external pressure, causing

pressure in the gland as the oil cannot be expelled, which then causes an inflammatory reaction. This inflammatory reaction is superficially the same as a normal bacterial

inflammation. The difference is that in this case, antibiotics (topical and oral) are not

effective. The correct method is to do warm compresses for your eyes, which is 

intended to open the blocked outlet and make the inflammation disappear slowly.

How to treat eye acne？

To treat an existing eye acne, besides seeing a doctor, the most basic method is to 

do warm compresses as described above. Choose a reheatable heat pack or use a lightly heated towel. Do warm compresses for 5 minutes, 3 times a day. The need for 

antibiotics is at the discretion of the doctor. However, the following principles apply.

– Whether the inflammation of the eye acne exceeds the normal case

– Is there any bacterial inflammation of the conjunctiva?

– Is the tissue around the eye red and painful?

– Whether the child is able to control his or her own eye rubbing to reduce the 

possibility of bacterial inflammation

Early treatment of ophthalmia

If the inflammation is not controlled, the swelling may not disappear on its own. In this case, surgical release of the swelling is a must. Although it may sound scary, the

procedure is actually a simple one and only requires local anaesthesia. Therefore, 

parents only need to follow the doctor’s advice and they can rest assured.

All in all, our biggest fear is not that our children’s hands are dirty, but that they keep

rubbing eyes. If the eye infection is caused by nasal allergy, eye allergy and eczema,

parents must take it seriously. Parents should feel free to use medication when they

want to, without having to worry about how long it will take and the side effects that may occur.

Written by : New Horizons Development Centre

          Registered Educational Psychologist Pang Chi Wah

A hundred years ago, illiteracy was a normal thing. But since education became widespread decades ago, it is now necessary to go to school to receive an education. Learning is not only through the direct transmission of knowledge by teachers through language, students also need to read textbooks by themselves. When doing homework or taking exams, students are tested on their concentration and speed when reading.

More than 30 years ago, the basic qualification for firefighters was graduation from the sixth grade, but today, even college graduates may not be able to get into firefighting. Modern fires do not only require firefighters to be physically fit and able to put out fires with water, but some fires are very complex and require special methods and chemicals to put out.

Reading skills are needed in all walks of life

Whether they are blue-collar or white-collar workers, they need to handle documents and files, read other people’s reports or instructions, and write their own reports. So the need to read and handle paperwork is everywhere. In the past, illiterate people could withdraw money from banks, but with modern ATMs, not only can we withdraw money, but we can also pay different fees, but our concentration and speed in reading is very much tested.

When we are adults, we have to sign many contracts, and there are many clauses in the contract, and the font size is small but quantity is large, it is also a big test of reading. Modern people often have to search for information on the Internet, which also requires the ability to read, that is, the ability to visually search for symbolic words and speed.

Nurturing children’s interest in reading

Cultivate children’s interest in reading and develop good habits. Although reading books is fine, reading newspapers is a good habit that everyone must develop, whether they are civilians or presidents and professors, they need to read newspapers regularly because this is the only way to keep up with the information of the society, to understand the changes around the world, and to master the liberal thinking.

Although there is now a very convenient TV news, as if they do not need to read, listening to TV news seems more convenient. But in fact, in addition to reading newspapers to learn the news and current events, more continuous training of the ability to deal with words and reading newspapers can be carried out at anytime and anywhere, newspapers can be said to be the textbook of the Society in general. This is everyone “to do old, learn until old,” the rule of thumb.

Let your child learn to face failure

Written by: Director of Curriculum and Training, Financial Education Association

　　　       Mr. Kwan Hin Bun

In many cases, the biggest blow to a child is not the failure itself, but his or her understanding of the failure. For example, if a child is not selected to represent the school in an inter-school competition, the usual reason they think of is that they are not as good as their classmates. But there may be other reasons behind it. Maybe the teacher is worried that if he gets hurt, he won’t be able to represent the school in other more important competitions. This is not to teach children to avoid responsibility, but sometimes we need to make them understand that it is indeed their own factors that lead to failure.

Parents need to remind their children that anyone who starts something will always have difficulty. Parents should encourage their children to persevere to the end, without taking the requirement of perfection too seriously. Don’t be impatient to provide help to your child; let them try to meet the challenge in a different way. For example, if your child has difficulty learning to write Chinese characters, let him or her copy them first.

As children, their attitudes toward people and things around them are often unstable and easily influenced by emotions and other factors. When faced with difficulties and failures, they tend to develop negative emotions and fail to deal with failures with the right attitude, thus creating resilience. At this time, parents should tell their children in time, failure is not terrible, as long as a little brave can do a good job, learn from the failure to see how to do next time. Parents should consciously use their children’s failures as educational opportunities to guide their children to regain their courage and try again with boldness and confidence. At the same time, educate your child to face difficulties and setbacks, to improve the ability to overcome difficulties and resilience.

In life, no one can remain unbeaten for a long time, like China’s “hurdle king” Liu Xiang who also lost in the London Olympics. Only those who are brave enough to face failure will have the chance to show their smiles of success again.

Parents should know how to teach their children to be brave in the face of failure, because no one is always successful in life. We understand from childhood that “failure is the mother of success”, so there is nothing to be afraid of when we face up to failure. However, if we look at our understanding of this statement, we should focus on “success” rather than “failure”, so that our recognition of failure is still conditional. When failure is no guarantee of future success, Failure, is still a shame and a sin. Therefore, parents must be clear about whether they are teaching their children to face failure or to avoid it!

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