Rather than fear this question, the best way to face this inevitability is to prepare for it.  In fact, prepare for it well in advance so that you won’t be as flustered when they ask.  Remember, your child will learn from what you say, as much as from how you say it.  

Look around you.  Sexual influences are everywhere:  TV, billboards, magazines.  Your child’s friends must be talking about it too.  Would you rather have your child learn about sex from those influences or from you?

The first question about where babies come from can turn up in the preschool years.  Don’t be alarmed!  This isn’t even about intimacy yet.  Your child’s curiosity about this is as natural as his curiosity about where the sun goes at night.  At this age, you can satisfy the question with a simple explanation.  Because daddies and mommies have so much love for each other, they want to share their love with a baby of their own.  Then be creative about the biological part .  Remember, your child is young and all s/he needs is a story.  However simple, keep it as accurate as possible though, because you’ll build on this story as your child gets older.  The concept of a seed is a good analogy for kids of this age to understand.

In a couple of years, the question may come up again.  Only you as the parent can decide if your child is emotionally ready for more proper terms.  (If you are describing anatomical parts be sure to use the real words like penis and vagina otherwise it can create a lot of confusion for the child. ) If he/she is ready for the proper terms, then build on your earlier story and incorporate the concept of sperm from daddy meeting up with the egg in mommy (the “seed” from before) to help it grow into a baby.   That straight-forward answer is enough for now.  Then, add the story of how the baby grows for nine months in the mommy’s tummy.  Your child’s fascination with the different growth stages of the baby in-utero should keep him sated for now.

Soon, your child will be in that interesting stage called the preteen years.   From the ages of nine through 12, you’ll notice that your child has some added dimensions to their reasoning and logic skills.  With their burgeoning independence, they’ll also be more exposed to the world around them.  Whether s/he tells you or not, you can be sure that s/he’s absorbing many of the influences around.  Be it in school, through the media or because of technology, they’re learning much more than just what you teach them at home.

This time it may be your turn to initiate the subject of sex.  Time may come when they’ll ask you questions again, but your instinct will tell you if you need to wait for that time or not.  Your child is entering puberty.  If you have a daughter, she could get her first period anytime.  You can assume that your child is hearing about sex elsewhere, so take the initiative to provide correct information.   

Again it is your discretion as parent as to what to say exactly, and how much to explain.  This may be a more serious talk than those in the past.  I will not attempt to dictate a spiel, because your family history, your family values and your child’s environment all factor into the content of your talk.  In any case, set an open atmosphere where they’ll feel safe to ask you questions.  It’s important to find out what s/he knows and how much they know.  You need not tell them more than they are asking but it may be time to explain more.  Especially important, straighten out any incorrect assumptions s/he may have.

In the end, there will not be just one ‘sex talk’.  As your preteen gets older, new questions will crop up.  With each new dialog, be sure to underline the values you’d like your child to uphold.  

If you prepare well and keep all this in mind, the dreaded ‘sex talk’ won’t be as dreaded anymore.  Instead it will be a golden opportunity to build a stronger and healthier relationship with your child and a stronger chance of your child acting within the ethics you teach him or her.

Here are some more pages for you to learn even more.

http://www.webmd.com/sex-relationships/guide/talking-to-your-kids-about-sex

Books for talking to your kids about sex.

“The arts provide a more comprehensive and insightful education because they invite students to explore the emotional, intuituve, and irrational aspects of life that science is hard pressed to explain. ”   - Charles Fowler

There is a good article from the A R Valley Arts Center about the importance of arts in education with references to research that backs it up.  It starts out with…

One of the most important aspects of art shows in the results of extensive studies that have proven that students who participate in the arts score higher on SAT tests regardless of socio-economic status. (1)  

Art programs targeted toward very young children help prevent negative choices later on. Young children who participate in after-school arts programs have shown a decrease in negative behaviors and increases in attention span, commitment and tolerance. (4)

Check out the rest of the article here. http://www.arvartscenter.org/education.htm

More and more evidence is being found that for children (and consequently adults) to increase their academic success as well as a whole range of other good skills, it is vital for them to learn and participate in arts and music.  

Does your child learn and practice art and music?  What can you and your local schools and politicians do about that?

Here are some videos talking about the importance of art and music in education.  Make sure your government reps are taking steps to truly educate your children in public school.

Have some fun on the web with art.  This blog post lists several fun sites for exploring art.
http://blog.discoveryeducation.com/kbosch/2009/04/06/eight-great-interactive-sites-that-let-you-paint-like-a-famous-artist/

“Art doesn’t transform. It just plain forms.”
Roy Lichtenstein

The spring term which runs from January and usually ends around the end of March is the term during which many schools will find that their pupils make the most progress. The spring term has fewer distractions than the autumn and the summer term. The pupils have adapted to a new year group and possibly a new teacher. There are usually no major drama productions and exams and tests are often held towards the end of the spring term or start of the summer term. If you are contemplating your child having extra maths tuition then this is the time to start finding a maths tutor.

In the month of May, SATs or ‘Standard Assessment Tests’ take place for children in Year 2 and Year 6. The approaching SAT tests are a strong incentive for many parents to go in search of a maths tutor as the early months of the year leave enough time to make meaningful progress before the tests. Working on a one-to-one basis is highly beneficial and your child will experience a useful boost in confidence through conducting revision activities in this way.

January is also a good time to start lessons with a maths tutor if your child is in year 5 and is having some difficulty with maths. This will give the maths tutor time to make accurate assessments and to see where any problems may lie and to find out what gaps there are in their mathematical understanding. This will give the maths tutor enough time to make a real difference to the level achieved at the end of Year 6.

When you start looking for a maths tutor you need to be aware of their qualifications – not just in maths but also their teaching qualifications. Very often someone who is highly qualified in their subject may not be able to appreciate the problems that others have in grasping concepts that seem so straightforward to them. A good maths tutor will be able to appreciate the difficulties that their pupils may have and will use different methods to explain various different concepts. Primary aged children in particular will need to have visual, practical and animated resources to help them understand and apply concepts.

A skilled maths tutor will have many resources available. The National Curriculum has objectives that have to be taught but how this is done is up to the tutor. Lively and inspirational teaching will involve using computer programs and will involve a fun, challenging and competitive aspect to the teaching. One of the first tasks a maths tutor will carry out is an assessment to see the level their pupils are working at. This does not have to be done in a test-like environment and an enlightened maths tutor will even make assessments fun.

The maths tutor should discuss with you how your child’s maths age compares with their actual age in each area. Using the results of the assessment the maths tutor may well produce a personalised tutoring programme designed to fit your child’s ability, needs and learning style rather than their age. The programme will give your child extra care and attention in weaker areas, plus constant encouragement and positive reinforcement in stronger ones, accelerating their pace of learning.

After a few lessons, you, your child and your maths tutor will see that self confidence in your child’s maths has developed. The maths tutor will continually assess the progress being made and will adjust the lessons appropriately. Progress in all areas of maths will continue to develop and their confidence in applying concepts in maths lessons at school will soon be recognised.

Small classes are preferable rather than big unfriendly ones since dance is a very individual thing. It is essential to find a school that is not simply there for a profit but the success of each student. Try to find school that offer small classes of around six to twelve students per class.

Small children, especially, can soon disappear in the crowd. They may even feel a bit crowded and not want t attend class anymore. Small classes tend to build a really good environment that is conducive to learning. When they need to ask for advice there isn’t a lot of competition to be heard and there’s still enough individuals to create a dynamic.

For a creative art like dance it is vital for a student to be able to take advantage of one on one instruction. This is because everyone is different and will have their own creativity to give to a class. Having a personal dance trainer is not usually feasible, as it is fairly expensive and many dance routines require a group setting. However some individual coaching is a good option within the group atmosphere.

The reasons for individual dance instruction are just as interesting to examine. There are many reasons why a young student might need an individual coach.

Extra help:

Anyone who has ever fallen behind at school will know how easy it is to occur. For whatever reason, many young dancers find that there is a time when they can’t quite grasp a move or even a series of moves. For this situation, individual training will quickly get the child back on track without suffering the embarrassment of not knowing the routine at recital time.

A Special Performance:

Some live performances require that a child perform on their own. Sometimes some individual coaching is essential to get the result everyone really wants. An individual coach might mean an extra day or just some extra time before and after each normal class.

Learns at a different pace from the rest of the class:

Each person will learn at their own speed. A good teacher will adjust the speed of the class to go well with the average learning ability. Several children may perhaps learn faster and others slower than the average pace. As a result the teacher will give these children a little individual attention. When children learn slower it does not indicate that they are not good dancers, with some help they will in a little while be up with the rest of the class.

With these points in mind you will be able to look for a school that offers individual teaching in a group setting. This will help to take care of any special needs your child may have to progress in their dance lessons.

So far this book is very good.
Here are a few of the sites listed inside.

http://www.Crayola.com/kids

http://www.LearningPlanet.com/stu/kids0.asp Excellent fun learning games for kids

http://www.cbyc.com Cooking by Computer – Great tasting easy to prepare recipes for kids

They have sites about:

Entertainment

Gadgets and Gizmos

Sport

Games to Play

Things to do on rainy day &

Homework helper

Tons of stuff that I’m excited to check out with our kids.  If you want it yourself check it out at your local bookstore or library.  Or you can get it new or used at Amazon.com

In every class you will find children displaying this phenomenon.

There are many children who struggle with reading, while being evidently bright and hard working.

Initially everything can seem OK. But, while other children’s reading progresses steadily, these children will hit a plateau at around 6. As the text they are expected to read gets more complicated, they will get more and more confused, often guessing wildly.

In the end their reading will go into reverse as their confidence implodes. They can feel the worry of their teacher and parents, but don’t know what to do.

These children will often be labelled dyslexic. But that is quite wrong.

Dyslexia suggests there is some underlying problem that cannot be overcome.

But these children have no real reason not to be able to read. They are just approaching it in the wrong way.

Let me explain what’s happening.

A very visual child will find the alphabet easy to memorise. Then the first words they are show they will memorise as well. Everyone praises their progress and as far as they know, they are reading. The early reader books feed into this by using a very limited vocabulary that repeats a lot.

So all seems well.

But this approach implodes on them as the text gets more complicated. Some children will be able to switch to decoding words phonetically, because they also have a strong natural auditory ability. They can see how the sounds within the speech relate to the text.

Others cannot make the switch without careful instruction. Their auditory perception just isn’t up to hearing the phonic structure of the words.

And these are the children that get stuck.

You will see them guessing wildly, just using the context and the first letter of the word.

They find themselves down a cul-de-sac and don’t know the way out. At the same time they can feel how worried their teacher and parents are, but can’t do any more than they already are.

Without expert guidance, these children will become part of the 20% who still cannot read properly by the age of 11. Their academic career and earning potential for the rest of their lives hangs in the balance at this moment.

And what a tragedy. We routinely watch them become confident readers in just a few weeks. They only need to be guided back onto the right path.

The label dyslexic is very dangerous. It lets everyone off the hook of actually finding a solution. And still consigns the child to a lower and tougher track through life.

When you decide to homeschool your child, you are committing to taking charge of your child’s education. There are many amazing benefits to homeschooling, but the responsibility and time commitment is significant as well. You probably need to spend a good amount of time planning lessons and units. A great way to end a unit is with a project. Projects help children sum up, review and implement everything they have learned.

Here’s an example of how to organize a project with your child. Let’s assume you’ve just finished a biology unit, a great week long project might be to create an ecosystem in an aquarium. The goal will be to create an environment that can be self-sufficient in the sealed aquarium. While learning about the different cycles of nature, encourage your child to think of the most efficient way to create the ecosystem. Your child can think of ways that nature is efficient and try to mimic these characteristics to create a sustainable and efficient environment.

Let’s look at one example of how to set and implement a project. If you’ve been working on a biology unit, a good project idea is to create an ecosystem in an aquarium. The goal is to create an environment that can be self-sufficient in the sealed aquarium. While learning about nature’s different cycles, encourage your child to consider the most effective way to create an ecosystem. After your child has hatched a plan and spent some time laying out the details in terms of materials, methods and so on, go to the store to buy the required project materials.

After your child is done detailing the plan, it’s time to gather the supplies. You child should have a list of supplies needed to put together the ecosystem. You can offer your child some assistance in setting up the aquarium but allow your child to do as much of the work on their own as possible. It much more useful for a child’s self-esteem to end up with a mediocre project they created all on their own, than to end up with a tidy and well done project that they know required someone else’s skills to pull off.

Projects can also be a great way to involve the entire family in a child’s education. The ecosystem your child creates, for example, could be placed in the kitchen or family room where all family members can observe and enjoy it. You can have your child present the project to the other family members and even hold a question and answer session. This will surely create a sense of pride in your child and help create positive feelings about his/her education. If your child attends public school, then chances are you only get to see their project when it all done. Homeschooling parents have the advantage of admiring and encouraging their child during every step of the way.

Another super advantage to homeschooling is that you are not limited by the practicalities necessary in a public school. Project ideas are only limited by you and your child’s imagination. For every unit, encourage your child to list ideas for long term project that will help solidify the knowledge they have acquired in a particular unit. Allowing your children to choose their own project ideas will not only enhance their creativity, it will also make them feel like they have a say in their education. This will do wonders for their motivation and enthusiasm.

Self-esteem is the foundation of how a person acts, thinks and feels about the world and themselves.

Self-esteem is also a key to feeling competent and in control. Good self-esteem can impact future and present success in all area of life. Our self esteem is formed by our primary relationships as children, and our very first relationships may indicate how we feel about ourselves for the rest of our lives.

Even though our later relationships with our peers and other adults may impact our self-esteem, the most important thing parents can do is to allow a child to feel as though they can be themselves in an emotionally and physically safe environment.

A child’s self-esteem is based on a positive relationship with parents and eventually teachers. Parents can foster that can-do attitude in their children with a “Wow!” or a “That’s great!” every time they accomplish a feat.

However, positive comments are not the sole builders of self-esteem. Providing a warm, loving, and caring environment is just as important. Children who are shown a lot of affection can still suffer low self-esteem because they feel inadequate or unaccomplished. On the flip side, confident and joyful children can have low self-esteem if they are not loved. A child must experience a balance of both love and confidence to have high self-esteem.

Giving constructive communication, positive messages, and carefully delivering criticism will lead to good self-esteem. Use these tips to improve a child’s self-perceptions.

1. Limit the “Don’ts” to the barest minimum. State your requests positively. Too many negative words in your sentences will only lead to a child’s self doubt.

2. Allow a child to finish their own sentence Children begin to feel unimportant if you are always putting words into their mouth. Let them finish what they’re trying to say without interruption.

3. Give eye contact Kids want attention. When you look a child right in the eye, they know you are listening. It gives them the idea that you are interested in what they have to say, even if you aren’t.

4. Make sure you have conversations One person shouldn’t do all the talking. Likewise, kids must learn only one person should talk at a time. Everyone can’t speak at once. Make sure they know that if more than one person is trying to talk, they won’t understand a thing.

5. Speak calmly, and keep irritation and a critical tone out of your voice A calm voice keeps a child from panicking. Use words that the child will comprehend. Let kids know what they need to do, and why or why not they should do something.

6. Don’t be afraid to discipline. If you child misbehaves, tell them in a simple way they understand that the behavior is unacceptable, and explain what behavior you expect.

Here’s the issue: how to be sure your kids are safe from viewing objectionable sites when they are searching the Internet. After all, you don’t want them to stumble across something they should not see.

I bet you would like to find a program you could buy that you could install on your computer to block objectionable content, but permit research.

Here’s the bad news: filtering programs can’t do the job by themselves. NentNanny and other applications like it search for certain words in the Web site your child is clicking on. Simple words like “belly” can be targets for blocking, causing frustration, while research on “breast cancer” may be impossible.

But programs that look for words fail completely if the site has no objectionable words–only objectionable photos. My teenage son figured this out. He used Google Images to look for objectionable sites. He found them despite the fact that our filter, NetNanny, was turned on.

In fact, the filter program could never block these sites because it searches for words. It can’t evaluate pictures.

The next question is, “What’s a parent to do?”

*Put the computers the kids use where YOU are in your home. Then monitor what they are doing.

*Only the adults should know the login password. The kids will have to have permission to get on.

*Require the child to log off when he is done. Now the password is required for the next session.

*Use NetNanny or a similar filter. It can only help.

*Kids should be told what you expect from them, and the consequences of disobedience.

*If a child is just using a word processor or some other local program, disconnect the Internet cable.

*Require younger children to use your email address. This will allow you to protect them from vicious spam. As they get older, give teens their own email address, but make sure they give it out only to friends.

Your watchfulness will pay off. Your children will be protected from what they should not see, and they will also learn good habits for using the Internet as adults.

In every class you will find children displaying this phenomenon.

There are many children who struggle with reading, while being evidently bright and hard working.

Initially everything can seem OK. But, while other children’s reading progresses steadily, these children will hit a plateau at around 6. As the text they are expected to read gets more complicated, they will get more and more confused, often guessing wildly.

In the end their reading will go into reverse as their confidence implodes. They can feel the worry of their teacher and parents, but don’t know what to do.

These children will often be labelled dyslexic. But that is quite wrong.

Dyslexia suggests there is some underlying problem that cannot be overcome.

But these children have no real reason not to be able to read. They are just approaching it in the wrong way.

Let me explain the process.

A child will always approach a problem in what seems the easiest way. To a visual child, memorising the alphabet and simple words seems easy. People praise their achievement. So they think that they are reading. And early reader books encourage this with a very limited vocabulary.

So all seems well.

But this technique gets more and more difficult as the text gets more complex. Children with a good natural ear for the phonic structure in words will now switch to decoding the words instead.

Others cannot naturally distinguish the sounds within the words (phonemes) and so cannot relate them to the letter patterns that represent them in text (graphemes). At least not without quite a bit of careful instruction.

And these are the ones that have major problems.

You will see them guessing wildly, just using the context and the first letter of the word.

They are frustrated and puzzled by their situation and don’t know the way out of it. They can sense the frustration of their teacher and parents, but have actually been doing their best.

One in five children reach the age of 11 unable to read properly and these children make up a large proportion of that group. It is a disaster for their academic career and working life.

And what a tragedy. We routinely watch them become confident readers in just a few weeks. They only need to be guided back onto the right path.

The label dyslexic carries a great risk that everyone will just relax into acceptance of the situation as inevitable. That leaves the child to deal with a much harder path through life.