Tag Archives: parenting

You Are Good Enough

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Imbedded in our parental DNA are traits from our own childhood upbringing.  If you take a moment and listen carefully you can almost hear your mother firmly suggesting that you ‘be quiet’ or your father impatiently demanding that you ‘sit down and finish your dinner’.

How many times have you told your child that she’s too noisy or too energetic?  Or perhaps your child is pensive and you announce to your friend that ‘she’s so shy’ or maybe that ‘it takes her a while to get used to new people’.

The above examples may seem like ordinary interactions between parent and child.  But to a child, this type of exchange slowly robs children of their desire to express themselves freely, they begin to develop feelings of imperfection and start dwelling in the land of misbelief in the form of ‘I’m not good enough.’

good_enoughYou may be thinking that I’m exaggerating a child’s feelings based on a few harmless and necessary directives.  But repetitive ‘corrections’ that dampen a young child’s creativity and free expression often produces teens who look for approval with everything in their life and tend to follow the crowd, leaving independent thought kicked to the curb.

Even before she speaks her first words, your child is good enough.  She is good enough to cry out when she is hungry.  She is good enough to take her first steps.  She is good enough to ride her first bike.  She is good enough to make little decisions from what shoes to wear with her shorts to when to put down the fork and stop eating.

It is a good idea to allow children to comfortably express their true feelings.  They are not the feelings of their friends or their parents, but their own.  They are independent feelings, regardless of what other people think.  True feelings are good enough feelings.

Demonstrate with your words and behavior, multiple times a day, how much you truly love your child.  Giving unconditional love is the greatest way for your child to establish a strong knowing that she is good enough.  Let us help you share positive moments with your child with our weekly Joy Kids Express or follow Joy Kids Universe on Pinterest for the latest Joy Kids Joy Tips. With a built-in ‘good enough’ compass she will grow into a very confident, compassionate, vibrant adult.

Do you have some thoughts of your own on this topic? Please leave your comments below.

By, Joanne Henig, Co-Founder
Joy Kids Universe, LLC
The Law of Attraction for Kids
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The Value of Playing “Let’s Pretend”

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Playing “Pretend” has always come naturally to a child, whether it’s cowboys and Indians, soldiers or, nowadays, Iron Man or one of the Avengers.  Research conducted over more than 70 years has shown that pretend or make-believe play is a very important part of a child’s cognitive and social development.pretend

Psychologists from New York University, Yale University, and other prestigious learning institutions have shown that pretend play has the following advantages in children from ages two and a half to six or seven:

  • Increased usage of language, including things such as subjunctives, adjectives, and different tenses.
  • Expression of both positive and negative feelings, as well as the ability to integrate cognition with emotion. Promote positive and happy emotions.
  • Developed self-regulation resulting in reduced aggression, civility, empathy, and delay of gratification.
  • Opportunity to learn social skills like communication and problem-solving, especially when toys are part of the scenarios. Create without limits.
  • Enhancement of the capacity for creativity and cognitive flexibility.
  • Greater imaginativeness, enhanced curiosity, and learning skills including math and reading.

The research has also shown, and Joy Kids Universe believes, that parents who tell bedtime stories to their children, or explain natural and social occurrences to them, will encourage them in pretend play. Likewise, parents who participate in school programs designed to teach imaginative play games will find their children with higher academic preparedness, compared with children whose parents did not participate. Improvements were demonstrated even in areas like vocabulary, nature knowledge, general information, and manners.

Schools that encourage, or even tolerate, pretend play are another important source. Schools that do so as part of their regular curriculum, or even during recess, have experienced increased learning skills in preschoolers or early schoolers. Casey Rose learns freely and joyfully each day.

Pretend play gives children the chance to discover for themselves different points of view, ideas and emotions – all of which can become an important part of their lives.

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