How to engage children effectively

Psychologists in Europe have discovered that if a child doesn’t play outside and is never allowed to experience a skinned knee, they frequently have phobias as adults. Children need to fall a few times to learn it’s normal; teens likely need to break up with a boyfriend or girlfriend to appreciate the emotional maturity that a lasting relationship requires. If parents remove risk from children’s lives, we will likely experience high arrogance and low self-esteem in our growing leaders. 
 
Due to the academic demands children today hardly get time to focus on cognitive needs like relationships, emotions, and brain development. When children are attending schools they hardly get exposure to social engagements, and time with parents and on top of it if the child is enrolled for summer camps/extra activities, there is constant external engagement, which takes the child away from the softer essential life aspects.

Since the schools are already investing in ensuring all the skills to be provided to the children it makes sense to provide a different experience to children when they are at home. This also helps children love staying at home or wanting to stay at home.

TV or any other screens are addictive as they give attention to your child without any expectation. If parents can adopt this fundamental rule, the family dynamics can change drastically. So, give your child attention but without expectation.

If parents can jot down some of the things the child can learn at home during the year, it can give opportunity to children to experiment something new without hesitating.

Making screen time completely zero is also not a solution .You might want to fix time for TV or any other screen activity to 1 to 1.5 hours in a day with an expectation set in advance so that it is easy for the child to adapt.
The magical word for Parenting is “Engage”

Happy memories play an important role in shaping optimism in children. Create memories together by activities which engage like cooking, creating an album (share stories), gardening, organizing house, clay modeling etc. are some of the easily available options. The key is to look at basics of life to build bonds versus spending money on expensive concepts where children are playing alone.

Engage by Listening much more than you speak with your child: Listening gives children the opportunity to express, helps them get free from any negative thoughts that might be bothering them and helps to build bonds with the listener. Like any other activity, dedicate time for conversations.

Some of the ideas that will not only engage your child but will engage your hearts together:

1.    Involve them in Cooking: Since there is no limit to the kind of cuisines and its varieties, the child can select which cuisine they want to experiment with.
Cooking is not just an activity, it actually stimulates creativity. Involvement of children in cooking is a way to stimulate their senses and mind.

•    For making a child learn you can ask them to think how it is made and let them come out with their own assessment. This will give them the opportunity t pay attention to their senses and discover about the ingredients.
•    For younger children use Induction cooktops to minimize accidents. Avoiding cooking due to gas/fire is a genuine reason however for long run ,its not very favorable for child’s mind development

2.    Vacation with close family: It’s always a good idea to connect children with their grandparents. It not only helps children remember their values but also helps them create bonds with them. Utilize summer vacations for family bonding by enhancing conversations whenever possible. Listen much more than you speak.

3.    Gardening: Explore gardening with your children to create a small kitchen garden based on the space you have. Ask them to take decision about the plants they would like to grow. Ask them to read about it on the Internet and share some charactestics. When children are stimulated intellectually they like proving themselves. And through gardening, you are able to engage, stimulate and are able to keep them engage in different activities.

4.    Conversations: Utilize summer vacations for family bonding by enhancing conversations whenever possible. Understand their views of different topics; learn what kind of music they like, listen to some of their conversations. Its best to appreciate their views about things versus correcting them or giving advice about right and wrong, especially for teenagers.

5.    Memories: Engage with them to create a collage of past memories or have a way of putting them in the central area of your home. If you already have a wall of pictures, may be look at replacing the pictures there. Let children take decisions for the same.

6.    Visual Journal: Journaling is a great habit for any age. Visual journals are much more interesting so help your child express through pictures on daily basis.

Tips as Parents:

1.    Be a Coach to them: Advice puts children off. Let them discover their own solutions by exploring and making mistakes. 
2.    Every Child wants to be a star in his parents’ eyes: The child wants to feel important through parent’s gestures and validate their emotions through the way parent’s communicate to them and to others.
3.    Don’t Judge: You might want to take time to think how to resolve issues versus reacting based on the judgment. You might come across some very new and strange ideas which could be crazy at the first go, but give yourself time to think versus correcting the child then and there. Judgment overtime shuts down children to share their thoughts and acts as a pesticide for relationship.

The children would like to get engaged and screen can always be limited if there is engagement available at home. Engage at least an hour dedicatedly everyday to create an optimistic and growing environment for your children.