Top Tips for Parents
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Keeping Your Child Healthy
It's important to eat a variety of foods to make sure we get
all the nutrients our bodies need. This is especially true for children while
they are growing and in order to develop a healthy eating habit for future life.
You can find out more about healthy eating from the Food Standards Agency's Eat
Well website.
Children need at least 60 minutes of exercise per
day to stay healthy. They will get some of this at school, but
especially at weekends and during the holidays, they should be encourages to do
more. It could be as simple as taking a walk in the park, kicking a football
with some friends in the garden, taking the dog for a wlak or going for a bike
ride. You will find plenty more ideas on the NHS's Change4Life website.
Children also need to get enough sleep to remain healthy and
active, both physically and mentally. Most advise suggests that children of
primary school age need between 10 and 12 hours of sleep per
night. You'll find guidance on how to develop a good bedtime routine on
the BBC's Physical Health website.
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Reading With Your Child
It's never too early to start! Reading a story is the easiest
way to 'talk' to a baby before they have any language of their own. It's never
too late either! Even older children benefit from reading with you - taking it
in turns works well with established readers, perhaps with a book they might not
try themselves.
Try to make a little time for reading every day so
that it becomes part of the daily routine.
Ask your child's teacher or see the Words for Life website
for ideas about good books for different ages and more. You can ask for any of
the books suggested at the library. You can also visit Topmarks website for
10 tips on hearing your child read.
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Playing With Your Child
Helping your child with their homework is great, but so is
going for a walk, playing games, singing songs and making things with them. Just
a few minutes a day can make a huge difference to a child's language development
and even more importantly, to their self esteem.
See Activity Village and Netmums
websites for plenty of ideas for things to do, as well as advice on all sorts of
parenting topics. See also Family Learning for lot of things to do and
information about how things are taught at school today.
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Talking With Your Child
If you haven't time for anything else, try to spend some time just talking
with your child. This will help with language development and is important for
reading and writing too.
While it's best to stop to chat with your child, you can also talk with them
while in the car, doing the shopping, when out for a walk or even while you are
washing up or cooking.
Talk to them about what you can see, what you are doing and why you are doing
it. Ask them lots of questions and be prepared to answer their questions
too!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Praising Your Child
Adopting a positive attitude towards your child, so that they
are praised six times more often than they are chided, has been shown to impact
positively on self-esteem, confidence, outlook and attitudes as well as on brain
development in young children.
Children from all backgrounds do better when they have a
close and positive relationship with their parents, and when mothers and fathers
work together to provide warm, authoritative, responsive, positive, and
sensitive parenting.
It's important to eat a variety of foods to make sure we get
all the nutrients our bodies need. This is especially true for children while
they are growing and in order to develop a healthy eating habit for future life.
You can find out more about healthy eating from the Food Standards Agency's Eat
Well website.
Children need at least 60 minutes of exercise per
day to stay healthy. They will get some of this at school, but
especially at weekends and during the holidays, they should be encourages to do
more. It could be as simple as taking a walk in the park, kicking a football
with some friends in the garden, taking the dog for a wlak or going for a bike
ride. You will find plenty more ideas on the NHS's Change4Life website.
Children also need to get enough sleep to remain healthy and
active, both physically and mentally. Most advise suggests that children of
primary school age need between 10 and 12 hours of sleep per
night. You'll find guidance on how to develop a good bedtime routine on
the BBC's Physical Health website.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reading With Your Child
It's never too early to start! Reading a story is the easiest
way to 'talk' to a baby before they have any language of their own. It's never
too late either! Even older children benefit from reading with you - taking it
in turns works well with established readers, perhaps with a book they might not
try themselves.
Try to make a little time for reading every day so
that it becomes part of the daily routine.
Ask your child's teacher or see the Words for Life website
for ideas about good books for different ages and more. You can ask for any of
the books suggested at the library. You can also visit Topmarks website for
10 tips on hearing your child read.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Playing With Your Child
Helping your child with their homework is great, but so is
going for a walk, playing games, singing songs and making things with them. Just
a few minutes a day can make a huge difference to a child's language development
and even more importantly, to their self esteem.
See Activity Village and Netmums
websites for plenty of ideas for things to do, as well as advice on all sorts of
parenting topics. See also Family Learning for lot of things to do and
information about how things are taught at school today.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Talking With Your Child
If you haven't time for anything else, try to spend some time just talking
with your child. This will help with language development and is important for
reading and writing too.
While it's best to stop to chat with your child, you can also talk with them
while in the car, doing the shopping, when out for a walk or even while you are
washing up or cooking.
Talk to them about what you can see, what you are doing and why you are doing
it. Ask them lots of questions and be prepared to answer their questions
too!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Praising Your Child
Adopting a positive attitude towards your child, so that they
are praised six times more often than they are chided, has been shown to impact
positively on self-esteem, confidence, outlook and attitudes as well as on brain
development in young children.
Children from all backgrounds do better when they have a
close and positive relationship with their parents, and when mothers and fathers
work together to provide warm, authoritative, responsive, positive, and
sensitive parenting.