Psych of Parenting 5: Dealing with Grief

This post is written in response to the request of a friend who would like to know how to break bad news such as death to a child. What is the most appropriate manner to tell our kids? Here're 10 things that you can say to your child to help them understand.

Read the full article here

Fellow SMB Angeline has also written a nice article on this topic with examples. Do note that very young children are concrete, meaning that they cannot understand concepts that they can't see such as philosophy, heaven and death. A general rule of thumb is, the younger the child, the more concrete they are so be sure to use age-appropriate words when explaining abstract concepts.

If you're interested to read more, here are other useful sites:

• Institute of Mental Health (IMH): Coping with bereavement
• The National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN): The Typical Grieving Process
• Association for Death Education & Counselling (ADEC): Children's Grief

This post is part of my infographic series on the Psychology of Parenting.

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Psych of Parenting 4: Teaching Social Skills

Now that we know how important peer relationships are in determining children's functioning in school, how can we improve their ability to make and maintain positive social relationships?

One way is to teach them social skills in a concrete manner such that even young children can put them into practice.

Here are SEVEN Social Skills to teach our kids (me included):

1) Making Eye Contact
It seems very intuitive but for kids (every child is different, some need it more than others), this is something that has to be taught. I personally try to teach my girl this by constantly reminding her to look me in the eye when she is explaining something to me or when I am telling her something.

2) Showing Understanding and Empathy
This can take the form of asking your child, "how do you think your friend feels when you snatch her toy? Would you like people to snatch your toy?" Ask questions to get your child to think from the perspective of another person (in Child Psychology, this is also known as Theory of Mind).

Do note though that very young children such as toddlers have no concept of theory of mind yet so do be patient with them.

3) Receiving & Giving Praise
This is something I need to teach my girl as well. When people praise my girl, she tends to shy away or ignore the compliment. I have had to remind her to say thank you. Same for giving praise.

4) Expressing Positive & Negative Feelings Appropriately
The key word here is appropriate. It's good to be proud of your accomplishments but it is not good to be boastful. It's okay to feel angry but it is not okay to hit others.

Example:
"It's good that you are proud of your painting but you shouldn't laugh at your friend for not painting as nicely. How will you feel if people laughed at you for not knowing how to (insert weakness)?"

Reiterate again the importance of perspective-taking, i.e. taking the perspective of others.

5) Resolving Fights Correctly
Some of us adults are still learning this, especially with so many keyboard warriors fighting it out online (it can get very ugly)!

I am still learning as well so I don't have any foolproof suggestions. For now, I will tell my girl to avoid conflict as much as possible and always give way to someone smaller. However if she were to get into a fight with a peer her age, I usually let her resolve it herself and only stepping in if it escalates and someone will be/is hurt (so far no, hope it stays that way).

My kids are very assertive so I don't have to worry that they get bullied. In Melbourne an Aussie boy in the playground kept pushing my girl and she announced very loudly to me (and their parents who were sitting nearby!), "Mummy, I don't want to play with this boy!!! HE KEEPS PUSHING ME!!!" Before I could react the parents sheepishly took the boy away and left (I did have a talk with her about the way she said it though).

To be perfectly honest, I prefer that my kids are the bullies instead of the victim. That way the ball is in my court to discipline them and make sure they don't do it again. If they were the victims then the ball is in the other parent's court, and depending on who you are dealing with, that may or may not be as easy to resolve. Anyway, I'm OCD so of course I prefer to have control *laughs* But that's just me hehe.

6) Saying Thank You
This is obvious I guess. It's always nice to make other people feel appreciated =)

7) Asking for and Providing Help
Both the asking and the providing goes hand in hand. We should also teach them how to ask for help in a polite way that will elicit a helpful response.

In therapy, psychologists would often get their clients to role play different situations so that the client can practise these skills. As parents, we should also be modelling these skills for our kids to follow (this I'm also still working on).

Hope that you had found these social skills as helpful as I did! =)

This post is part of my infographic series on the Psychology of Parenting.
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Continue to >> Psych of Parenting 5: Dealing with Grief

<< Back to Psych of Parenting 3: Importance of Positive Peer Relationships in School

Psych of Parenting 3: Importance of Positive Peer Relationships in School

A lot of times when our kids don't do well in school, we think that they need more tuition or more assessment books. However, research is now showing (and justifying what I have believed all along) that school performance is more than just brain power.

Peers, which refers to children who are of the same age or intellectual level, play a very important part in how well your child does in school.

If you think about it, it makes sense. When I was Primary 5 or 6, I remember spending many afternoons after school with my friends doing homework. I didn't do it because I liked homework (definitely not!); I did it because I wanted to be with my friends. We helped each other when the other didn't know how to solve a Mathematics problem and tested each other's memory of the information in the textbook.

In order to have friends, one has to be accepted by peers. In psychology, Peer Acceptance refers to the "likability" of a child or the extent by which other children want to play with the child.

The way that researchers determined peer acceptance (i.e. the likability of each child) in the class was by asking them to list 3 classmates that they liked and 3 classmates that they disliked.

The researchers then drew on a graph and linked the children to each other based on the children's answers. For example, if John listed Alice, Gabriel and Tom as the classmates he liked, then 3 red arrows will be drawn from him to them. Grey arrows were used in the same way for classmates that he disliked.

Children who were:

• Popular = had 2 or more red arrows and no grey arrows pointing to them
• Controversial = had at least 1 red arrow and none or some grey arrows pointing to them
• Neglected = had no arrows pointing to them 
• Rejected = had only grey arrows pointing to them 

These four broad categories of children are summarised in the infographic below.

A lot of the time, the common practice in most schools is removing a child whenever he/she does not behave in the class or can't get along with his/her classmates. This is not recommended as this may further increase the peer rejection.

Instead, researchers suggest that teachers work with the child within the classroom by teaching the child social skills to help him/her to improve their peer relationships and teaching the other children (especially the popular children) to be accepting and not isolate/reject others.

We can also play our part as parents in imparting social skills to our kids. We will be sharing seven social skills that you can teach your kids in the next post in this series! Stay tuned! =)

This post is part of my infographic series on the Psychology of Parenting.

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Continue to >> Psychology of Parenting 4: Improving Your Child's Social Skills

<< Back to Psychology of Parenting 2: Helping Teens Cope

Psych of Parenting 2: Helping Teens Cope

One minute they are cute and innocent and the next minute they become sulky teenagers who are too smart for their own good, want to exert their independence and prefer the company of their friends to their family.

Just how do we navigate the murky waters also known as adolescence?

We need to first understand the issues that our adolescents (aka teenagers) face before we can help them. Usually kids start to become teenagers once they hit puberty and that lasts till about 18-21 years old where they are old enough to make their own decisions (and are considered young adults).

If you have kids who are teenagers or have friends who do, this could be helpful. If you're a teenager who wishes that your parents see this, send it to them! =)

Reproduced with permission from an article written by Dr Quah Saw Han

Parents of teenagers, what other advice do you have? Share them in the comments =)

This post is part of my infographic series on the Psychology of Parenting.

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Continue to >> Psychology of Parenting 3: Importance of Positive Peer Relationships in School

<< Back to Psychology of Parenting 1: Influence of Parenting on Child Development

Psych of Parenting 1: Influence of Parenting on Child Development

This is something that I've always wanted to do but have not because, well, it reminds me of work and I don't want my hobby to feel like work! However, I've been getting a lot of requests to write more about psychology so here we are.

In order to make it more fun for me and easier to understand for you, I'm going to do it with infographics! =)

The first post in this series looks at the effects that parenting have on child development. Much as we hate to admit it, much of our kids' lives are not in our control. The thing we can try to at least have some amount of control is our parenting. We can attempt to be better parents for our kids (noticed I said "better" and not "perfect").

Depending on the age of the child, the influence of parenting will vary. For example, pre-school children tend to be more affected by parenting practices as compared to school-going children, who will be largely influenced by peers and other factors.

Read the full article here

To put it simply:
1) Talk to them, all the time
2) Be the person you want them to be
3) Tell them stories about their heritage

Of course, this does not discount the fact that a large part of the influence could also be due to genetics but I'm not going to go there because there has always been a big debate about that and no one has an answer. I'd rather focus on what can be changed because unfortunately, we can't really change our genes.

Which is why I've decided to put together this series and with the help of my fellow psychologists (thanks guys!), we're going to bring you various insights to your questions such as "How do I know that my son has autism?", "How do I help my teenager cope with stress?" and more!

If you have questions that you would like to get answers to, please do leave them in the comments and I will try to get answers to them for you (no promises though because we are not omniscient! *laughs*).

This series will be coming to you at least once a month so stay tuned! =)

This post is part of my Infographic Series on the Psychology of Parenting.
Follow me as I attempt to make psychological research more understandable =)

Continue to >> Psychology of Parenting 2: Helping Teens Cope