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What’s the single best strategy for helping your children succeed in life? Encourage them to read, a skill that’s essential in all areas of achievement. Here are some tips:

● Read aloud to your children often. Start reading to your children when they are babies, and keep reading as they grow up. As you read, talk with your child. Encourage them to ask questions and to talk about the story. Ask them to predict what will come next.

● Encourage your children to read on their own. Children who spend at least 30 minutes a day reading for fun develop the skills to be better readers at school.

● Set aside quiet time for family reading. Some families even enjoy reading aloud to each other, with each family member choosing a book, story, poem, or article to read to the others. Helping children become—and remain—readers is the most important thing parents and families can do to help children succeed in school and in life.

● Visit the library often. Begin making weekly trips to the library when your child is very young. See that your child gets his own library card as soon as possible.

● Buy a children’s dictionary. Start a habit of looking up unfamiliar words so children learn to explore language on their own.

● Encourage books as gifts. Ask family members and friends to consider giving your children books and magazine subscriptions for birthdays or other special occasions.

● Get help for your children if they have a reading problem. If you think that your children need extra help, ask their teachers about special services, such as after-school or summer reading programs. Also ask teachers or your local librarian for names of community organizations and local literacy volunteer groups that offer tutoring services.

The concept of eating on the go, or of  family members scattering to their own rooms to devour their meals, is entirely foreign in many countries around the world.  In many European countries, for example, it would be unthinkable for the family not to gather around the dining table at least once during the course of the day.

Sharing a meal should be an incredibly sociable thing.  It’s not just about the food, of course, but also about an opportunity for families to get together and discuss what has happened during the course of the day.

With so many family members nowadays working different hours or rushing around just to keep up with the sheer pace of life, though, family mealtimes in Canada are becoming less and less common. Take a look inside many homes today and you are likely to see the
members of the household sitting in front of the TV with trays on their laps, in complete silence so as not to miss a word of the program they are watching.

Aside from providing an opportunity for family members to interact with one another, there is also evidence to suggest that shared mealtimes at the table lead to better nutrition.  When everyone eats independently, there is a higher chance of snacking or living off junk food, whereas meals eaten at the table tend to be prepared from more nutritious ingredients.

In order for children to make sense of the world that they are growing up in, they need to be taught what is right and wrong, and they need consistent application of the rules that they are expected to adhere to. Young children in particular need rules to be simple in order to understand and follow them. After all, if you start introducing complicated conditions that a child can’t make sense of or remember easily, your rules are certain to be broken, your child is likely to face continual punishments that may be unfair, and he or she may even give up trying to follow your rules altogether.

Another thing to avoid is too many rules, because these are likely only to make your child feel so constrained that he or she becomes determined to rebel. Instead, try to prioritize the behaviors and actions that you want to encourage or discourage, and set a few simple rules that focus on the most important of these. Having numerous complex rules for children to follow essentially sets them up for failure rather than success, so make sure that your rules are few and simple.

If you’re like most people, you probably have a diary that is full of both work- and non-work-related business appointments, but few if any appointments with yourself, your family and your friends. That’s because the latter tend to be fitted in when we can spare some time, rather than being deliberately factored into our busy days. The only trouble with this arrangement, however, is that it doesn’t necessarily lead to much quality time, because in reality much of our downtime just gets frittered away.

If weekend activities with your partner and children or nights out with friends are what you feel are missing from your life, try planning and scheduling them in advance to make sure that they happen. Not only will writing them down in your diary or on the kitchen calendar make them more likely to happen, but also you and your loved ones will have things that you can actively look forward to during the course of or at the end of a busy week.

Does your child suffer from sleep problems? If so, according to University of Cologne (Germany) research (originally published in the journal SLEEP), he or she is more likely to have trouble falling asleep than staying asleep. Here are some tips to help your children sleep better from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine:

• Follow a consistent bedtime routine. Set aside 10 to 30 minutes to get your child ready to go to sleep.
• Establish a relaxing setting at bed time.
• Interact with your child at bed time. Don’t let the television, computer or video games take your place.
• Keep your children from TV programs, movies and video games which are not appropriate for their age.
• Do not let your child fall asleep while being held, rocked, fed a bottle or while nursing.
• At bed time, do not allow your child to have foods or drinks which contain caffeine. Try not to give him or her any medicine which has a stimulant at bed time.

Talking to children can sometimes feel like communicating with aliens. Yet it’s not all that difficult to speak and understand their
language.

Here’s some good advice for both parents and nannies for conversing with kids at any age:

• Use “I” statements. The best way to communicate your feelings—positive or negative—to children is to tell them clearly what you feel. “When you do this, I feel that.” Avoid accusing or blaming.

• Listen attentively. Make time to hear your children. Stop what you’re doing so you can focus on them exclusively. Draw them out with phrases that show your interest: “Tell me more . . . why do you think that happened? . . . How did that make you feel?”

• Repeat what they say. Make sure you understand, and show that you’re taking them seriously, by repeating back what they tell you: “You mean that you did . . .?”

• Encourage them. When you offer advice, or correct them, let them know you believe in them and their ability to do things. Kids need to feel you accept them, and encouraging words tell them you’re on their side.

I need to remind myself of these suggestions when the kids are asking me a zillion questions non-stop about every topic under the sun. Gotta keep working on relating to the kids with patience and grace! Cheers, Tai