Why Are Children Easily Frustrated - Part 5

Assalammualaikum all!

We have come to our fifth and final point of the "Why Are Children Easily Frustrated?" mini series, which explores what triggers the issue, and how can we as adults and parents help with the situation.

Let's have a look at the final point!

Play time is a crucial time for children's development as this is the time when they mix around with other children and practice social skills. It is especially important that children are given the opportunity to play outdoors and benefit from nature's unstructured environment. According to Kathleen Alfano, Former Director of Child Research at Fisher-Price®, playing outdoors allows children to explore their environment, develop muscle strength and coordination, and gain self-confidence. These are developments that are important in a child's well-being. 

Thankfully, developing social skills is not limited to outdoor play. There is also no specific 'guideline' to what a socially competent child should be. Nevertheless, children with better social skills tend to be better at making friends and communicating with peers and teachers around them. When children find it challenging to communicate effectively with people around them, they will get easily frustrated. 

What can we do to help with our children's social competency?

There are various ways that we can teach social interaction to our children. One important element in social interaction is the ability to have proper eye contact. A good, solid eye contact shows that we are interested in what the other person says and we are also listening confidently. Explain to your child the importance of eye contact, and then practice, practice, practice! Every time you speak to your child, look him/her in the eye and encourage them to do the same.

Another crucial social interaction skill is saying the magic words - 'please' and 'thank you'. Good manners is extremely important as this will shape our children into more polite and approachable people, inshaa Allah. Parents would need to be role models to children and demonstrate good manners. Encourage children to say 'please' and 'thank you' whenever they can, and praise them when they do - they will be motivated to continue doing so!

Alhamdulillah, this marks the end of our mini series "Why Are Children Easily Frustrated?". We hope the series have given much benefit and enlightenment to all readers, inshaa Allah. We hope to continue this initiative and help our children develop into admirable future leaders.

May Allah bless our efforts and deeds.

Why Are Children Easily Frustrated - Part 4

Assalammualaikum all!

Praises to Allah, we are still continuing with our mini series "Why Are Children Easily Frustrated?" which explores the reasons to why our children get easily frustrated and what are the things we can do to help them.

Let's see what the 4th point says!

Here is something not all children would like to do - chores! Most of us perceive that doing chores means doing work, and children are calculative when it comes to performing chores. On the contrary, performing chores can actually help children in several ways. Research shows that children actually feel happier when they feel they have contributed to the family and would have a sense of ownership and responsibility. Without this sense of ownership and responsibility, a child is more likely to feel frustrated when they are asked to do something.

Monotonous work like chores may not seem exciting or give instant results, but it definitely has an impact on the child's development in the long run. Practicing chores from a young age develops the child's basic life skills. This essentially will make the child grow into a more independent and competent person later in life.

What can we do to encourage our children to do chores?

One effective way to involve children with household chores is by doing it together. Doing chores together will give parents the opportunity to spend time with children and provide first-hand guidance and help. This will also develop the children's abilities to work well with others.

Another thing to remember is to make the chores manageable and fun. This method will make the children associate doing chores with positive thoughts. A great example would be cleaning up their toys once they have finished playing. While putting the toys back into the boxes, parents and children can start singing songs or play a simple game like keeping the blue toys first, and then the red toys, and then yellow toys. The next time they are asked to clean up, they would not be so reluctant anymore, inshaa Allah :)

Hopefully this tip finds you well. Try it out and let us know how it goes!

May Allah bless our efforts and deeds.

Why Are Children Easily Frustrated - Part 3

Assalammualaikum all!

We have come to our third point in our mini series "Why Are Children Easily Frustrated?". Inshaa Allah, we will keep exploring reasons to why our children easily get frustrated and what can be done to improve the situation.

Let's see what the 3rd point says:

Do you remember when you were little, Mom and Dad would constantly and consistently remind us of a lot of things, like finishing up our homework on time, or reminding us that we need to go to bed no later than 9 o'clock? As children, these may seem as instructions or orders from parents. However, there is actually a very good reason to why parents instruct their children to complete certain chores on time or be somewhere at a certain time; this is practice for self-discipline.

Self-discipline is an important element in a child's development. Children with self-discipline are able to control impulsive behaviour, cope with emotions in a healthy way, and are able to make healthy choices for themselves. Children who do not learn self-discipline tend to struggle with managing healthy habits, school work, and time management. This might result in parents and teachers getting angry or disappointed at them, making them feeling sad and frustrated.

What can we do to help our children with self-discipline?

A great way to train self-discipline is to place structure in our children's day-to-day activities. Have some household rules that must be followed by everyone in the house with no exceptions. Practice the same consequences every time the rules are broken. This will teach children to expect what is coming and aid them to make better decisions in future.

Placing structure comes hand-in-hand with education. Education here means letting them know the reasons behind every rule so that they are able to make better decisions. For example, children need to know they can only have one cookie a day because too much sugar is bad for them, not because "Mom told me to do so". In the long run, this encourages children to question things as they grow up instead of just blindly following something.

May Allah bless our effort and deeds, inshaa Allah.

Voice Away With DD Animation!

Assalammualaikum all!

Today was super exciting as we had a voice-over audition session. The voice-over audition is done by DD Animation, the wonderful animation house behind DIDI & FRIENDS was held at our Headquarters in Taman Tasik Prima, Puchong. The audition is meant to scout for voice talents for a new Islamic animation coming out soon.

The audition aims to look for talents who can speak Malay, English, and Arabic. Selected talents will fit the main characters of a 6-year-old boy, a 4-year-old girl, and 2 parents (Mama and Papa).

By the time everything was set up for the audition, the atmosphere was positive and everyone was excited for their turn! :D

Several students (and some very excited teachers too!) came by to audition this morning, including 2 of Genius Aulad's Taman Tasik Prima alumni. Welcome back kids, and thank you for coming!

For most of us, this audition was our very first one. Teachers as well as students were all anxious and had butterflies in our tummies. However, the lovely ladies from DD Animation were so nice and friendly, everybody had fun during the audition. They calmly explained that we need to read some lines and sing some songs. Easy peasy!

Thank you so much to all participants today! It was a pleasant experience to have the voice-over audition today, and Genius Aulad is ever so blessed and privileged to be collaborating with DD Animation for this project. We hope it was a fruitful session for all of us inshaa Allah, and we look forward to having more educational collaborations like this in future.

May Allah bless our efforts and deeds.