Something as part of Veronica's test for parental suitability to raise preschool children better on: how to raise self-regulating children.

http://www.vancouversun.com/life/Rai...006/story.html

"These four areas of executive functioning are very important to the health and well being of children," she says. They foster awareness at an early age of the benefits of exerting personal control over thoughts, feelings and actions, and can be called upon to resolve conflicts, correct mistakes or plan new actions, she says. And kids will likely spend less time frustrated and have more time for fun, friends and finding solutions.
Without sufficient self-regulation, a discouraging cascade of events can occur.
"The child who does not have self-regulation at five years of age is the child who cannot follow the teacher's directions at age six or who cannot plan how to solve a problem at age seven," says a report for the U.S. National Institute for Early Education Research. "The child without self-regulation of emotions at age four will not be able to control his temper at five and will have negative peer interactions at age seven."
A former preschool and elementary school teacher, Boyer says she found many children who needed support in self regulation. And there's even more stimulation and temptation facing them today.
Luckily, whether a child is easygoing or strong-willed, exuberant or slow to warm, parents can help their kids acquire self-regulation, she says.
In one of her studies, 146 families and 15 early childhood educators identified five factors that foster self-regulation:
- Optimism — seeing good events as "permanent, pervasive and personal" and bad events as temporary, specific and not due to the child.
- Empathy — understanding for the feelings of others. How would you feel if that happened to you?
- Stability and consistency in daily experiences — set times for waking, reading, bath and bed help kids understand their world is dependable.
- Channelling reactions and energy through play and physical activity.
- Ability to use self-talk to comfort and encourage themselves, as in "It's OK — I am sad because I lost the toy, but I have other toys."
Ways parents can encourage "executive function" in their kids:
- Practice challenging tasks for kids in advance.
- Demonstrate good self-regulation in parents' own lives.
- Throw a ball back and forth to separate kids from the source of frustration.
- Encourage imaginative, unstructured play, which has a big role in self-talk that governs thoughts and actions.
- Notice progress: "Remember how you got so angry the last time but today you were able to handle it."
- Reinforce the ability to calm themselves — "I can have a snack when I get home."
- Read to them without showing them the pictures to develop their ability to hold a story in their heads.
- Read books that exemplify positive self-talk, such as The Little Engine That Could.
- Play games such as Simon Says to help keep the rules of the game in their heads.
- Avoid commands that might stifle children’s ability to make good choices.
- Use reminders to prompt children, such as a watch with an alarm to signal impending time's up.
- Give advance warning of the rules to head off trouble spots