Category: KD Novelties

Life Essential Skills Kids Should Know

Posted on | by KD Novelties

Kids need to learn a great many things before they become independent, autonomous adults, however, parents tend to underestimate just how much their child can do at their age.  It’s important that kids eventually learn how to take care of themselves. There are several ways in which parents can help instill helpful skills while also allowing their child to learn about responsibility and self-reliance at the same time.

Making a Meal
Kids are usually the ones waiting around for dinner to be ready, and chances are you’re the one who packs their school lunch every day. It helps to involve kids in cooking for a variety of reasons, including introducing kids to different, unfamiliar foods and encouraging them to eat healthier, too – but have you thought of letting your kids cook, for a change?

Kids shouldn’t be using kitchen tools they’re not old enough or experienced enough to use yet, but it can be extremely valuable to teach your child how to make a simple meal for themselves, or even a few. Cooking and preparing food is a life essential skill to have. Teaching your child how they can feed themselves not only helps them feel more grown up, but it can help in an emergency. If you’re sick, or unable to make food, or even if you are simply busy, knowing that your child has knowledge of simple food prep can go a long way.

You can teach kids age appropriate meals as they get older, and who knows, you may even inspire a young chef!

Doing the Laundry
It’s surprising just how many kids in high school, or even college, do not know how to wash and care for their clothing. Doing the laundry can help teach kids how to be responsible for their own things, how to care for different fabrics (which can be applied to a variety of other domestic situations as well), plus it can help take a load off your back, too! If your child knows how to do their own laundry, you can include it in their weekly list of chores or rotate responsibilities when needed.

Shop Savvy
Many parents give their kids some kind of allowance. Giving children money for completing chores or doing well in school is one thing, but it also helps to teach them smart habits about spending (and saving!) that money as well. Teach kids about comparison shopping and looking for good or better deals, teach them about couponing and research, and give them a few tips about creating a budget, too – especially if they’re looking to save up for something special but find themselves tempted by wanting to buy other things in the interim. These are great skills for children to have before they get jobs or go live off on their own, like college living or their first apartment.

Writing a Letter
Writing letters may seem antiquated now, but it’s important for them to know how to construct a proper letter of acknowledgement, like a thank you letter for a gift from a relative.  Writing can help to teach a child to properly conduct their thoughts and ideas into a formal letter. Children will certainly need to compose essays for school and college acceptance, and or need to write cover letters for jobs when they are older; therefore letter-writing skills are definitely handier than most people think.

Staying Safe
It’s especially important that kids are aware of what to do in an emergency. You never know when they will be in a situation where they cannot get to you, are alone, or you are incapacitated. Make sure that your child knows your basic information and whom they can trust to tell it to. Teach them about calling for help and how to articulate themselves as well as the potential situations they may need help for. It’s also vital that families discuss emergency protocols such as what to do in the event of a fire or any other kind of disaster. This may be a difficult subject to discuss with your children, and parents may be afraid of scaring their kids, but these are important things to talk over and make sure they understand thoroughly, for their own sake as well as your own.

KD Novelties is a publisher of personalized children’s books and provides reading tips and resources for parents.

How To Deal With Children on the Death of a Pet

Posted on | by KD Novelties

For many people, pets are more than just animals – they are members of the family. A pet is a great way to teach your child about unconditional love, and about responsibility depending on how old they are. Unfortunately, pets do not generally have lifespans as long as humans, and pets may also experience a number of different health problems or exposure to risks tha
t may eventually lead to their passing.

The potential for the death of a pet is no reason to shy away from getting a pet to begin with, though it is an important topic that parents should consider. As heartbreaking as the passing of a family member is, even if it’s a pet, the experience can help children grow emotionally by teaching them valuable life lessons about the fleeting nature of life. As parents, it may be helpful to know how to navigate this sort of situation, especially if this is a new experience for your child.

Breaking the Bad News
When it comes to any kind of sensitive topic, it is best to divulge the news in a private place where kids feel safe. Try to talk to them one-on-one but make sure that they are comfortable as well. This will help the realization easier, though it will not make it any less difficult.

Depending on how old your child is and what their maturity level is, you will need to gauge just how much information they need in order to understand the situation and to come to grips with the reality of the events as well.

If your pet was sick before passing away, you may want to discuss the possibility of death or moving on beforehand and painting topics like putting them to sleep, surgeries, treatments, and simply passing in their sleep in as good of a light as possible. Just as you would console someone about a person passing, giving the news gently can go a long way, and promising that your pet is in a better place now can certainly help.

If the pet’s passing was more sudden, then you can calmly explain what has happened. Being brief can help to ease the pain, without being too specific. But if they ask, which older children may typically do, then divulge more information as you see fit but respect their desire to understand the situation and their desire to know more, even if it is difficult for you as well.

It may be tempting to tell your child that their pet ran away or is lost somehow, but lying will only beget more questions and may instill them with a false hope that their pet may eventually come back. Lying to children will only make matters worse especially if they discover that you have lied, which can lead to many other emotions and can tarnish your trust.

Caring and Coping
Dealing with death is difficult, and people grieve in different ways. Depending on the nature of their pet’s death children may feel anything from sadness and loneliness to even anger and frustration, especially if it was an accident or their pet had to be euthanized. It’s important to let children know that these emotions are natural, and that it is important to work through them. Try to encourage them to share their emotions or let them out in other ways, such as writing in a journal or drawing a picture to help them work through it, if they would rather be alone. Make sure to tell them that it is OK if they don’t want to talk about what they’re feeling at first, but gently remind them that you will be there to listen when they are ready.

Parents are likely to feel upset over the loss of a pet as well, especially if it was a family pet like a cat or a dog. Showing your own emotions around your child can help them cope with their own emotions, and it can help you as well. It’s only natural to feel sad after losing a loved one, and showing your child how you work through your feelings can help them work through theirs, too.

Moving On
There are many ways in which parents can help children come to terms with the passing of a pet, and many ways in which they can heal themselves and as a family. Having a special ceremony or a burial may help provide you with some closure as well as an opportunity to say goodbye or make something commemorative for the lost pet. Other projects can help as well, such as drawing pictures, making scrapbooks or collecting memories.

For many children, grieving over a pet is much like experiencing the loss of a person, and as a result they may be more emotional and upset than they would be about a distant relative. For children, pets are friends, family, and part of their daily lives. Encourage them to talk about their pet with love and remembrance, and help them work through their emotions. It is difficult to experience loss, especially since it feels as if the pain will not go away. Your child will always have fond memories of their pet and in time, the pain will lessen, but the memories will always remain.

For great parenting tips and resources please be sure to follow our blog at www.KDNovelties.com/blog and visit our website at KDNovelties.com.

Why Spelling Matters

Posted on | by KD Novelties

Making reading a regular habit can help to significantly improve reading comprehension and understanding, but so can other skills – spelling being one of them. Studies have shown that an understanding of the key elements of spelling, the sounds and letters used to make up a complete word, can result in better reading skills.

A study conducted by Catherine Snow in 2005 underlines how the relationship between letters and sounds can be better understood for spelling, as well as reading. According to Snow spelling and reading build and rely on the same mental representation of a word. Knowing the spelling of a word makes the representation of it sturdy and accessible for fluent reading. The study also found that the ability to read words by sight, versus sounding out letters, is a skill that requires the ability to match letters and letter combinations with sounds. Not all words are visually distinctive, especially words that are similarly spelled or contain the same letters and in different combinations. However, learning to spell can help support memory for sight-reading whole words, which can be used in both spelling and reading as a result.

Spelling can be difficult for some, but there are plenty of ways parents can encourage these skills, much like how they can encourage reading outside of books.

Break It Down Daily
Ask your children to read off road signs, cereal boxes, you name it – but have them sound out letters as well. Tracing words, drawing words, and familiarizing them with letters can help tremendously.  Listening skills also play a crucial part in daily activities such as asking your child “what letter does ‘bat’, end with? What letter does ‘sock’ begin with and so on. Playing these games can help your child’s ability to hear sounds in words.

Encourage Vocal Skills
Spelling and reading are both intrinsically tied to the sounds of letters and letter combinations. Encourage them to read aloud. Children need to use the language they will be writing. Having a conversation, telling stories, playing word games and even play-acting can help kids develop key vocal skills as well as improve their vocabulary.

Bring Writing into the Mix
Writing regularly can significantly help children spell, and read as well. Writing can help children get their thoughts down on paper and can help them sound out and express their thoughts and feelings. By creating a visual element, such as writing down letters and words, kids are more likely to develop key spelling and reading skills. Their penmanship, and their spelling, may not be perfect at first, but if it is a routine activity, they will grow more and more familiar with the act of writing, spelling, and communicating effectively.

For younger kids you can write each of the words, and then have them trace it with a black crayon. Just make sure your child uses straight, not curved, lines when he outlines the word.

Get Creative
Applying study skills you may have used in college can help, too. Just as a university student may color-code their notes and post-its, using anything from highlighters and finger paints to cut-out construction paper and sidewalk chalk, you can help bring letters and spelling to life by making it a little more fun, and vibrant, too.

Old methods still work well such as purchasing letter magnets for the refrigerator and having them spell out words. Rhyming games are fun and help children to think and make similarities with letter sounds.  The idea here is to do it in daily bits and segments so that each time you do some sort of spelling lesson it becomes a game and children will love to learn.