Category: Personalized Gifts

Decluttering Tricks for Kids

Posted on | by KD Novelties

Kids are not exactly known for being neat and tidy. Keeping up with the trail of toys and other things your children leave behind on a daily basis can be challenging, and putting things away can be an even bigger obstacle. Kids’ rooms may be full of stuff, especially since kids always seem to be taking things out and not putting them back. Here are some ways you can declutter your child’s room to help maximize space and cut down on cleaning time.

Toy Rotation

Buying toys for kids is always a bit of a gamble. You might find something you think they’ll like or they may ask for something specific only to have them play with it and forget all about it. In other cases, your children may be “into” certain items for periods at a time but not all the time. You can create a toy rotation where you round up all of your child’s toys and separate them into bins or boxes. Keep only one box of “current” toys out at any given time, and take out other items as kids ask for them. This way, you only have a limited number of toys out and about at any given time, lessening the amount of time you spend putting them away as well as freeing up some space in your child’s room. This toy rotation system can also help you learn more about toys or other objects your children may never end up playing with, which you can then consider donating to family, friends, or toy drives.

Kid-Proof What You Can

Make sure that certain areas like drawers and closets are kid-proofed, especially for younger children. Paying attention to not only cluttered closets, open drawers can be dangerous for small children, but access to these areas can tempt kids to empty everything inside onto the floor and around the house. By limiting or controlling access to certain storage space, you can have more of a handle on how much of a mess your kids make, plus you can teach kids to think about what they want to play with or do with more focus, encouraging them to manage their time and make decisions on their own.

Maximize Your Wall Space for Storage  

Furniture can take up a lot of room, and it can be expensive, too. Consider limiting furniture like toy boxes, sets of drawers and other such bulky pieces of furniture to only the essentials and increase your shelf space. Shelving frees up the center of the room while still allowing you to put things away or organize items or reading books in a visual manner that can double as storage as well as decoration!

Ask Kids for Help

It’s important that you teach your children the importance of picking up after themselves, but it helps to encourage them to do so in a healthy way. It is important that you are not too controlling with what kids do or have access to (like above, you can kid-proof certain areas, but limit this to storage while leaving “current” toy boxes and other items open for your kids to peruse and access freely when they’d like) and that telling them to clean their room isn’t made out to be an overwhelming, and often repeated, command that is eventually ignored and/or resented. When asking your kids to clean their room, make sure to give them specific instructions. Instead of saying something vague like “Clean your room,” say something more direct like “Pick up all the toys and put them in the bin,” or “Try to put all of your books away.” By breaking down the task, it makes the whole chore sound and feel easier, as well as more manageable and less overwhelming.

It’s important that parents and guardians test things out and see what works best for their children. Each kid is different, and different tactics may work more than others, but there are plenty of ways in which you can improve your life and your child’s life by decluttering their room and by making cleaning much less of a chore.

Test Prep Strategies for Elementary-Middle School Kids

Posted on | by KD Novelties

Taking tests can be scary. For American children, regular tests are about as common as standardized tests, but there are some tips and tricks that may help kids learn how to study and perform better on both. After all, tests are a lot less scary if you’re prepared.

Build Confidence

Test time can be panic-inducing for some kids, and others may choose to stay in denial until the night before when they finally decide to cram. The key to performing well on a test is preparation, but it also helps to be relaxed. Even kids who studied non-stop may perform poorly because they were too distracted by their own nervousness to focus properly. Sure, the idea of test-taking and the grade that follows is a difficult one to swallow, especially since the American school system places a lot of value in these numbers and statistics. This is where parents need to remind their child of their strengths. A test is not the end of the world, whether they fail or pass. However, if a child believes they are not good at a particular subject, no amount of studying may help them perform better. Remember to encourage your child to do well, but not to pile on the pressure. Every kid is different, but a little bit of cool confidence can go a long way.

Pacing Can Make it Interesting

If your child is preparing for a test, studying is key. But the idea of sitting down and reading over notes and textbooks can seem boring and tedious. You can try to instill small study sessions periodically throughout the week to help kids remain familiar with the test material without asking them to sit down for hours on end just before the day of the test in hopes of remembering it all. Learning things and reinforcing ideas little by little allow kids to build on previously learned information more effectively, which also makes it much easier to remember. You can incorporate reading, reviewing, or even study-based games throughout the unit or lesson to help keep kids engaged with their school work. As a parent, you may not exactly know what your child is learning in school, but it helps to ask. Make it part of the conversation, or have them teach you. There are many fun ways you can turn studying into learning and the process may not seem as daunting.

Tips and Tricks

Subject material aside, there are some good test-taking skills that could help no matter what a given test happens to be about. Try and share some tips with your kids to help them feel more confident in their general test-taking abilities:

  • -Remember to read all directions thoroughly before beginning the test or beginning to tackle a question.
  • -Skip questions that you don’t know the answer to or are taking you too long to figure out. Finish the questions you know first and come back to the others later. This will give you time to return to the question with fresh eyes, and you may have a better idea of what the answer is by coming back to it later after finishing other questions.
  • -Highlight or underline keywords in short answer questions that follow long passages, it could help you find your answer quicker once you get the appropriate section. Reading the questions before reading the passage can help, too.
  • -Read through all choices when answering multiple choice questions. Try to eliminate as many answers as you can if you get stuck.
  • -If you have time, go back and check your answers.
  • -Don’t forget to utilize scrap paper or the margins of tests (where allowed) to work out your thoughts and reasoning if you need to.

There are plenty of other ways that you can help your child with test prep, but the main thing is that they feel confident in their abilities. Having the right tools and the proper mindset are almost as important as being familiar with the subject material, but the most important thing is that they do their best.

Tips for Raising a Child with ADD/ADHD

Posted on | by KD Novelties

Attention deficit disorder (ADD) and Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are not that uncommon, though learning that your child has such a learning disability can be difficult – and raising a child with ADD or ADHD can be a challenge as well. From the moment you learn that your child has a learning disorder, it is important that you understand their condition as much as you can. Not only can it help you understand them more fully, but also it can allow you to see how they think and it can provide you with more insight regarding how you raise them.

It’s Not a Character Issue

The first thing that parents need to understand is that a diagnosis of ADD or ADHD is not necessarily a bad thing. These conditions generally refer to a pattern of behavior that will have an effect on how your child interacts with the world around them, especially since many social atmospheres call for very specific modes of behavior – like school. Kids with ADD and ADHD tend to be more active, fidgety, and are unable to sit still for long. Their thoughts may move quicker than their attention spans, or even their mouths, making holding conversations with them rather demanding and fast-paced. These characteristics may make sitting in school all day hard, and it may have an effect on your child’s grades or overall academic performance, but that does not mean that your child is not smart. Because kids with ADD or ADHD do not operate as well as others when in stricter environments, it helps to understand how their minds work and how you can help adapt your thinking and modes of understanding to get on their level and keep up with their active brains.

Don’t Let it Be an Excuse

It’s still important for parents to monitor their child’s behavior and to understand their intentions. ADD and ADHD can make things like reading or completing homework a challenge, but that should not stop you or them from attempting them.

When it comes to reading, writing, and other assignments that kids may need to complete for school, you can find ways to adapt the task to your child’s needs. It’s important that you, and your child, understand that ADD or ADHD can make these things challenging, but not impossible. Instead of saying or thinking, “I can’t do homework because I have ADD/ADHD” your child should realize that “Homework is challenging because I have ADD/ADHD” and there are ways to overcome these obstacles in a way that suits your child’s needs and preferences.

Play it Cool

For parents with children who have learning disabilities or behavioral disorders, it is important to practice patience. If you find your child having difficulties understanding or remembering rules, or forgetting to do chores and requiring constant reminders, think about keeping both verbal and written reminders around. Because kids with ADD/ADHD have trouble thinking in the long-term, you may need to try new methods of keeping them organized before you get upset with them for not cleaning their room or remembering to do the dishes. It could be a manner of accidental forgetting, and they may simply require additional reminders and tips to help incentivize them.

Emphasize their Strengths

Kids with learning or behavioral disorders may have problems with their self-esteem because of their inability to perform in particular academic areas, in specific situations, or other circumstances, but that does not mean your child cannot excel. Find subjects, hobbies, and other talents that your child is good at and find positive characteristics that can help them remain motivated. Kids with ADD or ADHD may have trouble concentrating in class, but they may excel in other fast-paced activities.

Don’t Overprotect Them

Just because your child has a disorder or disability does not mean that they cannot do certain things or that they should be sheltered. Every kid is unique, whether they have ADD/ADHD or not. Find what works for your child, what they respond positively to and what they like. Adjusting to your child’s needs does not require limiting them, just understanding what might work better for them or what may help them more.