Have you ever watched “Fosters Home for Imaginary Friends” on Cartoon Network? It has more than 2000 imaginary characters and the show has taken the kids world by storm in its first year itself. Did it make you think how many imaginary friends live in your house? You may argue it depends on individual “Parenting Style”, or it does not occur for “Preschool Children”, or even that it appears only in “Kids Stories”. I have been digging into this mystery and it’s answers for a while now.

A peek into one of the most intriguing childhood mysteries reveals that imaginary playmates are a staple of early development and persist well into the school years, later than researchers once thought. It is estimated up to 65 per cent of children will have an imaginary friend, generally from the age of three to nine years – and these kids tend to be more creative, or a first-born or only child.

There are lots of different types of imaginary friends, it can be an “invisible friend”, someone only the child can see, but it can also be a “personified object” like a toy figurine, a teddy bear or even an innocent doll, that have real and immense person-like attributes for the child. Sometimes the imaginary friend acts as a child’s alter-ego, taking the blame for the toys that didn’t get picked up or saying “bad words”, causing “behavior problems”. Sometimes the imaginary friend is just a wonderful playmate. Most kids, sooner or later, come to realize their make-believe buddies are not of this world and imaginary friends fade away but some studies have found that kids as old as 12 having imaginary friends.

This phenomenon is really misunderstood. It was always thought that its rare, child must be having problems, kid must be seeing invisible people like ghosts. Those days are gone when psychologists and parents started to worry about children’s well being after knowing about an imaginary friend. Pretend play is vital to children’s development. Imaginary friends are just an extension of pretend play, which is a normal, healthy and important part of a young child’s development. Pretend play gives children a chance to learn about roles, relationships, power, and control. Pretend play also gives children a chance to work through the multitude of feelings they experience daily. Although make-believe was long considered the realm of little girls, now it’s clear that both sexes engage in fantasy play, with some gender differences.

Main reason for having imaginary friends as believed by researchers is, loneliness, where the kid does not have access to friends. Not being able to interact with people and put his thoughts forward, makes the child to start talking to the toys and imaginary friends. The child has no fear or inhibitions talking to someone that’s so close to the reality. Children are testing and answering their curiosities when they interacted with an imaginary friend. They gain communication skills by having one side of the conversation but also inventing their imaginary friend’s side of the conversation. Children learn the complexities of spoken expression sooner with the help of an imaginary friend. They can act as a child’s trusted confidant when there’s no one else to tell their secrets to. Believe it or not even small children have issues that are too private to tell us, watch your child making up stories and try to analyze them. Dig into those stories with extra “Interest”.

As it is normal to have imaginary friends, it is also important for the parents to keep control over those imaginary friends. Use your parenting discipline powers, sometimes these imaginary friends can tell your kid to go for a walk without letting you know or may be, to throw things around. Here are some rules you can make for your child and the imaginary friend:

Don’t let the imaginary friend be your child’s only companion. Kids need to socialize with other children for their own development and learning. If your child does not have any friends and does not show any interest in having friends, talk to the teacher or the doctor and help him/her out.

Don’t let your child shift responsibility for every wrong thing they do to the imaginary friend.

Treat the imaginary friend with respect. This means remembering the name, greeting and wishing good on the occasions. Apologizing when don’t see the imaginary friend standing in your way.

Don’t use imaginary friend to manipulate your child, your child will start hating that confidant imaginary friend as well.

Have fun yourself and let the child have fun as well with the imaginary child.

Here’s the link to games and activities based on “Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends” on “Cartoon Network”

How important are manners and etiquette’s in this modern world and child development? Most of the good schools require kids to have proper child manners and child etiquette’s. “Military Schools” and “Private Schools” are very strict about this and most of them have extra classes to teach kids proper manners and etiquette’s. Not only that there are etiquette schools, etiquette classes and even etiquette consultants to teach, train and arm our kids as well as the adults with modern manners and classic etiquette’s.

Children are reflections of their parents. On special occasion’s, gatherings, parties or visiting friends and relatives parents expect their children to show proper manners and etiquette’s, be polite and respectful. Manners and etiquette’s cant be learn overnight its a gradual process and needs a lot of time and patience from the parents. Teachers as well as senior adults have noticed and raised the voice that, children now a days show very little respect and manners than previous generations. Parents manners and etiquette’s help develop childrens manners and childrens etiquette’s. When teaching child manners, do not overload a child with many lessons at once, deal with one or two at a time so that they can grasp it in full detail. Do not ever tell them “Do it because I say so.”, you have to explain them “Why it’s not right?”, What will be the benefits of doing the right things?”. Please don’t forget to praise them for doing the right thing, it will be just like, if you work very hard at your job and not being praised or rewarded for it.

Etiquette training starts at an early age, kids learn by observing things and behavior of people around them. Parents discipline and parents manners will set the right examples, you are the one who is their first influence, first learning example. If you talk with mouth full of food, they will notice that and assume its right to do so. Family manners and etiquette’s are all those little things that we do everyday, around kids at home or outside. If the parents do not force the family manners and follow them themselves it will make a big difference later in the kids life. Rules should be equal for everyone in the house, than only kids will respect you and each other.

The way they behave is the way they are treated. Remember the magic word “REWARD”, its the key to teaching manners to young kids. Reward doesn’t have to be financial or a gift. Reward can be your love to them, may be just a hug and a kiss, praising them for what they did, may be taking them along for a bike ride or shopping, may be allowing them to go and play with their friends. In the end for every good deed they need to be rewarded to understand the importance of doing the right things.

Parent’s role in teaching child manners

As I said before, kids learn by watching adults around them. Parents manners and family etiquettes, therefore play a huge role in teaching child manners and etiquette’s.

Respect:

Your parenting style has a lot to do with respect. Treating children with respect teaches kids to respect others and you. Talk kindly to your children and they will learn how to talk kindly to others and you. It is also helpful to talk to children regarding how to respond in specific situations to better prepare them for when these situations arise.

Sharing:

Share with your kids so they can understand the importance of sharing with others. Compliment them when you see them sharing with others.

Politeness:

Everyone in the family must practice “please” and “thank-you” policy in which, for example, no request is considered unless the person asking says “please.” When one of your children forgets, just say “Where are the magic words?”. They soon catch on. You can teach them to say “thank you” in the same manner.

Apologizing:

In the begining children are always shy to apologise, but before the age they become stubborn to apologise parents should encourage children to apologize, when they do something wrong. Apologies should be sincere. If they are not comfortable apologizing face to face, they should write an apology note. Good judgment should be used by the parent as to when an apology is appropriate.

Compliment:

Emphasize the right thing to do and compliment your children when they exhibit good manners, rather than criticizing them for using poor manners. Praise is a wonderful teacher. Tell your children how proud you are when you notice them being polite.

Model the manners:

Remember your child is watching you every moment and will learn to do everything that you are doing, so watch out for your own actions.

Instruct in small doses:

Teach manners in a step by step process. For example, telephone manners or telephone etiquettes, begin instructions with “hellos” and “good-byes,” then teach asking the caller to “please wait, I will go and get my mum” and in the end , guide children to take messages. Dining etiquettes or table manners are another important learning task. Try in small step by step process as well, for instance begin with how to sit properly on the table, to how to hold cutlery and in the end teach them how to set up the dinner table and serve the guests.Try step by step process with other manners as well.

Keep kids healthy:

Children tend to show bad manners or mis manners and etiquettes when they’re tired or hungry. Kids need proper sleep and nutritious foods to survive. If you think you will be having late night at the family gathering, make sure your kids have an afternoon nap to cope with the late night stress instead of misbehaving.

Be patient:

Don’t expect perfection overnight. As with any skill being taught, there will be mistakes along the way. Learning is a trial and error process. We all learn from our mistakes. Give your kids enough time and opportunity to learn and grasp new skills. As I said before young children or teen kids they are the reflections of their parents. As a parent we all want to give them the best, but sometimes we are not fully equipped with all the information. If you feel you are stuck with some questions feel free to take “parenting advice”. There are many “Child Care Services” that help young parents with free Parenting Advice.

Have a happy parenting.

Forcing kids to study and do their homework is a very conflicting topic. Even though we know education is paramount for their survival in this modern world. Conflict arises with the questions, “How much homework and studies at home is not too much?”, “Are they getting enough time to relax and rejuvenate their bodies?”. There will be many of you who may have written on the blogs or in your personal diaries hidden somewhere down the earth in a little lunch box, how you felt when your parents forced you to study. How much you hated the school and how much you hated your parents?. This will be the story of most of the people who have been to the school. As kids we made lots of friends at school and than we wanted to do the best things that kids love to do, PLAY. Parents got angry at us for not doing our homework, not getting good grades at school and as a result parents forcing us to study hard to get better grades. The list goes on to show that anger, that we felt towards our parents or teachers for forcing us to study.

Now all of you are educated and smart people, sitting in front of your PC or laptop and reading this article after doing a lot of digging on the internet on this topic. I am not saying that forcing kids to study is right, neither I am denying it. Only thing I want you all to ask yourselves is, no matter how much you hated your parents and schools and so on, Will you be what you are today, if they didn’t force you to study? Some of you may be feeling very angry with me right now because you may have been forced too much. Sincerely I feel sorry for you and I am sure as parents you will rectify those things that you didn’t like in your childhood. Many of you will agree that your parents gave you the right direction and helped you by forcing studies, because at that tender stage you didn’t know what was right for you.

Like I have said many times before, As parents we want to give everything that we didn’t get as kids, whether its education, toys, comfort or even time. Trust me that was exactly the same, what your parents were thinking at that time. They were not your enemies and you will not be enemies of your kids either but your kids will say the same things to you as well. Every new generation comes up with new ideas, new methods of doing everything in better and different ways and the best part is they do succeed in doing so. What we forget is underneath every strong building is a very strong foundation. That forcing of studies does finally pay off.

For us to be better parents and have smarter kids, the question is, How much should we force our kids to study. We have to set up the limits to not to stress the kids and not to hate us as parents. You don’t want to be in a situation when your child is sitting in front of the books all day and learning nothing. Kids are given enough homework at school. In almost every country the education departments, child welfare agencies, parents and teachers have had this discussion, how much homework should the child get and how much time should they spend after school in studies. The purpose of homework is to help children consolidate what was taught that day in the class. A pretty good argument, but is this homework so much that it doesn’t give your kids any time to play and relax and causing burn out. Same amount of homework for one child can be 20 minutes and may be an hour for another.

As parents we have to sit down with our kids and see how are they doing with their homework, if they can finish it within an acceptable period of time than don’t force them to study. If they are taking longer than may be they are not understanding the concept or they are simply not interested in it. This is when they need help and may be little bit of forcing. If you force your kids too much they will not learn anything. They will miss out on their playing time and as a protest they will choose not to learn anything knowingly because in their brain its their fun time that’s been spoiled by the homework. There is no textbook solution to this problem, every child is different and has different capacity of understanding the concept and grasping the knowledge. Forcing alone will not help the child, making the topic easy, interpreting it in a different way will help the child in understanding and keeping their interest. Soon your child will start thinking of these hard topics in a different way with your help. Key is spending time with them and helping them with studies. For the long term goal, it is more important that your child understands the concept in a practical way rather than just doing their homework for the sake of it. Practical way is the one that stays with us forever, books and subjects are forgotten with time.


Forcing studies becomes necessary only when your child does not have any interest in studies for whatever reason. Even in this case it is advisable to talk to the teachers or get some outside help, rather than forcing it is more important to know why your child is not showing interest in studies. Try reasoning with them to find out the problem. Its very simple if somebody force us to do something, we don’t like to do it either unless we know and understand the valid reason for it.

Little bit of force is necessary as kids brain is still developing and needs proper nurturing to go on the right path in the future. If you don’t help them and show them the right path, everything they do will be right for them which can be a dangerous situation. If you force them too much than they may rebel and hate school, hate studies and more important hate you. Make sure your kids are not overloaded with homework from school and have enough time to play and relax to rejuvenate their brain and body.

Have fun with your kids. Understand them and avoid forcing the studies. Being friends with them will help you understand their attitude. You can also try using some of the free online teaching tools for studies at home.

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This has become a very obsessive topic for me as I am a chemical engineer and also a chef. First time this link between food and chemistry became obvious to me when watching a show about UK’s top chef Heston Blumenthal and his egg and bacon ice cream with liquid nitrogen.

Inviting kids into the kitchen and teaching them in the kitchen is not that easy. Kitchen furniture, kitchen lighting and kitchen design play an important part in turning your kitchen into a cooking school. As busy parents we do not get much time to spend time with our children but if we can turn our kitchen into a classroom, we get to spend more time with them. We can help them with their homework and teaching them about cooking as well. Cooking in the kitchen for us is a habit or a nature, we dont have to think twice, it just happens step by step and great dishes are created.

When we invite kids into the kitchen, for them its nothing less than a science lab. Their learning resources and learning activities are limitless. Its all a surprise how things are done, how you measure, how that baking powder works, how does that muffin rise, how does that tasteless flour turns into a tasty cookie. It also becomes one of the most valuable classrooms in your house, colors shapes and numbers are all there waiting to challenge your child each step of the way. Soon your kids will pass up their best toys every time for a chance to help you in the kitchen science lab, if you can explain them and teach them about every experiment you are doing in the kitchen. As dinner is cooking, talk about the smells, sounds, textures and appearance of the food being transformed. Your children will then taste with a new appreciation, especially if they’ve had a hand in making dinner.

Keep reading:

Why you should cook with kids?

Benefits of family meal time

Here’s some cool sites to get into the classroom.

Kitchen chemistry
Virtual kitchen, where kids can really learn and play
Kitchen chemistry book written by Ted Lister in collaboration with Heston Blumenthal

Watching your little ones, mixing, measuring, trying to make shapes is entertaining within itself.

Cooking with kids takes patience but you learn that kids really are quite capable of doing a lot, all by themselves. Children’s culinary skills gradually improve. It is part science, part creativity, and part just amazing and then you can eat it too. You can train your kids, instead of playing with the play dough, play with the cookie dough, its more fun, tasty and safe to eat.

Kitchen is a classroom, where kids practically learn and top of them all creativity and new imagination. Not to mention reading comprehension, sequencing, and one of my favorites, following directions.

Kids love to eat whatever they cook, somehow it always tastes nice. Teach your kids cooking and eating healthy food from childhood, it will control their desire for junk food and limit their reliance on vending machines at school.

Cooking is a tasty and tangible way for kids to express their creativity. Children experience success, independence, and increased self esteem when they put dinner on the table or when they have a hand in preparing the food on the table.

While kids help you in the kitchen, teach them, where the food comes from, what benefits it has for our bodies, explain the medicinal properties of the spices, fruit and vegetables.

Cooking together is also a quality time spent together, its proven cooking together means dining together means family time.

Kids become your friends, it than allows healthy conversations in the family and you will be in control of the situation before anything happens because you already have all the information by conversations.

Some places to check out for kids cooking activities.
Culinary school for kids, cooking up delicious kitchen adventures for the eaters of all ages.
Kids cooking activities

How is the dinner time like in your home?

Do the family members heat up their own meal in the microwave and have them whenever they feel like it?

Having meals together has become a thing of the past. Families used to gather around and have at least two meals together, breakfast and dinner. Blame it to the busy lives, independence or family conflicts. We are forgetting the benefits of family meal time, its a very effective way to keep the communications door open avoid conflicts and raise healthy and smart children. It’s the perfect time and place to reconnect and to show your kids that they are your priority. In the recent years, if you seek parenting advice or ask for family counseling, they will stress the need for family meal times. Many researchers have pointed out the health benefits, academic benefits and overall child development directly related to family mealtime.

Sitting across the table is where and when you can find out more about your children’s likes, dislikes, and daily life. Having this information can help you direct your children toward positive activities and behavior. Sharing family meals also offers nutrition benefits. Parents always serve as role models, observing you having healthy meals and nutritious meals, kids tend to do the same. Experts believe that if families would gather around the dinner table more often, the benefits to children such as improved academic performance and higher self-esteem would abound. Change the attitude, dinner table should serve as more than the dinner table, strike a conversation, talk about each others lives and each others day, and rediscover each family member.

Research shows that for preschoolers, family mealtime is one of the most important times to connect with parents. Good mealtime habits formed early will benefit children throughout life. Children spending more time at the family meals tend to eat less junk and more healthy food. A study done at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital found that those teens who ate with family members an average of at least five times a week, were less likely to fall victim of eating disorder and other risky addictions as alcohol and drugs. Family conversations at the dinner table also help kids to have strong family connections and avoid the risk of falling victim to depression.

Benefits of family meal time go beyond the behavior trends of your kids and teens, they even affect the academic results of your kids. Studies conducted at Columbia University also found that teens who ate regular frequent family dinners were 40% more likely to get A’s and B’s in school than teenagers whose families ate separately.

Tips to promote family mealtime:

• Do your shopping weekly, so you have enough time to prepare meals.

• Involve kids in the shopping. Gives you an idea what kids want to eat. They will like to eat things when there choice is available.

• Avoid shopping junk food. Shop for healthy snacks and fruits for after school snack.

• Involve kids in the cooking process, it will save time as well as teach kids about healthy cooking.

• Don’t force kids to eat more.

• Turn the TV off and have a family conversation.

• Linger over the conversation and the food over the table, just to spend time together.

• Let eating together become one of the threads that holds the fabric of the family together. Make commitment and time to sit down for family dinner at least two to three times a week.

Check out these helpful articles on benefits of family meal time.

Get involved: Importance of family mealtime
Family mealtime article by West Virginia University
Free “Make mealtime family time kit”Study by Columbia    University: The Importance of Family Dinners IV

From the day we are born till the end of life we are in relationships with many people. To deal with these relationships in flawless ways we need to master the social skills. Social skills are the basic building blocks of our life from playground to school and in our adult life. Social skills need to be taught and learned. In fact we learn or refine one or another social skill on everyday of our life. Unless parents learn how to build a loving, stable and peaceful relationship with each other, they probably won’t build a good relationship with their children. Developing social skills in the kids will start from the very early stage and it will include:

Listening

Being patient

Respecting themselves, others and things around them

Being cooperative and team player

Sharing and taking turns

Caring and helping others

Good and positive communication

Conflict resolution

Participation and focusing on the task

Learning from failure

Adjusting to the differences of society

Analyzing the difference between good and bad

Social skills are lifelong survival skills. If we dont teach kids the right skills from the beginning, as they grow up they may find themselves out of place, many times in life. It can also make a difference with your child liking and adjusting to the school, new friends, new classes or dropping out from school.

The school years are full of mental challenges for your kid. At this stage, their mind is bombarded by all kinds of information and knowledge. School, homework, play and physical activities are all parts of the world that influences your child’s further intellectual development.

At this age they are also influenced by the media around them – TV, radio, the internet, books and other reading materials.

If your child is not properly controlled at this stage of growing up, your parental influence on them can be diminished as the child is more influenced by his peers and friends. They also learns social skills and the different ways to interact with different kinds of people.

This is also the stage where your child’s interests can begin to show, and if they are gifted for any particular sport or studies, it becomes apparent.