Month: April 2024

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What Beverages Are Healthy?

Parenting Tips

April 2024

Written by: Nutritionist and Fitness Coach, Ms Hilda Yang

 

Of course, children love to cool off with frozen beverages, but do you worry about the excessive hidden sugar in these drinks affecting their health?

 

Pay attention to the nutrition labels on packaged beverages.

 

When choosing pre-packaged drinks, be sure to check the nutrition label. Firstly, for paper-packaged drinks like fruit-flavored beverages and fruit teas, the calories mainly come from their sugar content. To meet the low-sugar standards, as an example, for every 100 milliliters of the beverage, less than 5 grams of sugar can be considered a low-sugar choice.

 

Are natural fruit juice drinks always better?

 

You might think that natural fruit juice is better than regular paper-packaged drinks, but many natural fruit juice drinks are made by mixing concentrated fruit juice with added sugar, making them entirely different from freshly squeezed fruit juice. Some natural fruit juices may claim that the product has no additional sugar added, creating the misconception that there is no sugar in it and is, therefore, healthier for the body. However, the juice itself provides a considerable amount of sugar, so don’t mistakenly think that fruit juice can replace water.

How much sugar intake is considered appropriate? The World Health Organization recently lowered the daily sugar intake, indicating that consuming more than 6 teaspoons of sugar per day for adults is considered excessive! Taking a 240-milliliter cup of natural fruit juice as an example, it already contains 20 grams of sugar, which is equivalent to 5 teaspoons of sugar. Drinking one cup is close to the daily sugar intake limit.

 

How can you drink healthily?

 

Freshly squeezed fruit juice may be a better choice, but you should also limit the daily intake. It’s important to note that one cup of freshly squeezed fruit juice often requires 3 to 4 fruits. Calculating with 80 milliliters as one serving of fruit, consuming a maximum of 2/3 cup of juice per day is sufficient. An even better practice is to blend the fruit pulp, so dietary fiber is not separated, promoting bowel movements and increasing a sense of fullness.

 

How much water should you drink daily?

 

How much water should you drink daily? In addition to plain water, fruit juice, tea, or coffee, soups can also be included in the calculation. According to the Institute of Medicine’s recommendations, healthy men should drink 3 liters per day (approximately 12 cups of water), while healthy women should drink 2.2 liters per day (approximately 9 cups of water). The commonly mentioned “eight cups of water a day” is not far off, but it’s crucial to remind yourself to drink water regularly and in the right amounts for your body to truly absorb it.

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Storytelling education, what can parents do?

Parenting Tips

April 2024

Written by: Senior Early Childhood Education Consultant, Miss Mok Loi Yan

 

Many parents have asked me about storytelling topics that are challenging to explain to young children, such as stories involving death, like “The Little Match Girl,” or stories with violence, like “Little Red Riding Hood.” Due to the detailed depiction of events in the storybooks and lifelike illustrations, children may experience significant fear of death after listening to or reading such stories. They might be unable to express their inner discomfort, and some children even burst into tears after hearing these stories. What was originally meant to be an enjoyable parent-child storytelling time ends up having the opposite effect, triggering a heavy psychological burden on the children and leaving parents feeling guilty and unsure of how to handle the aftermath.

 

Fewer Characters, Positive Plot

 

I advise parents to start by selecting stories that are deemed suitable for a child’s mental and comprehension level from the vast array available in libraries. These stories typically have fewer characters, and a positive plot, and are easy for parents to use during interactive storytelling to help children understand causality and emotions. Stories with fewer characters allow children to focus more on understanding the transformation of the characters’ inner selves, behavior, and values within the story context.

 

Choosing stories with a positive plot helps build qualities such as self-awareness, problem-solving skills, confidence, and analytical ability in children. These positive aspects counterbalance stories with negative themes, bad situations in stories, or the ability to face difficulties in reality. Therefore, unless parents are certain that their children have accumulated a sufficient foundation of resilience from such stories and mental experiences, they should avoid exposing children to stories with terrifying or negative themes until these prerequisites are met.

Inspiring Cognitive Growth and Positive Character Principles

 

Secondly, starting with the educational significance that stories bring to children, it is crucial to steadfastly adhere to the principles of inspiring children’s cognitive growth and fostering positive character development! Regardless of how convincingly the storyteller portrays evil and villains, don’t forget the original intention! Storytelling education is a process of interactive learning between the audience and the storyteller, stemming from the direct description of scenes, associated information, and the shared underlying meaning. These observations, descriptions, awareness, and interactive content arise from the mental and emotional states of the audience and storyteller at that moment, as well as their accumulated personal experiences.

The role of the storyteller in education is highly important. In addition to carefully preparing and reading the story content, emphasizing key points and conveying the underlying meaning clearly, the storyteller should also be prepared to trigger children’s thinking about people and events at certain points in the story. Providing opportunities for the exchange of values in description and atmosphere creation is essential. Most importantly, observe the audience’s reactions while listening to the story and engage in interactive parts that deepen thought and sustain curiosity.

 

Dramatization and interaction should be humanized

 

Thirdly, ensure that the dramatization and interaction by the storyteller have the invigorating effect of being humanized and appealing to innate goodness. Whether in stories or the real world, children face different psychological and situational challenges that provide them with important opportunities for development. These experiences make them happier and more resilient than children who grow up in a sheltered environment. As the guiding light for children, we should equip them with the abilities needed for their journeys in life. Therefore, gradually tailor stories to children’s life experiences and cognitive levels, providing narratives of different levels, encounters, or aspects of human nature for them to hear.

When the storyteller portrays negative characters or delves into psychological crossroads and choices involving human nature, it is even more crucial to vividly depict the inner dialogue of conscience. The storyteller, assuming a narrative role, should provide children with positive consequences as a reference and analyze the relationships between themselves, characters, and situations. When parents engage in storytelling education with children, any decisions made in response to presented scenarios must be voluntary. Allowing children to experiment, face challenges, or find solace in the virtual world is essential. Moreover, it is important to make children aware of the parents’ stance and understand that parents are open to discussion and can be approached for communication! If the interactions spark reflective thoughts on love in children, helping them find their position in these values, the storyteller has successfully illuminated an outstanding life for the child through the story.

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A quick method to calm down young children

Parenting Tips

April 2024

Source: Pediatric Behavioral Therapist, Yip Wai Lun

 

Many times, as parents, when we see our children experiencing negative emotions like anger, tantrums, or extreme unhappiness, we often want to quickly resolve the situation by saying things like, “Don’t be so angry!” or we may scold them, sometimes even yelling, “Shut up right now!” or using a countdown like “One! Two! Three!” to command them. Some parents may try to reason with their children, saying, “We shouldn’t behave like this; we should stay calm.” However, these methods are not always very effective. Why is this the case?

 

It turns out that this is closely related to the structure of our brains. Understanding the brain’s structure can be very helpful in parenting. If we are familiar with two specific parts of the brain, it can aid us in disciplining our children. The first part is called the amygdala, which is a pair of almond-shaped clusters located in the posterior part of our brain. When we are startled or feel threatened, the amygdala sends signals that prepare us for either a fight or flight response. The amygdala operates on a reflexive level.

Another part is called the prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for our flexibility and empathy. However, the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex cannot function simultaneously. The development of a child’s prefrontal cortex takes place from around the age of two to over twenty years old before it fully matures. Only then can they understand your reasoning and consider your thoughts and feelings.

 

As a result, most of the time, children are primarily influenced by the two amygdalae. This is why you often see children experiencing various emotions, becoming easily agitated, and prone to tantrums.

How do we stop the amygdala from functioning? This is very important. The way we make the amygdala stop functioning is by helping children express their emotions, especially when they have negative emotions. As parents, we should help them speak out, for example, saying, “I can see that you’re very unhappy,” “I can see that you’re very disappointed,” or “You seem very sad.” Because when you express and describe their feelings, their prefrontal cortex will send soothing messages to their amygdala, causing the amygdala to stop functioning immediately.

 

Whatever you do, don’t react negatively! When you see that your child is emotional, express your own personal feelings as a parent: “I’m really angry!” “What you did is not right!” or “I feel upset!” Doing this will only stimulate the child’s amygdala and make them more resistant. So the first step in disciplining children is not to control or teach them, but to first connect with their emotions and then readjust.

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