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Must I drink sports drinks after exercise?

Parenting Tips

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Written by : Registered Dietitian (Australia)

Chung Yong Man

Children should walk more and do more exercise. My good friend May has always wanted to challenge the marathon 10km race. We agreed to train together once a week. Since she seldom exercises, I suggested her to start with a brisk walk first and try running only after she got used to it. After the exercise, we went to the convenience store to buy drinks and May chose sports drinks without saying a word.

 

” I see that runners bring their own sports drinks and they claim to be good for energy, so I drink them in my spare time, at least it’s better than soda! ” She took the drinks and was ready to pay at the counter.

I said, “Hydration before, during and after exercise is very important, especially during long endurance sports, such as ball games and marathons, where a lot of water and electrolytes will be lost through sweat. It contains water and electrolytes, such as sodium, potassium and magnesium, which can be replenished during exercise. It also contains sugar, which can replenish the sugar consumed during exercise and reduce fatigue. The American College of Sports Medicine also points out that for people who exercise for one hour or more, drinking sports drinks may improve endurance and performance. However, if the exercise is less than one hour, the electrolytes and water consumed in the daily diet are sufficient to replenish the body and there is no need to drink additional sports drinks.

I took away the sports drink from her hand and replaced it with water and continued, “Moreover, 100ml of sports drink contains about 6 grams of sugar, 500ml has 30 grams of sugar, which is equivalent to 6 teaspoons of granulated sugar, similar to the sugar content of a can of soft drink. If you are just walking, which is not an exercise that consumes too many calories, or as a leisure drink, regular consumption is likely to cause fat. You’ll be able to use it next year when you compete in a race!

 

She turned her attention to the energy drinks next to her and asked expectantly, “Are energy drinks suitable for sports?

 

I explained, “The main ingredients of energy drinks include taurine, vitamin B complex, caffeine and carbohydrates, etc. They are used for refreshment. But because caffeine has a diuretic effect, it will speed up water loss, which is more likely to cause dehydration, so it is not suitable to drink during exercise. No more searching around, water is your best choice!

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Exercise to strengthen the brain function.
Three moves to make children love sports

Asian and mixed race happy young kids running playing football together in garden. Multi-ethnic children group, outdoor sport exercising, leisure game activity, or childhood fun lifestyle concept

Parenting Tips

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Written by: 遊戲治療師馮祉禧

I participated in a professional development exchange program for teachers in Taiwan earlier, and I was inspired by the emphasis on sports in Taiwan education, which I would like to share with parents. One of the schools on the exchange was the “Tiger Forest Elementary School”, a version of the Sports Institute Elementary School. As soon as we entered the school, the students welcomed us with a gymnastic exercise promoted by the government. They moved their hands and feet together to the beat and made all kinds of warm-up movements, which made people feel that they were as lively as the old tigers, and I was like entering a forest full of old tigers.

Sports can strengthen children’s learning ability

Principal Lau of Tiger Forest Primary School said the school is a government priority school, focusing on the physical development of students and believes that sports can strengthen their learning ability. Based on the research of John J. Ratey, MD, clinical assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, they promote a zero-hour exercise program. The program encourages students to be physically active at all times, i.e., Anytime. During recess, students run to the playground to play sports. They play dodgeball, climbing frames, or badminton, and all students enjoy every moment of exercise.

Benefits of Exercise to Strengthen Brain Function

Exercise is known to be physically stimulating, but in Ratey’s research, he points out more benefits of exercise for the brain. He describes the brain as a message processing center that transmits messages through different transmitters (chemicals) in different pathways. When exercising, the brain can effectively produce more transmitters and strengthen the pathways, allowing messages to travel faster and more accurately.

Applying the theory to learning, students use exercise to strengthen their brain function, which in turn improves their learning performance. Studies have shown that exercise improves students’ concentration and memory, both of which are necessary for successful learning. In addition, exercise enables the brain to produce Dopamine (a chemical that makes students feel happy), which makes learning more enjoyable and leads to better grades.

How can I get my child to love sports?

In order for children to enjoy the time and benefits of sports, parents need to get their children to love sports. Here are three suggestions:

  1. Sporadic exercise

    Give your child more opportunities to play sports, such as providing the right time, tools, and place, and make sure the environment is safe for parents.

  2. Healthy exercise

    Teach your child to do exercise for the love of health and mention the health benefits of exercise.

  3. Exercise together

    Enjoy the moment of exercise with your child and enjoy the good time of parent-child relationship.

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Children are reluctant to open their mouths.
Does listening to music help?

Parenting Tips

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Written By: Pang Chi Wah, Certified Educational Psychologist, New Horizons Development Centre   

Parents expect their children to learn to speak, and the feeling of their children “opening their mouths” for the first time is something that only parents who have been parents can understand. Parents want their children to start talking as soon as possible and do everything they can to guide their children to speak. While oral training is important for the development of speech, parents should not neglect auditory training because it is an important prerequisite for language training.

Relationship between Auditory Stimulation and Speech Expression

Listening and expression, reception and output, are closely related and complement each other. In the early childhood stage, if a child’s reception is not sufficient, it has a direct impact on the amount of output. I give a more extreme example for analysis. People with hearing impairment have difficulties in speech expression, but this is not due to problems with their oral muscles or related abilities but to the lack of auditory input. Without the verification and comparison of sound content, even though the mouth is developing normally, there is no “inventory” and therefore no “supply”. Therefore, parents should pay attention to whether they are providing their children with adequate auditory stimulation.

Diversified auditory stimulation

Some parents may say, “Of course I know this, and I try to output a lot of sound to my child: I often talk to my child, tell stories, describe my child’s surroundings, etc., and I use different languages to do so. While this is ideal for auditory stimulation, the content is rich but similar in nature – it is all verbal. In fact, auditory reception can be very diverse, and music, for example, is a material that can help improve a child’s language skills. Conversely, parents can learn about their children’s language development by how well they listen to music.

Music is good for language development

From my years of experience in education, I found that children with poor phonetic ability will have more difficulty in learning music and vocal music, such as pitch, rhythm, range, etc. This is actually related to listening and sound composition skills. Among the different types of sounds, music is the ideal language teaching material, except for the human language. There is a wide variety of music, with different rhythms or themes, from which children can broaden their understanding of sound. In addition to its educational value, some soft music can even help to soothe emotions.

Play the harmonica and experience the sound and breathing changes

The same piece of music can feel very different when played by different instruments. This is also good training for your child’s listening sensitivity. In addition to listening to records or playing music files on the computer, it is fun and meaningful for children to get in touch with real instruments and actually play them so that they are more aware of the relationship between different materials and sounds. Harmonica is a good training tool among many musical instruments. When playing the harmonica, children need to exhale through their mouths, thus having the opportunity to experience the changes between sound and breathing. When children play the harmonica, they use their tongues and lips to create sounds that are coordinated with each other, which is an important foundation for the use of the mouth.

Singing children’s songs to learn to speak

In addition to imitating everyday conversations, singing a cute children’s song can have the desired effect of enhancing memory and deepening impressions by using music to carry language. If children can sing along, even if they can’t produce the right sounds at first, they can develop their speaking skills during the imitation process.

A building is built from the ground up, and training in early childhood is very important for children to have good language skills in the future. Through the use of music and musical instruments, children can build a good language foundation in a fun and relaxing way, so parents may want to try it out more often.

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Keep crying when going to school.
How to reduce the dependence of children on their parents?

Parenting Tips

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Written by: Pang Chi Wah, Registered Educational Psychologist, New Horizon Development Centre

During the school season, we always hear sad cries at the entrance of the school, and it is always a headache for parents when children do not want to go to school alone without their parents. Because newborns lack the ability to protect themselves, survive and feed themselves, they must rely on their parents in their daily lives. This is not only true for humans, but also for babies of other mammals, such as dogs, lions, and dolphins, who must rely on their parents for survival.

As they grow older, some children are able to live more independently and gradually become independent of their parents, while others progress more slowly. For example, some three- and four-year-olds are not allowed to leave their eyesight even though their parents are still at home; some cannot go to playgroups or extracurricular activities by themselves, or they will scream and cry. In some cases, even if the mother is outside, the child refuses to go to the toilet alone.

Why do children rely on their parents?

Why do children become dependent? It may be because the child is not physically

active enough to take care of himself/herself, or it may be due to psychological factors, they are afraid or they are used to relying on their parents. In fact, parents can gradually train their children to be independent, mentally and habitually, so that they can reduce their over-dependence.

Increase the strength of using eating utensils

When children eat, they are passively fed by parents at first, then parents can hold their children’s hands to feed them so that they need to move their arms. Then gradually change the grasping part to the wrist, forearm, and elbow, so that the child needs to gradually increase the strength of using the eating utensil

Increase parental time away from the child and walking time

When children are accompanied by their parents at home, one of the parents can try to leave the child’s sight for a short period of time, and after the child gets used to it, both parents can leave together and let the child be taken care of by others. At the same time, parents can also increase the time of leaving according to the child’s progress.

When going out, parents can gradually reduce the time of holding the baby and ask them to try to walk home by themselves. Instead of carrying the baby all the way home, gradually change to carrying the baby to land at the door of the house, landing in front of the elevator, landing in the ground floor lobby, and landing after returning to the estate, gradually increasing the time for the baby to walk.

Inertia dependence of children is caused by parents

In fact, some children’s habitual dependence is caused by parents who take care of their children too much, give them too much, or give them too much help in the process of growth. Some parents think that their children are weak and cannot do anything well, so they do most of the work for them in order not to mess things up, and some parents even feel successful because their children are caring and dependent on them. If the situation continues, it will have many negative effects on the child in the future.

One day, children will be independent of their parents and need to take care of

themselves, so parents should let go of their children appropriately in order to let them grow up. There are many books about the growth of children and objective guidelines for appropriate behavior at each age for parents’ reference.

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Wear face mask for long time during Epidemic.
How to make children learn to “look at people’s eyebrows and eyes”?

Parenting Tips

Written by: Hong Kong Speech and Swallowing Therapy Centre
　　　       Senior Speech Therapist Eunice Siu

In our daily interactions with others, we not only observe others’ behaviors, but also “explain” and “predict” others’ behaviors. Theory of mind is the ability to infer or substitute other people’s mental states, such as their thoughts, beliefs, desires, and intentions, etc., and to use this ability to explain other people’s thoughts, perceptions, and predict their behaviors. Theory of mind can be subdivided into “emotion recognition”, “beliefs” and “pretend play”.

The developmental period for children’s theory of mind is from approximately 3 to 7 years of age. However, before the age of 3, children need to master the following skills to effectively develop theory of mind skills.

1. noticing and imitating the behavior of people around them
2. recognizing the emotions of others and using words to express them (e.g., happy, sad, angry, surprised)
3. participates in pretend play
4. understands that different people have different desires and preferences
5. understands that people will act to get what they want (e.g. reach for candy)
6. understands the causes and consequences of unsympathetic emotions (e.g. if I hit my brother, my mom will be mad and then she will scold me)

Ways to improve theory of mind are:

1. Use more psychologically relevant words when talking to your child

Using psychologically related words to communicate with children can help children understand their own and others’ psychological conditions more specifically. Examples of psychologically related words are “think,” “pretend,” “know,” “believe,” “feel,” and words related to emotions. Pay attention to what your child is trying to say and then respond. For example, “Ah! You want cake”, “Don’t be afraid! You think I’m gone, but I’m still here,” and “Mommy’s mad at you for hitting your brother. Parents can also explain to their children the psychological situation of others, e.g., “Mei-mei is smiling so much when she receives a birthday present, she should be very excited.

2. Participate in role-playing games with your child

Role-playing games encourage children to put themselves in different situations and characters’ perspectives to draw inferences about their behavior. To begin, children can pretend to be common everyday characters, such as mothers, doctors, teachers, and drivers. Parents should pay attention to the fact that both the words and behaviors in the game should be substituted for the role played. This activity helps children experience a variety of emotions, thoughts and interactions in different social situations, and learn to observe, imitate, anticipate, review and adjust their thoughts and behaviors.

I hope parents can make good use of the opportunity to share and communicate more with their children in daily life, so that they can learn to “look at people’s eyebrows and eyes” (meaning read people’s faces) and become a “mind-reading detective”!

Source：
Hollin, P., Baron-Cohen, S.,& Hadwin,J.(1999). Teaching children with autism tomind-read. West Sussex, England: Wiely Press

Lowry, L.(2015).” Tuning in” to others: How young children develop theory of mind. The Hanen Centre.

Spastics Association of Hong Kong (2005). Connecting: Developing social skills in children with autism. Spastics Association of Hong Kong.


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To love children, first to love themselves,
3 moves to teach you to maintain the best mental state

Parenting Tips

system

Written by :Family Dynamics Child Play Therapist
                   Marriage and Family Therapist, Ms. Lee Wai Zi

In today’s society, it is indeed not easy for parents to maintain a good state of mind and body. I have met with many parents and found that the difficulty most parents face is not that they do not understand their children’s feelings and needs, or that they do not know how their behavior affects their children, but that it is difficult to maintain a trusting and optimistic attitude towards their children when they are in a situation. Often, parents become increasingly anxious as they worry that their child’s problems will continue and worsen, and repeat ineffective ways of dealing with their child’s problems.

So, how can parents maintain the best mental state to face the stress and challenges of disciplining their children? Here are some tips for parents to consider:

1. Be more sensitive to your own stress levels
Parents are human beings, so there will be times when they are depressed or physically and emotionally exhausted. The purpose of parents being sensitive to their own mental state is to remind themselves that they need to take care of their own needs first. It is difficult for parents to be sensitive and responsive to the needs of their children when they are in a highly stressed state. Conversely, inappropriate responses may harm the child and damage the parent-child relationship.

2. Use resources effectively to relieve stress
When parents feel stressed, they should try to explore and make good use of their own internal and external resources to regulate their negative emotions. For example, find family members or friends to talk to, do things that can relax you, and find positive thoughts and beliefs to encourage you. The purpose is to give yourself a proper rest and temporary relief from stress.

3. Turn your mind around and reflect
If a parent’s stress continues and increases, professional help is needed. Sometimes, these pressures come from more than just external influences. Parents’ self-worth, worldview, and perceptions of things can affect how we parent. For example, some parents worry that they are not doing enough to fulfill their parental responsibilities and end up pushing their children to study or participate in activities, or even that they are not flexible enough to respond to their children’s needs when they are stressed and negative.

If parents are aware of and take care of their own feelings and needs, they can prevent their negative emotions from affecting the next generation.

Therefore, parents who love their children must first love themselves. Only when parents are healthy and happy can their children grow up healthy and happy.

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Drawings peek into the inner world of children

Parenting Tips

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Written by: Unleashing Mind Professional Counselling Academy
Psychotherapist Lee Wai-Tong

Painting can give us room to express our feelings. I use a brush to create a dialogue with myself in another language, soothing my emotions or gaining insight and unlocking my heart.

Crying over trivial stuff

In my past child counseling sessions, some parents came to me for help. They did not understand why their son, Ming, often cried over trivial things, such as being late for TV, late for dinner, or when his father came home late, etc. They mentioned the situation to Ming, but they did not understand why, which caused them trouble. Therefore, I suggested conducting a drawing assessment for Ming to understand the environment in which Ming grows up in his mind, which may help to understand the reason why Ming loves to cry.

Drawing reveals the reason for crying

Ming drew a “family story”. While drawing, he expressed his feelings that his parents were busy with work all day, so he often played alone at home. When his parents came home, Ming wanted to play with them, but his father soon became impatient. In Ming’s mind, it seems that his father is always angry; whenever his mother sees this situation, she will argue with him. In Ming’s eyes, his mother always looks sad when she argues with his father. In Ming’s mind, he knew that his parents loved him, but when he saw that his father was angry and his mother was sad because of him, he felt sad.

A peek into the inner world through paintings

Later, I met with Ming’s parents again. They never imagined that the quarrel in front of Ming was deeply engraved in their son’s heart. In addition, the father also found that his tiredness after work affected the quality of parent-child interaction. In this regard, I taught the father some relaxation methods and suggested setting up a “calm zone” at home to give everyone a space to relieve their emotions, and the parents promised to avoid arguing in front of Ming.
A month later, Ming no longer cried over trivial matters and the parent-child relationship was better than before. Painting can reflect children’s inner world view. In the process of creation, children project their inner world intentionally or unintentionally, so that we can understand their inner world and help them grow up healthily.

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Cartoon Animation on Salt and Sugar Reduction

Dear parents:

The Food and Health Bureau, the Committee on Reduction of Salt and Sugar in Food (CRSS) and the Centre for Food Safety have developed a “Cartoon Animation on Salt and Sugar Reduction”, to educate small children not to take too much sweet and salty food in a lively and interesting manner.

Please click the following link of the cartoon animation with the music from the song adapted from “Are you sleeping”

Link to the cartoon animation:

https://www.fhb.gov.hk/cn/press_and_publications/otherinfo/181000_ssr/cartoon_animation.html

TWGHs Wong Wu Lai Ming Kindergarten