[Book Review] The Girl Who Came Home by Hazel Gaynor

 

Goodreads rating: 3.8

I didn't finish this book. Maybe i have no right to leave a review. But, still i want to leave a critism on this work. The first page already leaves you yawning.

Then, the next pages makes me frown and angry. Why introduce so many characters at the beginning of a book??

This book is so freaking boring. Sorry.

Educating A 0-2 Year Old

1. Play with sand, bubbles, grass and plasticine.
- To stimulate motor and sensory skills.

2. Don't Encourage Them to Stare at Things in a Box
- TV, tablet, phone, games.
- No more than 10 minutes at a time and you need to be with him. Watch with him and point out the characters or interact with the 'box'.
- Too much 'box time' is bad for their eyes nerves stimulation. No rolling motion of the eyes.

3. Stimulate Their Imitation Skills.
- For brain development.
- More imitation games, more vocabularies, sharper and quicker mind.
- Close open.
- Say a word, repeat.
- Draw one shape, ask him to copy.
- Face mimicking, sad, happy, laugh, angry.
- Simple task like stacking pillows or box.
- Sing a song, ask him to copy or finish the lyrics of the song.
- Dance.
- Crawling is very good for infants. The longer the infants crawl the better. They are more genius and creative.

4. Focus on Toys, not Superheroes/Monsters/Princess
- Toys are ABC blocks, 123 blocks, lego, shape blocks, animals, vehicles, colours etc.
- To enrich their vocabularies.
- Prevent superheroes, princess or fictions. They'll live in fantasy world and cannot relate to reality.

5. Teach them WORDs, not sentence.
- Elephant, not 'that is elephant' or, 'wow, you see that big elephant'
- Once they're good with the words, teach them adjectives like "tall giraffe, big elephant, beautiful butterfly, yellow bird."
- Avoid using this, that, and, with.
- Order them by saying, SIT, EAT, QUIET. not 'come and sit'. or 'please be quiet'.

6. Power of High Five
- If the child is scared of strangers, ask the stranger to high five the child.
- The kid becomes scared after many bad experiences like going to doctors, forced fed medicine or getting vaccine shots.
- Instead of hug and kissing, ask your family members to high five your kid.

7. Explain instead of Getting Mad

8. Overly Attached to One Person
- A sign of low self-esteem.
- Your child needs to be friendly with everyone.

9. Follow His Interest
- Dont ask him to cook when he is in the mood for trucks.
- Maximum brain development happen when he is doing the thing he loves.

10. Options of Answer
- "Why are you crying?"
- Dont let it go unanswered.
- Instead, give him a choice to choose.
- "Did you fall? Stomach ache? You miss daddy? Are you bored?"
- Even a nod is good enough. Sooner or later he will learn how to answer.

Raising Kids

Got this from here. Its like a list of what i've learned from Dr Leman's book. A very good addition to it.

1. A kid developed 80% of their permanent behaviour by 4.
- teach him the importance of interaction with peer-group, so he'll learn the value of sharing and tolerance. (that this world is not all about him.)

2. Reward and Punishment.
- Reward them by praising. But again, as i learned from Dr Leman's book, you shouldn't praise the kid. But praise the action he did (encouragement).
Example:
PRAISE: "Oh Ethan, you're such a good boy! You got an A in math."
ENCOURAGEMENT: "Oh, Ethan, you got an A in math. I know you've been working hard in that area, and that work really paid off."
- Reward him with a gift.
- Punishment: Naughty corner, naughty chair. Time out. For toddler, no more than 3 minutes. Total ignorance, not even eye contact. Ignorance make him feel unloved.
- Punishment: Take away one of his enjoyment like, "Since you refused to clean up, no legos for 3 days." or "Since you didn't finish your homework, i can't let you out to play with your friends today."

3. Pre-warning.
- "We are going to Tesco, i want to get some veggies. If you saw toys, dont ask me to buy them. If you start asking me to buy them, i will get angry."
- "In the count of three, i want you to clean up your toys. If not, i will seize all of them away. One, two, three..."

4.  Realistic Pre-warning.
- "Clean up or i will call the police." or "Clean up or i will summon Incredible Hulk."
- Your kids will think of it as a joke. No respect. They'll never listen to you.

5. No Abstract, Lengthy Explanation, must be Visually-Explained
- "It's a sin. You shouldnt do it." (what is sin??)
- "You're a child, you should respect your parents." (what is respect??"
- "When you're learning, you need to focus and think." (what is focus?? think??)
- "Dont hit your friend, pity him." (what is pity??)
- Explain,"Dont hit your friend. It'll hurt him and he won't play with you anymore."

6. Kids has no Sense of Time.
- Immediate action. Dont recall things that happened yesterday or last week.

7. Use alarm clock to follow schedule.

8. Ground Rules.
- Every house should have basic rules like, what is allowed and not allowed.
- No cursing in this house.
- Everybody must love each other in this house.
- Everything should be shared in this house.
- Keep the house tidy.

9. Consistency.

10. Do not deny their natural feelings.
- Its okay to cry. But dont over do it.
- Its okay to get mad. But you need to handle it. (from dr leman's book: teach your child how to handle anger by talking about what bothers them. it's like releasing the air out of the balloon.)

11. Mother is the role model for the daughter. Father is the role model for the son.
- So they wont be homosexual??
- I object this kind of opinion. I think everybody should know that MOST homosexuals developed in the womb.

12. Your child is not your bestfriend.

Have a New Kid by Friday by Dr. Kevin Leman Review

 

Its a VERY good book! It makes lots of sense. You can relate, and so far, i think all the methods he teach in the books sounds useful.

You can make correction on your kids behaviour. Be it a kid, or a teenager, Dr. Leman has answer to everything. From spoiled brat kind of kid to a rebellious kid/teenager. There's a fix to all of them. It's a very good read. Knowledge in every words and pages! I truly have learned a lot from him.

I rate it 5 stars out of 5.